http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/04/bike-elevator-take-you-steep-hills/8774/ This Bike Elevator Makes Steep Hills a Little More Manageable Is there a place for this Norwegian invention in American cities? Jenny Xie | ?@canonind | Apr 3, 2014 | ?80 Comments Scandinavia, always ahead of the bike infrastructure curve, has something else to share: a self-service cycle lift for hilly roads. The first prototype was installed in Trondheim, Norway, in 1993. Since then, it's become a popular tourist attraction that's powered more than 200,000 cyclists up a 130-meter hill, with no accidents recorded. The original lift was dismantled in 2012, and replaced a year later with CycloCable, an industrialized version upgraded to meet new safety standards. Now, POMA Group, the French cableway company behind the CycloCable, wants to sell the idea to other cities around the world. The CycloCable in action at its re-launch last summer. CycloCable works very much like a ski lift. But most of the design structures are placed just below the street surface for a safer and more seamless integration into the road. To begin, you just push the green button at the "start station" and wait for the first footplate. You then stand up on your bike and put your right foot and all of your weight on the footplate. The launcher at the start station will give you gentle push to accelerate from zero to 1.5 meters per second. The lift can go up to 2 meters per second, handling a maximum of 300 cyclists per hour. It supports inclines of up to 18 percent grade and can extend as long as 1,640 feet. So far, the only CycloCable installed on a real road is in Trondheim. According to Didier Balavoine from POMA, it's generated plenty of interest from cities in Europe, Asia, and North America. But the company wants to test the reliability of the Trondheim CycloCable for a second season before expanding to those cities. People have also found alternative uses for the CycloCable in Trondheim. For bicycle diehards, the CycloCable may seem like a cop-out. But the system, which costs about as much as a bike lane to install, could encourage more cyclists on intimidating topography. A 2007 survey of Trondheim bike lift users found that 41 percent were biking more often because of the lift. It's statistics like those that have hilly American cities taking notice. According to Ben Jose, spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, the adoption and success of CycloCable will be on the city's radar. Jose says San Francisco has prioritized facilities that help cyclists navigate the hillier parts of the city. But, he says, installing CycloCable would involve an elaborate process of pilot demos, securing funding, further engineering analysis, as well as appropriate legislative steps. Pittsburgh has also considered the lift. According to Stephen Patchan, bicycle/pedestrian coordinator at Pittsburgh's Department of City Planning, the cycling community sees the steep terrain as an amenity, not a challenge. But Patchan says it would still be nice to have that kind of assistance for people tired at the end of the day, for example. A Pittsburgh non-profit even proposed a bike lift modeled after the one in Trondheim several years ago. But the idea generated some initial questions about liability and wasn't pursued further. This time around, liability would still be the primary concern, but not one that can't be overcome. Patchan is confident that the cost-benefit of implementing something like CycloCable will be more acceptable as U.S. bike infrastructure systems continue to mature. "It only takes one smart and cavalier community to figure it out and establish a model for operations and maintenance," he says. All images courtesy of POMA Group's Trampe CycloCable ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] http://www.mtlblog.com/2014/07/this-is-the-bicycle-elevator-that-the-city-of-montreal-desperately-needs-now/# Most embarrassing to any cyclist, of any skill level, is having to walk their bike up a hill with an incline to steep for them to pedal up. Giving up and walking up a hill is like the cyclist walk of shame, and probably deters a lot of new cyclists from taking to the many hills of Montreal. Would things be different if Montreal had a mechanical bike-assist to aid people in conquering super-steep hills? One European city took the idea into action and created the world’s first bicycle-escalator, now known as the CycloCable, to help out casual cyclists and encourage greener modes of transportation. cyclo5 Noticing how many cyclists were unable to traverse a particularly steep hill, the city of Trondehim, Norway, installed a 130 meter-long bike escalator way back in 1993. Last year, in 2013, the bike-assist got a safety and price upgrade (free!), as well as a new name: the CycloCable. The CycloCable isn’t a complex mechanism. Just put your right foot onto the start-slot/pad, placing all your weight onto the mechanical stretcher, and not your bike. From there the CycloCable will take you (and your bike) up the hill, with the start slot disappearing underneath the track, kind of like an escalator. ================== http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/04/bike-elevator-take-you-steep-hills/8774/ This Bike Elevator Makes Steep Hills a Little More Manageable Is there a place for this Norwegian invention in American cities? Jenny Xie Apr 3, 2014 Scandinavia, always ahead of the bike infrastructure curve, has something else to share: a self-service cycle lift for hilly roads. The first prototype was installed in Trondheim, Norway, in 1993. Since then, it's become a popular tourist attraction that's powered more than 200,000 cyclists up a 130-meter hill, with no accidents recorded. The original lift was dismantled in 2012, and replaced a year later with CycloCable, an industrialized version upgraded to meet new safety standards. Now, POMA Group, the French cableway company behind the CycloCable, wants to sell the