#Bicycle design software free

But, before the designers could get to work drafting a prototype, they had to figure out what exactly needed fixing.Д¬ommuter bike design hasn't evolved much since the 1880s, at its most basic form. The two groups worked largely independently to avoid a common shortcut taken by many other manufacturers, which is to simply drop the top bar on a men's model and say it's for women. He put together a team of six engineers from Wentworth to help design a frame for men and another half dozen from MIT to tackle the women's bike. It didn't take long for Sorger to find co-conspirators and get to work after landing in Massachusetts. It's home to countless schools, with highly regarded engineering programs and serves as the metropolitan heart of bike-friendly New England. It's no accident that DBC landed in Beantown. So, the New York native headed north, beyond his childhood home, to the city of Boston in 2008. He set about looking for engineers, designers and manufacturers nearby, but found that Florida simply couldn't provide the resources or the market he needed. The obvious next step, to him at least, was to create his own bike, one built exclusively for getting around the modern US city. What he needed was not a play thing, but a serious human-powered mode of transportation. According to the NBDA, 70 percent of the bicycles sold in the country accounted for only 27 percent of the market value in 2011, with an average price of $84. Sorger doesn't mince words, calling most major bike manufacturers 'toy companies,' and looking at the numbers, he's obviously not far off. Only 10 percent reported commuting on their bikes in the same 2011 survey. Biking in the United States is treated primarily as a leisure activity, with 73 percent of cyclists telling the National Bicycle Dealers Association (NBDA) they ride for recreation. They were not ideal for urban American commuting and, surprisingly enough (according to Sorger), neither were those designed here. There was a problem, though: European bikes were designed for European roads. He took it personally, as he puts it, but it's not all about stopping the flow of oil money - the man also has a green streak a mile wide. Maybe they weren't my best friend or a family member or an ex-girlfriend, but I knew them,' Sorger said. 'I opened the paper and saw names I knew. The unabashedly political goal of the shop, which was cofounded with his wife Maria in direct response to 9/11, was to reduce Americans' dependence on oil. Back then, it was called the Dutch Bicycle Company and, appropriately enough, it imported Dutch commuter bikes.

Sorger started the company in 2002 in St. The unassuming entrance on the corner of Pearl and Purchase Streets in Boston's financial district, which he shares with a tailor, wasn't the original home of DBC. Just beyond his tattered wood desk, a vintage Miami cruiser hangs from one of his patent-pending pedal hooks - the perfectly rusted patina on the low-riding frame is the closest thing to art on the walls.

#Bicycle design software free

Its walls are white and mostly free of extraneous decoration. Like the Swift, the cycle he designed with the aid of about a dozen engineers from MIT and Wentworth Institute of Technology, his relatively unadorned basement headquarters is simple, functional and strangely timeless. While it might be hard to see that persistent quest for beauty at work in Sorger's basement bike shop, there is a certain elegance to its austerity.