Initial concept renderings and the final product.

It probably won’t surprise anyone to hear that I love concept bikes, but I am especially enamored with the pre Lugano charter designs of the 80s and early 90s. I vividly remember the first time I saw the full carbon fiber Bottecchia Modolo Kronotech on the cover of ID Magazine around 1987. The vast majority of bikes at that time were lugged steel, so the “aerospace inspired” Kronotech prototype was like nothing I had ever seen before (with the possible exception of the Bowden Spacelander, which wasn’t exactly a performance oriented machine).  That Bottecchia concept served as a pretty literal inspiration for my blue track bike marker sketch of the same era, and it was really the first bike that made me think about the importance of design in the bike industry.

There are countless other bikes from the 80s that influenced me-  Moser’s 1984 hour record bike,  the Battagin Fir Piranha from ’85,  various iterations of the Cinelli laser,  and some of the crazy full fairing Rossin  protoypes just to name a few. Today though, I want to share two bikes from the 80s that I don’t remember from that time.  I don’t know much about either one of these, so I am hoping that someone out there can provide a few more details.

Laurent Fignon’s Dream Machine by Gitane was built around 1987 (I believe) for an hour record that he did not attempt. The concept bike was displayed at the Paris Cycle Show sometime in the late 80s, but that is all I know about it. Fignon was one of my favorite cyclists at the time, so I can’t believe I don’t remember this bike and would love to find out more about it.

I already mentioned my fondness for 80’s Cinelli Lasers. Even though they were made from steel tubing, those bikes were beautifully sculpted like nothing else at the time. This particular Laser track concept lacks the elegance of its namesakes, but it is quite interesting.  According to an Instagram post by Cinelli graphic designer Marco Panzerini, two of these were made, and one still resides in the Cinelli headquarters near Milan. That is all I know, but I would love to find out more about this particular Cinelli concept. When was this made? Was it built as a prototype? A show bike? Is the construction sheet metal over a standard diamond frame?

If anyone can tell me more about either of these bikes, please do so in the comments.

Total Solar Eclipse over Hubbell Lighting

Our office (Hubbell Lighting in Greenville, South Carolina) was in the eclipse’s path of totality, so it was great place witness this amazing event. I didn’t have a solar filter for my DSLR, so I decided to shoot the eclipse with an old Canon G12 point and shoot. It was challenging to expose for the building without blowing out the sun, especially since the darkness came so quickly and I was not very familiar with the manual controls on that camera. The results weren’t perfect, but it was mostly about enjoying the experience for me, so I was pretty happy considering.

Shooting into the sun is tricky, so if I had it to do over again, I would have practiced beforehand. Oh well, with another total solar eclipse to be visible from the U.S coming in 2024, I guess I have a little time to practice.

To see additional photos of the homes, visit the 2017 New American Home and the New American Remodeled Home pages on the architect’s website.  You can also find videos of both homes here and here on the IBS Facebook page.

These pendants come in three different shapes and in three finish combinations, offering the ability to mix and match for a user customized look.

Staunton thumbnail sketches

From the initial concept sketches, the forms were refined in CAD

Renderings created with Rhino 3D and Bunkspeed Shot.

Final products shown in all three finishes

A rendering of clustered Staunton pendants in all shapes and finishes

A cluster of Staunton pendants featured in the 2017 New American Remodeled Home by Phil Kean Design Group

On the cover of the Progress Lighting June 2016 catalog supplement

“We owe it to ourselves and the world to spend our time with purpose and drive.”

That quote jumped out at me when I read it yesterday in a blog post by Robbin Phillips of Brains on Fire. I really love design, and I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life, but lately I have been a bit stressed and occasionally challenged to maintain focus. Mental clutter is the enemy of creativity, so I have been doing what I can to purge my “psychic RAM” (a term borrowed from David Allen) when my life/work/project load seems overwhelming. Looking ahead though, I am working toward simplifying my life and making more time for family, personal goals, and projects that I am truly passionate about.

