We are an group of young designers (and keen cyclists!) who are working on a design competition project relating to short term/ "stop-off" parking. We are looking to find better solutions for parking furniture that can be integrated easily into the urban landscape. As London bike messengers you are one of our main user groups in that you make regular, short stop-offs and we would love to have some feedback on what you problems you encounter and how they can be addressed. We would like to do a short interview, no more than 5 min, which would include answering couple of questions. This would be video taped for research documentation and would not be made public (if you were concerned).
If you would like to get involved then please get in touch. Alternatively any suggestions as to how we can get in contact with a group of messengers and the best time/place to interview them are most welcome.
PU TAI +44(0)77 8950 4043 info@pu-tai.com www.pu-tai.com
From all the years I've been locking and unlocking my bicycles to things as a messenger, commuter or whatever i've found it tends to be objects designed to fit the specific purpose of locking are usually less successful than those designed for a completely different purpose.
I refer to the humble lamp post. Perfect (so long as you use a lock that will fit round it)
Or those horrible fence things put along side road edges to stop pedestrians are perfect to lock to with a smaller lock or two locks at different points.
Both of these integrate perfectly into the urban landscape as you put it, and serve a purpose beyond locking bike (albeit a rather dubious purpose in the case of roadside railings)
I've seen a lot of the more conventional inverted U shape cycle stands given an artistic twist, like skew whiffing them at an angle, making them useless from one side or if you ride a less conventionally shaped bicycle, or placed in really silly spots where you can only use one side of them.
I like those flower bed bucket things, like they have got out side brixton cycles and various other places. You can fill those with flowers or things that are nice to look at when there are no bike around.
The best thing you could design would be a bylaw that would make it illegal to post those signs on railings saying "all bikes locked here will be removed"
I always thought it would be good to have 'parking furntiture' with a decent built-in lock. You could put massive ones on that no one could be arsed to carry around. This idea is copyright me however, so if u make millions off it I shotgun 20%. x
Those big lockable to things outside some train stations are pretty good, the ones that go through both wheels and your frame and you lock it with your lock of choice.