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Art from Coachella 2016

5/15/2016

Coachella is always about sensory overload - great music and lots of cool, larger-than-life art - and this year's festival delivered all that and more. I wasn't as familiar with the lineup as I have been in previous years, but I found this actually might be a better way to experience the festival. It doesn't get any better than being introduced to new music at such an awesome setting as Coachella. The artwork lit up all around, gorgeous sunsets, everyone having a good time.

As we always do, we rented a house close to the venue and rode our bikes in and out everyday. And of course we brought the bike seats so that we didn't need as many bicycles to carry everyone. Riding a bike is by far the best way to get in and out of the shows. Walking will take you at least an hour (if not longer depending on the crowds) whereas riding a bike cuts the trip down to 20 minutes or less. Plus, you don't have to deal with nearly as much dust in your face, whizzing past everyone on a bike.

riding on Companion Bike Seats in Coachella

riding into Coachella Music Festival on a Companion Bike Seat

Here are a couple photos of some of the artwork that was at Coachella this year. The "Katrina Chairs" (on the left) were great for catching some shade from the hot sun during the day. At night time, they were lit up in bright orange and green, lighting the way towards the main stage of the festival. In the photo on the right you can see "Besame Mucho" as well as "Tower of Twelve Stories" lit up against the sunset, with the Ferris Wheel in the background.

Great music, great art, good clean fun!

Besame Mucho art at Coachella Music Festival

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Malawi bike taxis

3/15/2016

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You learn something new every day ... it's amazing. Today I had a customer send me a picture from his experiences living in Malawi, a small country in southeastern Africa. Bike taxis are huge in Malawi, one of the main ways to get around.

I was inspired to buy the Companion from my time living in Malawi where "Bike Taxis" are the main mode of transportation in urban centers. If you haven't seen these before (maybe you have in your research)--you got it spot on!. We're happy to now bring this little slice of our old home back to the US.

Mike, Washington DC

I decided to do a little research and found a great article about the growing bike taxi industry in Malawi and how it's helping create jobs for young university graduates (among other folks) who can't find jobs. With unemployment high, particularly for new graduates, it's a low barrier to entry way to make good money, and for many it's becoming their long-term business. Sound familiar? Seems to me this is a lot like Uber here in the States, only this is even better because you don't have to share your fares with anyone but yourself!

It would be great to see this trend spread to the US. And why not? We have people that need work here too. We see pedicabs riding around near sports events to give folks rides to and from the parking lot. Why not grab your bike and offer fares for free, rather than paying the pedicab company a hefty fee for your sweat. Adding a bike seat to a bicycle is a great way to start a business for anyone, anywhere!

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Demonstration of new sound cloth for the storage compartment

12/6/2015

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We're excited to introduce a new accessory for your Companion Bike Seat: a sound cloth for the storage compartment! If you've put anything small and metal inside your storage compartment while you're out riding, you'll have definitely noticed how much noise it can make bouncing around. We've designed a custom neoprene mat for the walls and the bottom of the storage compartment to help block out all the noise. It's easy to put in or remove, and since it's neoprene, you can wash it if anything ever spills inside the storage compartment.

We're still working out the details on manufacturing (this is one of two prototypes sent for us to test out), but they'll be made in Southern California, so turn-around time should be very quick. We hope to have them available for sale within the next couple months. Stay tuned for more info soon!

sound cloth inside the storage compartment of Companion Bike Seat

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Successful foot peg proof-of-concept for Sondors eBikes

10/24/2015

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I met Doug at ELV Motors in Sunnyvale CA a couple of months ago after he found us online and emailed me about more info on our bike seats. I went down and visited him at the bike shop, and after talking for an hour, decided to dive head first into creating a foot peg solution for ebikes where the throttle plugs into the rear axle.

We decided to use the Sondors eBike as our base model to prototype with (based on their success on Kickstarter last year). After some testing and some modifications, we were able to successfully install Companion Bike Seat onto a Sondors eBike with a modified peg, specifically for ebikes. Included below are pictures of the bike seat installed on the Sondors, including close-ups of the modified pegs used for the installation.

kids riding on a sondors ebike with a companion bike seat

companion bike seat installed on a sondors ebike

closeup of modified ebike peg for companion bike seat on a sondors ebike

Now that we've proven out the concept, we're working on scaling out manufacturing for these pegs so that we can start offering them on the website. We should have ebike pegs available for ebikes with both 12mm and 14mm diameter axles within the next couple of weeks.

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A sound cushion for the bike seat storage compartment

10/18/2015

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If you've had metal objects (bike lock, tools, etc.) in the storage compartment of your bike seat while riding around on your bicycle, then you know it makes for a pretty loud riding experience. Depending on how well-paved the road is that you're riding on, people can you hear you coming from a pretty long ways away.