In my final post at BicycleDesign.net last November, I said that I planned to occasionally blog about bikes and active transportation here at JCT.design. As you can tell from the lack of recent posts on this site, that hasn’t been the case so far. Don’t give up on me though! Right now, I am busier than I have ever been before, but much of that “busyness” is in pursuit of the simplification goal that I just mentioned. I know that sounds a little crazy, but I am taking on more than I should right now, so that I will have freedom to focus on my priorities and pursue my passions later. As you might imagine, bike related projects are a big part of those future goals, so I WILL get around to sharing my thoughts about bikes and bicycle design again (I really do miss the old blog and the community that motivated me to keep it going for a decade).

I won’t go into everything I am doing now, but I will mention one big change. My wife and I bought a smaller house (half the size of the one we live in now) and we are in the process of a full renovation. The house has been unoccupied for a couple years and needs a LOT of work, but it is closer to downtown, and is located right on a new extension of our local Greenway trail. Though I have been a “fair-weather bike commuter” for more than 25 years, I haven’t been riding as much for transportation lately. That is one of the things that will change with this move though… in fact, I am working toward the goal of eventually being able to ditch my car entirely. With the shift back to riding for transportation, I want to refocus my local bicycle advocacy efforts too.  In the past, I was quite active in working for safer roads for cyclists. I served as Advocacy Chairperson on the Greenville Spinners board for a few years, and I maintained a blog called Bike Greenville from 2007 to 2012. A lot has changed in the past few years, and Greenville, SC has become a much better place to live and ride, but there is still work to be done. I look forward to ramping up my involvement again, and making a difference in this community that I am happy to call home.

I could go on about current projects and future plans, but I’ll save that for future posts. For now, I just wanted to provide a quick update on the general lack of updates here. You can expect to see regular posts from me again at some point… hopefully soon. Stay tuned!

Recently, I was happy to see that two of the 28 inch large size Equinox fixtures were featured in an episode of Property Brothers. From the pictures I have seen, the pendants are a focal point in the kitchen that the Scott brothers designed, so I am looking forward to watching the full episode. The show already aired on the W Network in Canada, but those of us in the US will be able to see it this weekend on HGTV. Scheduled showtimes are January 16^th at 8pm EST, January 17^th at 3pm EST, and again on February 10^th at 7pm EST.

More about the Equinox design, including concept sketches and renderings, can be found here.

In September of 2005, I was searching an old hard drive and ran across a scan of the marker sketch that you see above. I had drawn that track bike concept in the late 80’s (nearly 20 years earlier), and didn’t really think much about it as I quickly posted it to the web on a whim. Little did I know at the time, but that post would be the first of many to a blog that would end up being a part of my life for over a decade, and would go on to reach hundreds of thousands of people all over the world (some of whom I now consider friends). In my final post at BicycleDesign.net a few weeks ago, I tried to express my gratitude to all of the people who read the blog and contributed over the years, but it is hard to really express how much the entire experience meant to me. It’s an understatement to say that I learned a lot from the process of designing, developing, and creating content for the site over the years, but the true value came from the talented designers who I met through the process of writing about a subject that I was passionate about. Though I am no longer actively blogging at Bicycle Design, many of those connections remain, and I hope that some of them will lead to interesting discussions and project collaborations in the future.

As I move on to new personal projects (some bike related and some not), I won’t be leaving Bicycle Design behind entirely. The Facebook page remains as a place for me to share interesting bike related designs that catch my attention. The 10 years of archives will also remain, and I hope some of the innovative designs in those older posts will continue to inspire future generations of designers. As I mentioned in my closing post, I will continue to write about bikes and human powered transportation here at JCT.design too. Instead of primarily sharing the work of other designer’s though, I will be discussing my own ideas and designs for getting people out of cars and moving under their own power (as I work toward the goal of being 100% car free myself). There might be a few collaborative designs projects in the future too, so stay tuned to the “bikes and active transportation” section of this website if that type of thing interest you. I’ll close by stressing that my belief in the power of human-powered transportation to change the world for the better is deeply ingrained. Though much of the professional design work I do is focused on aesthetics, I believe that industrial design is at its core about problem solving…and I will never stop exploring new ways to motivate people to get around under their own power. More on that later. As I said… stay tuned!