Taiwanese designer wins bicycle award

“In recent years, there have been many small foldable bicycles that look quite sporty or neutral, but I wanted to create a foldable bike especially for women,” said Yellow C, the gold medal winner of this year's International Bicycle Design Competition (IBDC).

“When they go to markets or the office, women can put things in the basket installed at the back of my work,” the 23-year-old told CNA in a telephone interview.

“I hope this design can become part of people's everyday life, “ he said.

The annual IBDC is organized by the Taipei-based Cycling and Health Center under Taiwan's economics ministry. The contest received 720 entries this year.

A total of 10,372 designers from 86 countries have taken part in the competition over 14 years.

Yellow C's work, Shopping Bike, won highest recognition from an international jury Wednesday, allowing him to take home the cash award of NT$500,000 (US$15,745).

Yellow C originally created the work as a graduation project when he was finishing his last year at Shih Chien University's industrial design department in Taipei in 2009.

“Designing a bicycle is one of the most difficult challenges for design students as it is much larger than objects favored by most design students, such as chairs, blenders, or cell phones,” he said.

“Therefore, it requires more time and demanding skills to design a bike,” he explained.

“It took me about five months to complete the work, “ he said, adding that he underwent a surgical operation to recover from an illness caused by fatigue when his work was nearly complete.

Neil Foley from India took the silver medal, but the bronze went to another Taiwanese designer, Lin Yu-shu, for his creation of a foldable, electric bicycle equipped with solar panels.

Taiwan took its first gold in the competition two years ago, followed by another gold won by a team of Taiwanese and Chinese designers last year.

The organizer said in a press statement that this year's achievement by Taiwanese designers demonstrated the country's potential to develop branding.

James Chen, who has served as the IBDC jury convener for eight years, told CNA that many Taiwanese designers took part in the competition in the early years of the award. Although the number of Taiwanese entries dropped for a while, recent years have seen a resurgence.

Chen said that Taiwanese designers worked harder in recent years to join the competition and therefore produced better quality works.

Taiwan's bicycle industry has long attached great importance to design, he said, citing the many Taiwan-designed components and accessories at this year's Taipei International Cycle Show as an example.

“Local companies have spent a lot of effort designing even these small parts,” he said.

“More importantly, many of these local companies focus very much on branding and thus have become leading companies internationally,” he added.

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