In terms of oh shit moments, this had to be a doozy for the train engineer. Last month nineteen cars on a 90-car train derailed in Montana. Some of those freight cars were carrying 737 fuselages on their way to Boeing, and six of them fell off, with three of them sliding down an embankment towards the Clark Fork River. Luckily no one was injured, and here's what the aftermath looked like:

An accident like this raises a serious logistical issue: What the hell to do with these fuselages? It's not like you can give six-packs to a couple guys named Jim and ask them to throw them back up onto the railcars. These things are loaded and unloaded with special equipment that bypassing rafters don't exactly have tied to the backs of their Super Dutys.

The goal of all design, in some ways, is to make the world a better place. But beyond the functional and/or aesthetically pleasing products that you choose for your home or office, design can raise the standard of living for ...
Making the world a better place is no easy task. The number of designs attempting to do so is overwhelming and every single one is contributing to the betterment of life in some shape or form—maybe it's a beautiful desk organizer that completely changes the way someone works, or maybe it's a medical innovation that helps patients heal faster and get back to living their lives. The Social Impact entries for the 2014 Core77 Design Awards covered a variety of topics, from wheelchair designs to water irrigation systems.

Led by Danish Design Centre CEO Nille Juul-Sørensen, the Social Impact jury chose six standout designs from this year's entries. Read on to see the designer's contributions to making the world a more comfortable—and accessible—place.

Professional Winner: Saajhi Stepping Pump, by Sam Rulli and Xylem Essence of Life

The Saajhi Stepping Pump is a simple device that has the potential to triple the revenue of smallholder farmers in emerging agriculture markets. Sam Rulli and Xylem Essence of Life designed a way for farmers to use their own body weight and gravity to irrigate their fields—and use 40 percent less water while they're at it. The pump draws water from nearby sources and can be transported to the area that needs watering.

» Learn more about Saajhi Stepping Pump

Student Winner: Walter - Alter the Wheelchair, by Christian Bremer and Erik Ohlson

While wheelchairs provide an important mobility to their riders, they often don't perform the way we'd like them to on tough terrain and challenging topography. Chalmers University of Technology students Christian Bremer and Erik Ohlson created a wheelchair design that enables a more active, adventurous lifestyle. Walter - Alter the Wheelchair allows riders to translate the position of the chair's seat, changing its center of gravity. The design helps the person in the wheelchair act more freely and independently without any added accessories or bulky design.

» Learn more about Walter—Alter the Wheelchair

The previous two Designing Innovation panel discussions have covered a lot of ground, from the positive effects of gaming on the brain to the issue of having many technology options available to us. The conversation will continue on Saturday, August 16, with the third discussion in Ford and IDSA's Designing Innovation series. The event will take place in Austin at IDSA's annual conference, The Exchange, but you can tune in to a livestream of the discussion right here on our Designing Innovation channel starting at 12:20ET.

You may remember panelist Kevin George, Design Manager at Ford Motor Company, from our recent dive into concept cars, specifically his role in designing the new Ford Edge. George has worked on all kinds of automotive designs—even the kind we spent our time playing with as kids—and worked a brief stint designing amusement parks and commercial spaces. We spoke to him about his experience creating concept cars, the toughest detail to design and what he's looking forward to during the panel discussion. Remember: If there's a question you'd like to ask George or anyone else on the panel, submit your query on Twitter using the hashtag #designinginnovation for a chance to get your answer.

Core77: You were designing toy cars for action figures early on—do you have a favorite car that stands out among the rest?

Kevin George: I really enjoyed designing R/C cars because they are so empowering to a kid. We created one R/C that had huge tires, so big that when the car crashed and flipped over the car body still did not touch the ground and you could keep on driving. A child's excitement over a new R/C car can quickly turn to frustration when the car gets hung up on an obstacle, but that never happened with this toy and the kids felt like they were expert drivers literally right out of the box.

What are some of the similarities and differences of designing cars for toys and designing life-size models, aside from the obvious size difference?

Whether toy cars or passenger cars the design process starts off just the same. You need to identify the core message that you intend to communicate and the experience you want for your customer. With toys the message typically has to do with recreating the adventure, conflict and drama of the film property. Then you add play features that go beyond the film and allow the child to make up their own plots. For passenger vehicles the core of the design is the type of experience you want for the driver and what image he or she wants to project. Once you have identified the core message and the target experience you can begin to design the physical elements that support that story, feeling or experience.