Now that the backrest is almost ready for sale and manufacturing has started with the pannier hooks, I decided to start focusing on a solution for this "sound problem" with the storage compartment of the bike seat. I ordered a variety of different materials of varying thicknesses to test out, and once they arrived, started prototyping (with the help of Blake Johnson of course).

sound cushion testing materials for Companion Bike Seat

shelf liner prototype for Companion Bike Seat sound cushion

We tested shelf-liner, polyurethane foam, and neoprene to see what the effect on sound-deadening each material had. All of them interestingly enough had a similar effect, and the thickness of the material did not seem to be important at all, which was interesting. During the process of testing each of the materials out, it became apparent that the sound cloth needed to be removable so that it and the storage compartment could be cleaned out in case any liquid was spilled or leaked into it while riding.

neoprene prototype for Companion Bike Seat sound cushion

closeup of neoprene prototype for Companion Bike Seat sound cushion

Based on this realization of the need for the sound cushion to be removable (and washable), we've pretty much settled on neoprene for the material. We're going to do some further testing with thinner neoprene to make sure we minimize the impact on storage capacity . Once that's concluded, we'll start working with our factory on manufacturing!

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A Companion Bike Seat love story

9/19/2015

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A customer from Washington DC that bought his bike seat about a year and a half ago wrote me this week with the coolest story - he and his girlfriend > fiance > wife rode their bicycle with the bike seat to and from work every day. It was such a big part of their daily routine, that they decided to include their bicycle + bike seat in their wedding photos! They had met while working at the Washingtonian, and the magazine wrote a story about their wedding, including several of their wedding photos in the story. I included one of them below, the rest can be found at the Washingtonian story. The Companion Bike Seat even made it onto their wedding website!

companion bike seat riding in washington dc

riding away on a companion bike seat in washington dc

riding on a companion bike seat with a balloon

Companion Bike Seat customer photo at a wedding

Not to brag, but I'd like to think that Companion Bike Seat played a small but important part in spurring this love story along. Either way, it's always awesome to get such great feedback on our bike seats. Here's what he had to say:

I'm sure you don't remember me, but we corresponded a few times back in June 2014 when I had a few questions about installing the bike seat. You were really helpful and patient in answering my questions.

Just wanted to let you know how much I've been enjoying the seat these past 15 months. I bike 10.5 miles a day across DC to work, and for the first one of those miles, my girlfriend-turned-fiance-turned wife comes with me. It's become such a part of our daily routine that we even featured the seat on our wedding site, and brought it with us last Saturday to our wedding.

Anyway, the Retrospec + Companion has become our primary mode of transportation. We get compliments on it all the time, and I've probably given out your company's info two dozen times to curious onlookers.

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Sunday Morning Ride down Valencia Street

7/30/2015

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I took Companion Bike Seat out for an early morning ride down Valencia Street in the Mission, and passed a cafe playing some music as they were prepping for the day. Of course I just had to dance!

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A Seat Belt For Companion Bike Seat

7/3/2015

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Back in March we had a customer in the UK pre-order a backrest for his bike seat and he asked about a seat belt for Companion bike seat. He has an 8 year old son that he bought the bike seat and backrest for, and wanted to make sure he could be safely buckled-in while out on a bike ride. I told him that we didn't have anything available right then, but I would work start working on a solution once we got closer towards releasing the backrest for our bike seats.

Since we're about a month away from the first backrests being shipped out, I finally made it over to the hardware store to start working on a seat belt for the bike seat. Turns out my neighborhood hardware stores had everything I needed to make a fully functional, removable seat-belt for the bike seat that can be strapped on to the the backrest.

unbuckled seat-belt for Companion Bike Seat

I plan on doing some user-testing with this seat-belt over the next couple of weeks, and if it works well and is comfortable, I'll make these new seat-belts for the bike seat available for sale on the website soon after!

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Coachella 2015

4/23/2015

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We took the bike seats to Coachella again this year, this time with a much larger crew than last year. I took the bike seats off of the bikes and kept them in the trunk while driving to and from the festival, that way I only had to clean the bugs off of the bikes and not the bike seats too! Learning.

Once everyone arrived at our rental house, we had 11 bikes for 12 people, and ended up leaving one of the bikes at home, putting both bike seats to good use for the 3-mile ride each way to and from the festival.

Here are some photos I took riding to the festival and of some of the artwork.

bikes on the back of the car on the way to coachella 2015

riding to coachella on a companion bike seat

group bike ride with companion bike seat to coachella

If you're ever planning to go to Coachella (or any other multi-day music festival) and want an easy way to get to and from the shows without having to deal with parking or pay expensive taxi or Uber fares, why not ride your bicycle?! If you don't have a bike or can't bring yours to the show, there are usually bike-rental options available as well. It makes it incredibly easy and a whole lot more fun!

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Companion Bike Seat in Taipei

4/13/2015

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We love receiving customer photos of their bicycle and bike seat. We received these last week and just had to share them on the blog. This is from our first customer in Taiwan, in Taipei. Notice the "rain-proofing" rig with the umbrella rigged to the handlebars ... ingenious!