Issue 15: Oregon Manifest Winner
By Patrick Brady
The bike must be easy to produce. It needs to be quick to weld together in a factory setting.
While assembling this issue, Oregon Manifest announced their winner and that inspired Patrick Brady to write another take on the designer contest. Fuji has promised to make the Denny, and as a bike big believer in the utility of bicycles, Patrick discusses what should really should go into a production version. Because making a great, affordable, utility bike that will carry people without turning an errand into a substitute for the gym won’t be easy, but it is a quest worth the chase…
Our world is changing. How we get from place to place is changing. If the bicycle is to augment our transportation needs in the future it will need to offer levels of convenience and utility that recall a car, though we may have to forego the windshield wiper and iPod jack. They will need to accommodate loads beyond ourselves. We will not stop needing groceries and if the human race is to survive, we will need to keep making babies. So at minimum, any bike we expect to augment or replace a car will need to some capacity to carry groceries and kids. I can hear it now — “Don’t make me pull this bike over.”
Clearly, we need fresh ideas about what a bike is, what a bike can be. Enter the Oregon Manifest; it started out with a clear mission: It was “a design/build competition to create the ultimate modern utility bike.” That’s a laudable endeavor, full stop.
The Manifest gave a bunch of very creative frame builders license to go pursue some wild ideas. It posed the question: What is your idea of the ultimate utility bike? When I was 20, the most important thing I might move by bike was beer. I’m a parent now; I like to move my kids by bike.
In bringing together a bunch of builders, it created a forum to talk about bike making and utility. It was a marketing bonanza for a bunch of people much better at the torch than the keyboard. In 2011, I was serving as one of the judges for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Sacramento. Many of the bikes from that year’s Manifest made their way into the City/Utility bike category. From Tony Pereira’s electric-assist city bike to Curtis Inglis’ kid-carrying cargo bike, the 2011 show was full of…