idea to other cities around the world. The CycloCable in action at its re-launch last summer. CycloCable works very much like a ski lift. But most of the design structures are placed just below the street surface for a safer and more seamless integration into the road. To begin, you just push the green button at the "start station" and wait for the first footplate. You then stand up on your bike and put your right foot and all of your weight on the footplate. The launcher at the start station will give you gentle push to accelerate from zero to 1.5 meters per second. The lift can go up to 2 meters per second, handling a maximum of 300 cyclists per hour. It supports inclines of up to 18 percent grade and can extend as long as 1,640 feet. So far, the only CycloCable installed on a real road is in Trondheim. According to Didier Balavoine from POMA, it's generated plenty of interest from cities in Europe, Asia, and North America. But the company wants to test the reliability of the Trondheim CycloCable for a second season before expanding to those cities. People have also found alternative uses for the CycloCable in Trondheim. For bicycle diehards, the CycloCable may seem like a cop-out. But the system, which costs about as much as a bike lane to install, could encourage more cyclists on intimidating topography. A 2007 survey of Trondheim bike lift users found that 41 percent were biking more often because of the lift. It's statistics like those that have hilly American cities taking notice. According to Ben Jose, spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, the adoption and success of CycloCable will be on the city's radar. Jose says San Francisco has prioritized facilities that help cyclists navigate the hillier parts of the city. But, he says, installing CycloCable would involve an elaborate process of pilot demos, securing funding, further engineering analysis, as well as appropriate legislative steps. Pittsburgh has also considered the lift. According to Stephen Patchan, bicycle/pedestrian coordinator at Pittsburgh's Department of City Planning, the cycling community sees the steep terrain as an amenity, not a challenge. But Patchan says it would still be nice to have that kind of assistance for people tired at the end of the day, for example. A Pittsburgh non-profit even proposed a bike lift modeled after the one in Trondheim several years ago. But the idea generated some initial questions about liability and wasn't pursued further. This time around, liability would still be the primary concern, but not one that can't be overcome. Patchan is confident that the cost-benefit of implementing something like CycloCable will be more acceptable as U.S. bike infrastructure systems continue to mature. "It only takes one smart and cavalier community to figure it out and establish a model for operations and maintenance," he says. ================ http://trampe.no/en/media Trampe/CycloCable® is built upon a unique patented system. It is technically quite similar to a ski lift. Most of its design structures are however placed underground, just below the street surface. The layout is concealed so that people and vehicles may cross the rail and rail housing safely and unhindered. The Bicycle Lift is designed for streets in urban areas and should not dominate the environment with twisting cables, masts and dangerous moving elements. This could be hazardous to both people and property. The Cyclocable® is certified by the STRMTG (French Aerial Ropeway and Guided Transport Technical Services) in accordance with the European directive 2000/9/CE. The CE marking concerns particularly the principle of the Cyclocable® footrest. The Main Machine Structures • Drive train: Consist of electric motor, a wire loop with carriages fixed to wire, a drive sheave and a return sheave. • Start station and exit station: An electric motor and drive sheave are installed in either the start station or the exit station. • Rail housing: The underground rail housing is built by sections each of 2.4 m. The upstream rail housing has a slot allowing the foot plate to raise and push on the cyclist foot. • Soft start launcher: A launcher at the Start station softly accelerates the cyclist from zero to normal speed of 1.5 m/sec. • Footplate: By pushing the start button the footplate raises in the slot and starts pushing the right foot of the cyclist. The footplate is kept upright due to the load of the foot. As soon as the cyclists leave the lift, and the load on the footplate is taken away, the footplate vanishes into the rail housing. The distance between the footplate carriages is approximately 20 m. • Carriages: There are footplate carriages and intermediate carriages. The latter help keeping the wire on track, and some of them have brushes to clean the inside rails. • Operation Panel: An enlightened operation panel at the start position with user instructions, start button and programmable information screen. • Emergency button: There are emergency buttons by both stations. Once one of these becomes actuated the lift resetts itself after a 5 minutes rest period. • Electronic command system: Trampe/CycloCable® has a programmable PLC with a mobile modem allowing to give system updates, faults and alarms by SMS to the operation management. Transport Capacity The distance between the footplates is 20 meters, thus the lift can continually carry one cyclist each 20 meter. The speed of the lift is 2 m/s (4-5 mph), giving a maximum capacity of 6 cyclists per minute or 360 cyclists per hour. With a distance of 130 meters, 6 cyclists can take it simultaneously. Maximum length of the Trampe/CycloCable® is approximately 500 m. Maximum gradient is approximately 20 degrees. Other lift users The Trampe/CycloCable® is built for cyclists in urban areas. However, we have observed creative mothers and fathers using their baby carriage as support in the lift. Skaters of different kinds are also supposed to use the bicycle lift. -----------------------------