how

• Radical re-design of the bicycle is essential to attain modern standards of functionality. Modern standards of functionality will add more value to less material, when traditional concepts are left of how a bicycle should be composed or should look and function. Only its value as a human propelled transporter count, when easier to work materials and cheaper methods of assembling are used. Source of inspiration for design is the umbrella, folding back to a few percent of its unfolded volume. A camping chair is expected not to collapse, when someone sits in it on someone's else lap. But the weight of such a chair may be less then one kilo. Comparison with modern plastic suitcases shows that shell-like shapes out of plastic offer the needed strength. The design Demotech contributed to a design contest in Japan in 1973, shows to what such a radical re-design of all parts and the major part of its functionality can lead. Most of the above demand could have been fulfilled with it.
• Pre-painted thin metal sheet can easily be folded into stiff tubular sleeves, that can be heavily loaded, as their use in cars prove. Industry offers many low-cost methods to combine such parts. However crafts, even manufacture at home can make good use of it as only simple tools are needed for it and no heat or paint is used. Some complicated shapes like a saddle of a bicycle can be made with rotational moulding, a technique applicable in a workshop, using recycled plastic and very low initial investment.
• A new design for a bicycle should aim at a scale that production (or assembly) of the bicycle is economic when integrated with a shop for maintenance and repair. This design could also aim at production of some of the needed parts at the yard of local families, making good use of work capacity of people that otherwise could not economically participate. A franchise construction could take care of solving logistic problems that can not be solved small-scale.