Stumbling into the ‘did it need to be done?’ category of bike gear design we have a giant stretchy skater belt that claims to be able to hold your groceries safely on your bike. We’re possibly being a little unkind, if there’s one thing that bikes always benefit from it’s a bit of free-thinking. We’ve often looked at the void formed by the ‘triangle’ in the middle of bike frames and wondered whether the space could be used better, a thought that often comes to us during long night-rides when the sensible parts of our brains have long since bid us goodnight. The best idea we’ve seen for making the most of this ‘wasted’ space on bikes has been the bike booze cabinet, but now someone has a new idea.
So the long and the short of the ‘REEL’ system is that the rider is provided with a chuffin’ great big belt and a ton of sticky pads. The pads are stuck to the frame and then aforementioned strap is weaved between the pads, and once the whole shebang is pulled tight the theory goes that the rider has a storage system that looks like it might have been nicked from the window of a NASCAR.
The photo we found over on the Cyclr site rather optimistically shows the bondage-storage system being used to transport baguettes, even more remarkable is the mention of transporting garden tools on ones bike using this system. Bread is useful enough, but we’re already stroking our chin and wondering whether carrying a pitchfork (with tines pointing forwards) might dissuade pedestrians from stepping in front of our bike.
We have our doubts about how well the strap-guiding pads will stick to mucky, oily urban frames with the inevitable layer of road crud. We’re also wondering how many people will be keen to stick something semi-permanent to the frames of their bikes. Still, it’s an interesting idea, we’re always in favour of innovation, but we’d want to thoroughly test this system before trusting it with transporting anything as important as beer or wine. For now we’ll stick to transporting vino in our bottle cages.
The designers (Areum Jeong and Yeongkeun Jeong) don’t appear to have any plans to make this system a commercial prospect, but I dare say the amount of coverage this idea is getting on bike-balls sites like VeloBalls may change their mind.
Last Updated on April 29, 2023
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