don’t pitch a tent, ride a camper bike

Posted on August 18, 2009 by jordenf

So you like to think of yourself as a ambassador of the environment. You eat organic, recycle and compost, take transit, shop local, and you don’t club baby seals. You brag to all your friends about how you only use herbs grown in your own garden and how you bike to get any other groceries you need. You are the offspring of Greenpeace and PETA all mixed into one hemp wearing, beard growing, non-armpit shaving, hippity dippity. Sorry I know it sounds like I’m poking fun and I don’t mean to. You are the person that will hopefully save the world for the rest of us over-consumers, we need you… let me get back on track here…

So in a sense you are pretty much mother or father nature. During the summer you like to be at one with the environment, no Disneyland for you and the kids, you want to be next to the trees, the soil, to the animals, living off the land in the wilderness… only one problem… you freakin’ hate camping.

Well I have a solution for you Father Freetrade and Mother Must-Be-Organic… it’s called the Camper Bike. This bad-boy was created by Boston artist Kevin Cyr and is a half-sized RV that is mounted on the back of a modified tricycle. It’s human powered and completely emission free but you might need to take the back roads when finding your wooded oasis because it looks like it would be really hard to get up to 100km per hour on the freeway with a camper on your back.

On the inside (which unfortunately I can’t find any pictures of) it has small but efficient appliances, some storage, and of course a place to sleep. You’ll still have to pee in the woods though because is doesn’t have a septic tank.

Cyr created the camper bike as a work of art for his photographs and they make an appearance in many of his paintings as well. Even though it is meant as an art piece it is fully functioning and will go anywhere you can pedal it… which probably isn’t that far, but even if you did get cooking on that thing think of how hard it would be to stop without the whole thing toppling over on you… hold onto your hat!

Here is a link to the original article on Inhabitat and I have also posted some more photographs of the Camper Bike on my Flickr feed.

Cheers!

jordenf