The differences between the two disciplines has to do with the complexity of passenger cars, the importance of occupant and pedestrian safety and the longevity these products need to have. It takes a very large team with many varied and specialized roles to develop a car and the process takes years.

Need for Speed miniature edition; R/C cars ready to race.

These discussions have covered a lot of different topics so far. What does "designing innovation" mean to you?

For me designing innovation is a process where you set an ambitious goal and then totally immerse yourself in that subject. You absorb as much as you and your designers can take in and eventually you begin to make associations and connections that others may not have seen. That's invention. Equally difficult is the implementation of that invention in a way that improves the life of your customer. Only then does it become innovation.

What's your favorite car and why?

Wow! There are so many. Really, It comes down to an emotional connection. I feel strongly about the cars I saw when I was too young to drive. I always liked the early Mustangs and Corvettes because it was so clear how they should be used. Lots of people feel the same way about trucks. When you see a car and can imagine how it will change your life, you're hooked.

Can you call it a selfie when the self is programmed? Regardless of the semantics, there's something simultaneously obnoxious and sweet about a self-involved robot, and several recent series document a startling trend towards public vanity in our high tech friends. The first offender: the Google cam! Bored with recording every knowable foot of street and path throughout the globe, Google Cam dispatched to locations of social and cultural import to take in our art too. As a part of the Cultural Institute project the wheeled voyeur was pushed through numerous galleries to document both the spaces and their historic contents. Thanks to the vigilance of artist Mario Santamaria, we now know the large undertaking was punctuated with less high-minded photos too. Santamaria, an artist based in Barcelona, created a tumblr called The Camera In The Mirror, collecting the many odd moments that the Google camera snapped itself in a mirror. The result is eerily Kubricky, Lynchish for sure, with a touch of.. Wall-E?

The Danas with Day Packs

If you're familiar with Hand-Eye you'll know we're all about a bomb-proof product with a badass backstory, and Kletterwerks absolutely delivers. The lead man of the Kletterwerks line is Dana Gleason II. An avid outdoorsman with a passion for making great gear, he's been the driving force behind impeccable bag-making companies for decades. He founded Kletterwerks as his first backpack company back in 1974. Starting out by repairing and building bags for the hardcore climbing and mountaineering community, he began to dabble in his own designs. Pulled from the German "Kletter" meaning Climbing, and "Werks" meaning Plant, Kletterwerks was a "climbing factory" based in Bozeman, Montana. In order to afford a first minimum order of rusty red material from a new supplier called Cordura, he pooled resources with other young bag-obsessed gearheads (Murray Pletz later of Jansport, Dick Kelty of Kelty, and Wayne Gregory of Gregory). This first generation of bags was built with hard-earned design insight and some of the best material the outdooring world had ever seen.

Dana II displays a climbing pack for a slick, slightly '70s Cordura ad

Flat-packing has spread its proverbial wings and flown to all corners of the globe, thanks largely to a certain Swedish furniture company. It's said that Erie J. Sauder invented flat-packed furniture in 1951, but it wasn't until 1956, when draftsman Gillis Lundgren faced a transportation dilemma, that the method really took off. Legend has it, Lundgren needed to fit a table into his car so, of course, he unscrewed the legs and put the table back together at home. The really lucky part for design connoisseurs around the world? Lundgren was an employee at IKEA. And so the flat-packed IKEA furniture we all know and love was born.

In the same spirit, Sandwichbikes arrive at your door ready to be assembled. With a few basic tools, Basten Leijh's bike design is ready to ride. As simple as the assembly may be, there's a lot of history and trial-and-error innovation behind the Professional Winner in the Transportation category of the 2014 Core77 Design Awards.

But putting the pieces together isn't just a means to an end, according to the design team: "The Sandwichbike doesn't just provide sustainable materials it also encourage sustainable use. We believe that when something is build with care ensures handle with care as well. Every step in the manual doesn't just bring you one step closer to your own Sandwichbike. Your commitment and appreciation for the design and quality will grow every step as well."

The Sandwichbike concept began in 2006 at a bicycle design competition in Taiwan. Bleijh Industrial Design Studio wanted to examine material use, manufacturing and distribution in bike designs with their entry. "Bleijh designed a bike made out of two wooden plates," says the design team. "Apart from the obvious advantages flat packing has for shipment, the use of two wooden plates gives freedom of printing and cutting techniques, making it possible to give each bicycle its own unique identity." Turns out everyone else loved the design as much as Bleijh did—the bike took fifth place in the competition.

