I’m a big fan of good design.  Not the “ooh, this looks so good who cares if it’s useless” design, but design that increases the usefulness of a project (while looking cool).  One of the RSS feeds I subscribe to because they so often have good design is Make Magazine’s website.  Today, I saw a startling bit of good design in an entry on a Grocery getter bike project.

Dinosaurs and Robots had a contest to create “grocery” bikes, bicycles you could use to go get the week’s groceries.  This was the winner.

OK, looks cool, a stretch limo for bikes.  But it’s really good design as well.  First, the storage is low to the ground, so it ads to the stability of the bike instead of reducing it.  Well supported, so can hold reasonable amounts of weight, meaning can be used for other purposes like trips to the Home Depot (for supplies and tools, not wood) or taking AV equipment to a party or some such thing.

The normal solution to this is some sort of trailer…but the problem is that bikes already have a visibility issue on the road (being seen, that is).  Add a couple feet to the back of a bike well below the rider, and that would worry me.  (To say nothing of babies in those trailers).

The steering looks like a bit of a kludge.  Well, it is a kludge, but it’s an EFFECTIVE kludge.  That sort of connection is going to be rock solid.  Ideally, there would be two bars, so either way you’re both pushing and pulling, but that would interfere with removing the tub.  Could solve that with a hinge on the right side of the cage to slide the tub in and out…but at a cost of some frame rigidity.

One other piece of cool design you’ll find at the links is that the back of the bike can come off, turning the bike into a cart to bring into the store or into the house.  No plastic garbage bags needed, just put the groceries right into the tub for the trip.

Clearly, this isn’t something most people can make in their garages.  And if some manufacturer was inspired by this, I’m sure the steering system would look refined and elegant and hopefully almost as effective.  But still, it’s cool design, and does what good design should do, make you think about new ways to approach things.

Check out the links to see more about how it was made.  And if you’re a fan of design like me, the sites may well be worth following.