Oregon Manifest: Success by Design

Photo by Dylan VanWeelden

If you didn’t already know how excited Oregon gets about bicycling, you should have tried to fight your way through the crowds at the 2011 Oregon Manifest. The three-day extravaganza, built around the Constructor’s Design Challenge competition, brought together the cycling culture for one major geek-out.

The quest: Design and build the ultimate modern utility bike. The mix: 30 frame builders; nine collaborative efforts, including industrial designers and bike builders; six student teams from design colleges. The settings: an art gallery for display, a top-secret conference room for presentations and judging, a 50-mile “field test” over hill and dale (and pavement and gravel – see photo above), and finally the Chris King Precision Components facility for a beer- and live music-fueled party before announcing the winners.

And the bikes were… glorious, and outrageous, and unbelievably practical. Sidecars and back seats. Cable-steered bikes with the front wheel way out there. Long-tail modifications with massive cargo-carrying capacity. Minimalist, classic looks with discreet rack systems and tasteful fenders. Innovative touches like hand-tooled leather panniers, whiskey-flask carriers, onboard sound systems and MP3 charger outlets.

The individual winner came from Portland’s own Tony Pereira – who, incidentally, won the builder’s challenge at the inaugural 2009 Oregon Manifest as well. That year, his integrated U-lock was a huge design innovation; this year the bar was set much, much higher.

Tony’s 2011 bike was revolutionary enough to cause a shift in the thinking of the entire judging panel. His stated goal was simple: “This bike is meant to replace a car.” He set out to do it by providing the rider with many of the functions a car provides, but with the delicious freedom of still riding a bike.

It features electric-assist pedaling for a little help getting up the hills. It has multiple locking storage compartments. It has a built-in boom-box sound system.

Event judge Bill Strickland, editor at large for Bicycling magazine: “It has an engine. It has a trunk. It has a radio.”

Tinker Hatfield, event judge and renowned Nike product designer: “Sometimes as old-school guys, we take a purist approach to cycling. Tony made us realize that maybe we’ve been a little behind the times. We need to adjust our view of the cycling future. This is the future of cycling for people who aren’t super-fit. He showed us a gorgeous way to introduce new technology and have fun at the same time.”

Other winners included a student team from the University of Oregon’s design school, a collaboration between Portland locals Rob Tsunehiro and Silas Beebe, and an effort by Cielo Cycles, an offshoot of Chris King Precision Components.

The unstated but overarching goal of the event was ambitious: to change how and why people ride bikes. When a utility bike will get people out of vehicles and onto to bikes to make the same trips – and to ride for pleasure, too – there will be a shift in our transportation culture. And the designs in the 2011 Oregon Manifest represent a big step in that direction.

“What I saw was the future of everyday people getting into cycling,” Hatfield said. “And that was the key to this contest.”

Event judge Joe Breeze, founder of Breezer Bicycles and one of the early developers of the mountain bike concept: “Designs like we’ve seen here will let more people see the importance of bikes to us, and how we move around in the world. I see big changes.”

Check out photos of the winners and their bikes, plus much more, at the Oregon Manifest website.