Better load carrying system needed for Worldbike
Here's an engineering / human factors task for the Worldbike.
The rack system on the Worldbike has plenty of tubing to wrap string and rope to. But it doesn't have a true load carrying system.
What goes into a load carrying system?
The ability to carry any of the most common loads:
- Passengers
- Boxes
- Burlap sacks (will the load hit the spokes?)
- Jerry cans
- Empty jerry cans
- Long objects like metal rods and tubing
- Wide objects like bundles of sugarcane
A load-carrying system won't increase the production cost of the Worldbike, or at least not much. But it will increase the utility.
load carrying system
I have seen television programs such as PBS that have shown men using bicycles to bring rice to villages. Each bag weighed 100 pounds and they carried 2-3 of these bags.
The regular trips take 3 days over rugged dirt roads and sometimes muddy roads. The sole source of income for these men was the delivery of this rice. The men were interviewed and complained of breakdowns (which are devastating) and especially they did not like the tires (Chinese manufactured) which they said were very bad. The weight of the rice 200-300 pounds, plus their weight made the trips a terrible struggle. The bicycle designers need to actually make a trip like this themselves in order to insure the reilability engineering absolutely required, is truly impressed into their design. Place yourself in the shoes of these poverty-stricken entrepeneurs. They cannot afford breakdowns, tools and tires that take away all the money they earn.