With text becoming digital we'd think that libraries are suffering, if not dead already. But libraries—long known as reference and research centers—are reinventing themselves as places of 3D creativity. Libraries in Sacramento, Pittsburgh, Denver, Detroit and other cities across the US have purchased or are acquiring 3D printers and other maker tools for public use. In fact, one in six libraries in the US dedicate space to maker and DIY activity and learning, according the American Library Association.

Libraries had always served as a place for learning, research and discovery. And recently, since the financial crash in 2008, their reference materials have increasingly served as a way for people to figure out how to plan a new career or research new professional options. This then led to a rebirth of libraries as locations for entrepreneurship and business creativity. Librarians see this recent transformation as a natural extension of their historical 3000-year mission: to deliver and share information with the public.

About a third of the Chattanooga Public Library's reference material was sold to allow for a new maker lab. And apparently other libraries are going through similar renewal. The library of the University of Nevada cleared out more than 18,000 square feet of space for maker tools. And the star tool of choice is the 3D printer. Of course, they aren't cheap but the Institute of Museum and Library Services has granted $2.6 mil in printers and other tools.

Boeing may have transformed their derailed 737s into scrap-metal cubes, but if that accident had happened closer to California, perhaps the outcome might have been different. We last looked in on MotoArt, the El-Segundo-based company that turns old airplanes into furniture, way back in '09; since then the company's success has been explosive, if their greatly-expanded product line, six-language website and multiple showrooms both in the 'States and overseas is any indication.

While they still crank out the reception desks and couches that initially caught our eye, a recent check-in reveals a lineup well beyond what they were doing five years ago. Check out this sink made from the front landing gear door off of a Boeing KC-97 Stratotanker:

For your friends that always bail out of the bar early, here's an ejector seat barstool pulled out of an F-4 Phantom:

On long-haul flights, both flight attendants and pilots need to take breaks. Yet airplane designers are of course forced to cram cabin crew rest areas into confined spaces, to leave more room for revenue-generating passenger seats. So how do they manage it, and what do these spaces look like?

Crew Rest Compartments, or CRCs, vary in design from plane to plane. Boeing's enormous 787 has this pimpish loft space nestled above the passenger compartment, where up to five flight attendants can catch some shuteye:

The photo above is of the space as it exists in an actual airplane. If we look at the design-phase mockups, below, we can see the designers initially had a slightly different idea: In addition to the cleaner, clutter-free surfaces, the place is well-stocked with pillows in an effort to promote cabin-crew pillow fights.

The pilots have their own separate sleeping compartment. It features the same privacy curtains suspended from ceiling-mounted tracks that you see in the flight attendants' bunk room.

In this photo, shot by The Flying Engineer, we see the 6'3" Captain Pat Bearce is able to stretch out in one of these comfortably.

If you're anything like me, you've hit midsummer without noticing, your thighs are sweat-glued to your chair, and you aren't taking a tropical vacation within the next decade. If the heat and business as usual are getting you down, join me on a virtual tour of a cool and exotic locale on the cusp of hitting it big: Mars. And what better to inspire your fantasy travel than a cool map of the region and its history?

After centuries of squinting at that tiny red blip on our starry radar, we've gathered some increasingly good intel on the terrain and climate of Mars. The high tech ex-pats living there have been sightseeing for over ten years and the planet has a host of new snooping satellites. However, we haven't had new maps made since the late '80s! While everyone loves a good old map, old maps won't do you much good on the ground. Thankfully the United States Geological Survey has finally crammed nearly 30 years of new data and imaging into a beautiful new map [PDF].

While the last large Martian mapping effort predated digital techniques and required hand-plotting, the new one has a lot of high-tech heft behind it. This geological map was compiled using satellite photos, topological and soil information from rovers, and super detailed laser altimeter data. The result is a map that clearly breaks down the surface composition, topography, and (maybe most importantly) age of the red planet's diverse regions. As the map abstract puts it, the work is "based on unprecedented variety, quality, and quantity of remotely sensed data acquired since the Viking Orbiters." As I'd put it: It leaves previous maps in the dust.

While the Speculative category of the Core77 Design Awards has traditionally focused on design fiction, this year saw a much broader range of entries. From thought experiments to bleeding-edge technology to hypothetical gadgets, the 2014 honorees point to the design of the future as much as the future of design.

