Project proposal// bicycle baskets

More and more people are using biking as an alternative to cars. They are biking to get to school, to work, and to get their groceries. In order to do so they need either a really big bag or baskets that can carry the load. Searching for a bicycle basket one will encounter several kinds. One is a wicker wood based basket. This basket would be a good look for a cruiser bicycle, but would look displaced on a road bicycle. There are also fabric bags that go on bicycles, but are prone to being stolen and damaged by the weather. A lot of these fabric bags are in dark blues or blacks and do not have any patterns or designs on it. Finally, there are the metal baskets. Some are folding and others require elastic chords to hold objects down. While these are harder to steal, the open-grid bottom allow smaller items to fall out easily or move around. All of these are baskets are useful, but none of them are easy to customize to fit the bicycle’s color, style, or the rider’s personality and most of them are not aesthetically pleasing. I would like to design a product that is weather friendly, aesthetically
pleasing, and can carry all the weight of a grocery trip. Some baskets were not designed to fit on the bicycle well, such as the wicker basket can not fit the front of a road bicycle with all the cables in the way, other baskets are simply too big to go on drop handle bars or can only be one height in relation to the wheel because of a support bar. Sunday Streets in San Francisco, a event where people can take over a street with biking, is here to stay, and San Francisco just approved 45 new bicycle lanes. Bicycling is becoming the safe and green alternative to driving and we need the products to move forward with it by adding convenience and beauty.