Rejoice! The future of bicycle security has arrived!

happytramp

While not yet unveiled in Ireland our cycling friends in the U.K have been treated to what can only be described one of the finest pieces of design in recent history. Say hello to the bike POD! Already in use in Sainsburys and other supermarkets throughout England.



Features include

- Complete inability to secure any part of your bike frame using a proper lock.
- The requirement of massive strength for a girl to lift her 50lbs+ lady bike
into position.
- The keeping of your saddle dry to ensure that bike thieves will not suffer
the discomfort of a wet bottom.
- Note also the severed cable lock!

And who is responsible for such innovation? http://airstreamgroup.com/Cycle_Pods.html

What I can't understand is how this came into existence! Surely in all the months of the design meetings, the revisions, the models and prototypes, surely someone should have noticed the bloody thing doesn't work.

Icyseanfitz

pod the thing should go under ground if its called a pod, thats just an umbrella with some rails :rolleyes:

Captain Havoc

I think I seen them in Waterford.

wayne0308

Captain Havoc wrote: »

I think I seen them in Waterford.

That's right, there's one near the bus station on the quays. It's been there for a while too. I've never seen any bikes on it though so not sure if it's been used much.

tomasrojo

From the Cycle Pods website:

Cycle Pods offer a range of parking solutions which are secure, space saving and sustainable.

The one in bold is the part that is attractive to businesses, I imagine. Secure they are not.

Captain Havoc

If they want to save space and have secure parking, then the bicycle tree is the way forward.

happytramp

wayne0308 wrote: »

That's right, there's one near the bus station on the quays. It's been there for a while too. I've never seen any bikes on it though so not sure if it's been used much.

Dear God! I'd hoped we'd have had more sense than to adopt something just because Sainsbury's use it, tut, tut.

I've E-mailed them to scold them for their ill conceived product and suggest they implement a central rail to secure the bike frame in future iterations of the POD. I also added that should they decide to use my idea then they can send €20,000 directly to my paypal account or face the wrath of my team of crack lawyers.:D

RacoonQueen

wayne0308 wrote: »

That's right, there's one near the bus station on the quays. It's been there for a while too. I've never seen any bikes on it though so not sure if it's been used much.

Probably because nobody knows what it's for, or, because it doesn't work.

Hail 2 Da Thief

What a ridiculous design!

tomasrojo wrote: »

Cycle Pods offer a range of parking solutions which are secure, space saving and sustainable

The one in bold is the part that is attractive to businesses, I imagine.

They wouldn't really save any space over conventional railings though .

Captain Havoc

Hail 2 Da Thief wrote: »

What a ridiculous design!



They wouldn't really save any space over conventional railings though .

Actually, that's very true, look at the bicycle parking outside the Credit Union in Kilkenny, four bikes locked in about the same amount of space and more secure.

happytramp

Captain Havoc wrote: »

Actually, that's very true, look at the bicycle parking outside the Credit Union in Kilkenny, four bikes locked in about the same amount of space and more secure.

Also when you consider how difficult it would be to get the bike into the required position on the 'stand' and lock it while holding it in place, you'll find more and more people just using the lower lock (like the second bike in the photo). This will take up even more space as the bikes fan out and fall over.

tomasrojo

Captain Havoc wrote: »

Actually, that's very true, look at the bicycle parking outside the Credit Union in Kilkenny, four bikes locked in about the same amount of space and more secure.

Ah, I assumed that the bikes alternated wheels high and low (front wheels secured in the groove alternating with front wheels secured in the higher metal retainer), so that the "pod" would hold ten or twelve bikes.

BostonB

happytramp wrote: »

...
- Complete inability to secure any part of your bike frame using a proper lock.
-...:

For me the whole thing fails right there.

Lumen

BostonB wrote: »

For me the whole thing fails right there.

In the future there are no bike thieves. Only the Morlocks, but they mostly come at night. Mostly.

mloc123

Wasn't this on dragons den a couple of years ago?

Cabaal

As already mentioned there's def one of things down in Waterford, I think they're may even be a second in the people's park.

I've not once seen anybody lock their bike to the one on the quays though,

Lumen wrote: »

The the future there are no bike thieves. Only the Morlocks, but they mostly come at night. Mostly.

Ah now, don't be half stealing quotes from Aliens :pac:

delynet

On the subject of bike locking here are a number of ways not to do it

http://www.oddee.com/item_97377.aspx

Personal favourite is the single spoke locking method.....

dayshah

There are a few in Waterford (the one in the People's Park is actually a normal bike stand).

They are terrible and in no way save space. Supposedly they have room for 8 bikes, but the most I've ever seen locked to it is one bike at a time. This is because they are so awkward to use.

The umbrella is totally useless to. Its not suitable for windy weather and is to far from the bikes to keep them dry.

niceonetom

Most designers should just stop.

Canis Lupus

I haven't seen them in London but a local gym has a rail design where you have to lift the bike up like that. Utterly utterly impossible to securely lock the bike as you can only get a chain/dlock into the front wheel (if at all, my dlock was too short). All the bikes chained randomly to the support structure/fence was sign enough that it's not thought highly of.

happytramp

I opened yahoo mail this evening to find three e-mail's from people I don't recall contacting. It turned out that they were from various departments of the 'CyclePOD' team addressing my concerns about their product. I feel sort of bad now about being so derogatory since they were very friendly. They suggested I look at this, the cycle pod's user guide.

http://vimeo.com/10788424

However in a twist of Irony, I cannot figure out how to use the user guide either. I'm guessing it doesn't shed any light on the frame security issue.

Civilian_Target

happytramp wrote: »

However in a twist of Irony, I cannot figure out how to use the user guide either. I'm guessing it doesn't shed any light on the frame security issue.

Apparently if you have a crappy old mountain bike, you can put a d-lock between the support on the base of the pod and one side of the rear triangle.

Lumen

Civilian_Target wrote: »

Apparently if you have a crappy old mountain bike, you can put a d-lock between the support on the base of the pod and one side of the rear triangle.

The video serves only to prove that the product is hopelessly insecure. The distance between frame and locking points is so great that the epic D-lock can be bottle jacked off.

I also don't like the way the bike is retained by the wheels. How's that going to work for a road bike with 23mm tyres?

Design fail. Procurement fail. Full susser fail. Fail fail fail fail fail.

Canis Lupus

happytramp wrote: »

I opened yahoo mail this evening to find three e-mail's from people I don't recall contacting. It turned out that they were from various departments of the 'CyclePOD' team addressing my concerns about their product. I feel sort of bad now about being so derogatory since they were very friendly. They suggested I look at this, the cycle pod's user guide.

http://vimeo.com/10788424

However in a twist of Irony, I cannot figure out how to use the user guide either. I'm guessing it doesn't shed any light on the frame security issue.

Contact them back and ask them how many people they expect to go on the internet to look for instructions on how to secure their bike to one. The average Joe will just do the same as the bike on the ground and chain it to the easiest bit or just skip it altogether.