Rafael Canales – Innovation Strategist

Year: 2011
Industrial design
Mexico City, Mexico

Context Research

While urban cycling is becoming more popular in Mexico City for commuting and recreational purposes, there is an established bicycle culture of cargo bikes that tends to go unnoticed. Cargo bikes are rarely used for commuting or for recreational purposes and tend to have a connotation of poverty and un-desirability in the city. The goal of this project was to create an useful and attractive cargo bicycle for both commuters and workers, with an underlying purpose of removing stigmas towards this type of bicycle.

In order to understand better the needs of urban cyclists in the city an ethnographic research focused on observations of cyclists and in-depth interviews with worker cyclists was conducted. This led to define certain requirements for the product and use cases to explore.

Product

The project resulted in a cargo bike concept and working prototype for both target groups.