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Tricycle gets a modern, bamboo makeover
By Vanessa Xu |
June 5, 2013, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
GIANT tricycles, usually electric-powered and piled high with goods, are associated with hard toil and poverty in the eyes of many Chinese.
Now a Hangzhou expat family is helping change this stereotype by taking to the streets in a modern, bamboo three-wheeler.
Photographs of Italian Massimiliano Ortolan and his family on their tricycle became a hit recently on the Sina weibo microblog, with many users commenting that the machine was "cool."
The bamboo and steel trike features a curved bamboo cover from the front wheel to the bamboo seat. It is open at the sides though, ideal for the warmer weather.
It has a light, stainless steel frame, improved disc braking, and uses a belt drive instead of a chain. Seat belts are also available - something that traditional Chinese tricycles don't have.
Designed by Ortolan's British friends, Chris Trees and his wife Florence, it's named, appropriately enough, a "Treecycle."
Ortolan, who works as a furniture designer in Hangzhou, bought his Treecycle recently, and uses it to take his daughter and son to school and kindergarten in the morning, provided the weather's fine.
On weekends, the Treecycle is used by the family for trips to the supermarket and nearby parks.
Seating up to three people, the trike costs around 40,000 yuan (US$6,516). Electric-powered, it can reach speeds of up to 16 kilometers an hour, even if loaded.
"It is designed as electric-powered, but we decided to only use pedal power, in order to take exercise and be more eco-friendly," explains Lina Xie, Ortolan's wife.
The Trees have lived in Shanghai for many years and hope their special trike can help ease traffic congestion and pollution in Chinese cities.
The couple told the The Daily Telegraph newspaper in Britain that "the main motivation behind the Treecycle was to try to reverse or at least slow the headlong rush to car ownership that we are witnessing in China."
"We've always been passionate about cycling, as the best machine ever invented by man is the bicycle," says Ortolan.
Now a Hangzhou expat family is helping change this stereotype by taking to the streets in a modern, bamboo three-wheeler.
Photographs of Italian Massimiliano Ortolan and his family on their tricycle became a hit recently on the Sina weibo microblog, with many users commenting that the machine was "cool."
The bamboo and steel trike features a curved bamboo cover from the front wheel to the bamboo seat. It is open at the sides though, ideal for the warmer weather.
It has a light, stainless steel frame, improved disc braking, and uses a belt drive instead of a chain. Seat belts are also available - something that traditional Chinese tricycles don't have.
Designed by Ortolan's British friends, Chris Trees and his wife Florence, it's named, appropriately enough, a "Treecycle."
Ortolan, who works as a furniture designer in Hangzhou, bought his Treecycle recently, and uses it to take his daughter and son to school and kindergarten in the morning, provided the weather's fine.
On weekends, the Treecycle is used by the family for trips to the supermarket and nearby parks.
Seating up to three people, the trike costs around 40,000 yuan (US$6,516). Electric-powered, it can reach speeds of up to 16 kilometers an hour, even if loaded.
"It is designed as electric-powered, but we decided to only use pedal power, in order to take exercise and be more eco-friendly," explains Lina Xie, Ortolan's wife.
The Trees have lived in Shanghai for many years and hope their special trike can help ease traffic congestion and pollution in Chinese cities.
The couple told the The Daily Telegraph newspaper in Britain that "the main motivation behind the Treecycle was to try to reverse or at least slow the headlong rush to car ownership that we are witnessing in China."
"We've always been passionate about cycling, as the best machine ever invented by man is the bicycle," says Ortolan.
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