Itera plastic bicycle
Encyclopedia
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
attempt to modernize the bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
by replacing metal
Metal
A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...
with injection moulded plastic composite materials. The project ended in technical and commercial failure after three years.
History
In December 1977, VolvoVolvo
AB Volvo is a Swedish builder of commercial vehicles, including trucks, buses and construction equipment. Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems, aerospace components and financial services...
in Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
wanted to produce minicars and investigated conditions and designs. In January 1978, it proposed plastic composite materials in many parts of the car. Other products were considered, the bicycle one of them. In October 1978, a grant of SEK 54,000 from the Swedish National Board for Technical Development financed a prototype
Prototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
plastic bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
.
In February 1980, a rideable bicycle was demonstrated to the state-owned bank and a loan of SEK 6 million granted.
In March 1980, Itera Development Center AB was born to design, produce, and market composite-material bicycles.
In September 1981, the first bicycles were shown to retailers and the press. Nationwide advertising was scheduled for spring 1982. The bikes were delivered unassembled with tools provided in the box. In autumn 1981, more than 100,000 Swedes indicated they were interested. In February 1982, production started at Vilhelmina
Vilhelmina
Vilhelmina is a locality and the seat of Vilhelmina Municipality in Västerbotten County, Sweden with 3,633 inhabitants in 2005.- References :...
. However, sales were slow and the news media lost interest. The fact that not every box contained every part to assemble a bicycle frustrated many customers.
The following year was worse. Boxes of bicycles piled up in shops. Among them were returns, mostly with broken parts. Where metal bends, plastic breaks. Getting replacements was not simple as the parts were incompatible with other bikes.
Attempts to save the project were unsuccessful.
In 1983, 1,000 Itera bicycles were purchased for a national five-day orienteering
Orienteering
Orienteering is a family of sports that requires navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain, and normally moving at speed. Participants are given a topographical map, usually a specially prepared orienteering map, which they...
contest. They were rented to participants who were invited to buy them after the contest. All were sold. It showed there was a market but it was too late. Campaigns such as lower prices failed.
Production ended in 1985. Approximately 30000 ITERA bicycles were produced. The stock was sold to the West Indies where they became popular as rust is a problem with metal bicycles.
Industrialist Barry Mung, of Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, bought the intellectual property behind the design in late 2007 to produce the world's first recycled/recyclable bicycle, made from discarded plastic bottles. The bike is slated for 2009-2010.
Other plastic bikes
This was not, however, the first attempt at a plastic bicycle. Popular Science featured ads in 1973 from "The Original Plastic Bike Inc", with plans to make the bicycle - including the chain and hubs, possibly excluding the spokes - entirely from injection-molded LexanLexan
Lexan is a registered trademark for SABIC Innovative Plastics' brand of polycarbonate resin thermoplastic. Polycarbonate polymer is produced by reacting bisphenol A with carbonyl dichloride, also known as phosgene. Lexan is the brand name for polycarbonate sheet and resin in a wide range of grades...
. The company was founded on December 15, 1971 by John P. Marzullo, Roger Stark, and William Thompson, based on ideas by Joseph Dorrity and Charles Cadorette. It is unknown whether the company sold a single bicycle, but some prototypes were made. The claim was that it would weigh about 11 pounds, be light enough to float, but would be stronger than steel.
External links
All links are in SwedishSwedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
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