I”‘m sorry to say that bike 2.0 is not in production and therefore there are no vendors in NYC. The Bike is still a concept studio.

Best regards

Thorkild Ahm
Head of Division
_________________________________________

IPU Productdevelopment
Building 404, DTU
2800 Lyngby
Denmark
+45 45 93 25 22
http://www.ipu.dk
________________________________________

Here at World Spinner we are debating the same thing……

“FREEBIKE” STICKERS

Tiny dots and narrow strips with text. Light capturing and projecting material on highly adhesive waterproof tape. Special “Hotspot” applicator.

On every part of a bike that is part of the system. Spokes and rims of wheels, seat-posts, handlebars, bells and lights, frames and pedals.

Text explains that this is not private property but belongs to all of the users of the vehicles and cannot be taken out of NYC metropolitan area, or disassembled or kept for personal use. “This vehicle will be picked up for regular maintenance at any time, and have its lock removed if it is not a proper lock” in different languages.

Buried RFID chips aid in location and identification.

Must be artful, colorful and un-removable.
High visibility, reflectivity etc. add to safety factor.

Two ideas came from looking at this website. The first is that we have to do our research on existing successful programs, i.e. Washington DC, to look for bugs and easy improvements.

The second and less immediate idea is that we approach some of the coop boards in the neighborhoods surrounding Flushing Meadow Park. Coop boards that are far enough away from the train and the park, may get excited about offering some type of modified bike share system.

One theme I thought of today is the “Rubber Duckie” motif, which could apply to either. I did some Googling, and found numerous examples of interesting variations, in various scales. I’d originally been thinking of Rubber Duckies in the form of an inflatable costume for fitting onto a pedal boat hull, as a floating sculpture. But the same concept could be applied to a functional pedal boat.

Rubber Duckie Regattas are a popular fund-raising event for many communities world-wide nowadays. The way they work is that people pay about $5 for an entry fee, for which they are given a number corresponding to the number on one of about a thousand typical rubber duck tub toys. The ducks are dumped en mass into a stream or river. The first ones to cross the finish line are the winners of prizes.

That’s a fun thing to do, of course; but unfortunately, Meadow Lake doesn’t have an appreciable current, which rules out that sort of event.

However, it would be possible for us to have a Rubber Duckie Regatta if the duckies were pedal boats wearing duckie costumes. Local businesses could sponsor entries by paying a certain amount of money to cover the making of the entrant boat’s costume and a portion of the expense of putting on the event.

It would be quite a sight to see a fleet of large yellow rubber duckies racing down the length of Meadow Lake, then paddling back to the starting point on the second leg of the course. Television coverage of such a picturesque event would be a given, of course.

One of the google results I got was a huge inflatable duckie made by a Dutch artist, which was floated on the Loire river, in France, as part of an art festival:
http://www.nuacco.com/2007/07/25/rubber-duck-for-the-giants/

I ran into several examples of what seems like a commercially available one:
http://picasaweb.google.com/askeehan/SoDa2008_0727/photo#5227902713241483874
It’s a bit smaller than the Dutch one, but still relatively huge. One of those would look great floating on Meadow Lake, as a cute giant sculpture.

Another, different one:
http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/environment/rubber_ducky_youre_the_one.php
This one may be traveling around the US as part of a campaign to convince state legislatures to ban a certain toxic plasticizer from children’s toys, as I also saw the same duckie design parked in front of California’s capitol building.

Another Dutch artist has created a nice 2.5 meter tall duckie:
http://rubaduck.com/news/rubber_duck_news-200708-large-ducks.htm

A logical way of making the costumes would be electro-welded yellow vinyl, using George’s machine. Typically, the large inflatable duckies are kept inflated by a small ducted fan continuously blowing air into them. They also could be fabricated by butt-gluing 1/2″ thick foam rubber panels together. The finished duckie form could then be painted yellow. Yellow vinyl would look better, however, as it’s smoother-surfaced than foam rubber.

There is a large (60″ tall, 46″ long) duckie pool float available for $26.99. This isn’t big enough for covering a pedal boat, but they could be raced by kids with the use of double-ended kayak paddles, and the price is pretty reasonable, considering the size.
http://www.qualitypooltoys.com/sl9062.html