Workcycles are the Future
If you asked me to spot a coming trend that has the power to reshape cycling in the Los Angeles region, I’d have to say work bikes. Talk about taking two-wheel activism to the people! When these things become as common (and dare I say competitive) on our streets as strollers are on sidewalks, we’ll have made a crucial inroad into the consciousness of the mainstream public.
This little gem (at left) came to my attention just recently because it so elegantly addresses in compact fashion the challenge of moving people and goods. Made by a Netherlands-based outfit aptly titled Workcycles, it is just one of a range of creative approaches to what in Northern Europe is simply a mobility issue: how to get from here to there.
For many folks there, the car doesn’t even come into the equation because they don’t own one. Don’t need one. Don’t want one. They famously live their life by bicycle.
From one wheel to three, bikes in their many forms and guises suggest the boundlessness of our individual imaginations as we collectively apply people power to our quotidian problems. We have to haul the groceries. The toddlers have to get to preschool. Grade-schoolers need a means to motor themselves in order to avoid the dreaded car-queue (which is outlawed in some northern European cities, I’m told).
But work bikes do so much more. They haul trash to the tipper. Move construction materials. I’ve seen work bike-trailer combos haul kitchen appliances and work bikes broadly conceived boast charcoal kebab grills and newsstand racks. There seems to be no limit. We’re just getting around to setting our sights on such challenges. I’ve already seen the future of the work bike in the Bay Area, where no farmers market or street event is complete without one…or more. Folks there boast of the latest and greatest. Cycling is such a creative endeavor because there’s so much we can do with one once we put our mind to it. We’ll have won a victory of sorts in the Southland when the work bike becomes a trophy of the petit Bourgeois too. (All photos courtesy of Workcycle.)