Jason Anello, Ideologist-Buzz Marketing

A bicycle is a conduit for exploration and a camera is a way to document these explorations. The Purple Pedals Project took these two concepts and merged them into one. We call it a yBike. It was conceived to be an ambient experience in which a rider could explore their adventures and the bike would do the rest. The rest was to document these explorations and share them with the world.

We made 20 and sent them around the globe. This blog will document and share the bikes, the riders and the adventures they endure. 14 of them have been given to photographers/cyclists to jockey around their cities.  1 of them will be given to a reader/rider who best explains why they should have one. (link to the promotion) And, the remaining 4 will be passed around for guest rides between bloggers, Yahoo! users, tech meetups, conferences and events.

We are excited to know what you think about the project, where the guest bikes should go next, who should get them and what you would like to see in phase two of the project. Already we planned to have all the riders write a bit about their favorite rides, experiences and adventures. We will report on the places the bikes travel, chronicle the 14 riders lives a bit deeper, announce the winner of the 20th bike and give more of an inside peek into how we conceived, built and produced the yBike. Things like source code and DIY instructions.

With that, let’s get into some nitty gritty of the project. To start, here is a video on the birth of the idea.

So, Building the team. First thing was first, we needed a base to build the technology on. That base came in the form of a custom painted Electra Townie 8. Electra Bicycle Company embraced the project and helped us get 20 custom purple rides to Brooklyn where software and electrical engineering was being developed.

Uncommon Projects, based in DUMBO Brooklyn, created the software and hardware necessary to make the system come alive. In a project that should have had twice as long a production cycle, Uncommon worked wonders in finding a stable solution quickly. They were able to research, identify potential solutions, build prototypes and produce 20 final products in the time it normally takes to create a production roadmap.

With the technology well underway, we needed to build a housing that was effective but also fit the bikes aesthetics. For this we looked to Quill Hyde, a designer and metal fabricator with a shop in Redhook Brooklyn. Quill brought just the right look to the housing. It matched the bike and the technology in a way that kept everything in synch. This was a very important part of the process. For me, all the components of the yBike needed to be homogeneous and germane. That would ensure a Cadillac ride not a Frankenstein gallop.

With the bike, hardware technology and housing coming together we looked to our family at Flickr to plot all these images and data on a map. This way you could know where the bike is and see what the bike sees at any given moment.

In a nutshell here is what we created. A camera mounted on the handlebars in a waterproof, swivel-enabled housing takes a picture every 60 seconds. Then, the system grabs GPS info, merges it with the picture, and uploads everything to a Yahoo! map. The system is powered by a series of solar panels and a battery pack on the rear rack .

That is just the beginning. It is bound to get even more exciting the more the bikes are on the road. So check back often and let us know what you’d like to see next.