The jury, Led by Founding Director of SymbioticA Oron Catts, the jury team selected a total of 21 honorees for the Speculative category. Read on for more information on each of the projects:

Student Winner: Whereabouts, by Jacob Brancasi and Betsy Kalven

Whereabouts challenges the misconception that design can only serve the developing world through the classic social impact tropes of natural resources, healthcare and infrastructure. The project brings a speculative mindset to Kampala, Uganda, through three objects: Clinque Din Low, Boad Whisper Helmet and the Hush Hush Headset. Art Center College of Design students Jacob Brancasi and Betsy Kalven wanted to help people cultivate a better awareness to the world around them, and this trio of wearables are what came from their research. "This project is stood out as demonstration that speculative design does not need to be highly technological in order to be successful," says the jury. "By using seemly simple tools as story telling devices the designer(s) were able to convey a multifaceted cultural situation. Posing three 'what if' questions, which seem initially as very specific, the project asks some fundamental questions about the role design and designers play when they come to 'fix problems'; In particular when design comes to, so called, developing countries. The project calls into attention the need to comprehend the complex context of operating within an intricate web of social, cultural and economic situations that are all too often neglected by design."

» Learn more about Whereabouts

Professional Runner Up: I Wanna Deliver a Dolphin, by Ai Hasegawa

Ai Hasegawa's work, I Wanna Deliver a Dolphin, is exactly what it sounds like: a parable about cross-species gestation and its greater implications. The work addresses birth as a means to meet our demands for nutrition and outlines the technicalities of how feasible this idea really is. The jury applauded the project's "out there" response to a serious issue: "This project represents the power of speculative design to identify problems and intensify them through a well thought and delivered scenario. The project touches on the relationship of humans with other non-human animals. Its starting point is already of that of otherness, being asked from a non-western, non-male perspective. The questionable idea of giving birth to a non-human engendered animal as a way to deal with human overpopulation and non-human animal extinction is compounded with the proposition of actually eating that very same offspring."

» Learn more about I Wanna Deliver a Dolphin

Professional Runner Up: Parasitic Products, by Studio PSK

Parasitic Products, designed by Studio PSK, offer a twist on biomimicry, transposing the parasite/host relationship to a series of digital radios that depend on another appliance for their power supply. Inspired by existing parasites—the gall wasp, the ichneumon wasp and thehookworm—each radio behaves as an electronic analog to its biological basis. The jury team appreciated the work's refreshing angle on combining nature and technology: "[The] Parasitic Products project proposes a fresh take on product design processes with an interesting perspective on the complex relation between technology and nature. The design of the produced prototypes is strong and articulated, and the underlying research is profound and well documented." Juror Robert Foster commented "I particularly liked parasitic products as like most good design, nature did it first."

» Learn more about Parasitic Products

Professional Runner Up: Hyperform, by Marcelo Coelho and Skylar Tibbits

Frustrated by the volume constraints of desktop 3D printers, Hyperform allows users create designs that are bigger than the machine that produces them. Marcelo Coelho and Skylar Tibbits researched computational and material folding strategies that made it easier for the device to take on large print jobs. "I was also attracted to Hyperform as an idea as it could because it is like an old idea placed in a new realm," says Foster. "3D printing will become part of future life but one of its downfalls is size. The project was well researched and considered, I like ideas that are simple and yet can change the world for the better."

» Learn more about Hyperform

Student Runner Up: Conterfactual Story of a Sleepless Archipelago, by Faustine Lavorel

"What would happen if humans didn't need to sleep?" This simple question is the starting point for "Conterfactual Story of a Sleepless Archipelago," a design fiction brought to life through 3D elements such as drawings, diagrams, plans and other objects to tell the story of an isolated enclave in the Arctic Ocean whose inhabitants decided to stop sleeping in the 1960s. The work follows the society's progress and adaptations such as behavior, food intake, transportation and housing, among other things. "We were excited to see a speculative future driven not primarily by technological change, but by a something much more social and psychological. The goal of the project was to imagine a total world transformed by a different way of living. The designer's attention to detail, clear visual language and pure zaniness bring a fresh voice to the practice of design fiction."

» Learn more about Conterfactual Story of a Sleepless Archipelago

Student Runner Up: Declarations of Interdependence, by John Ryan

Art Center College of Design student John Ryan created a series of interactive prototypes that challenge the idea of individual and collective roles within digital media. The prototypes consist of a computer with a multi-user keyboard; a social media platform that's crowdsourced by your own social network; a website that can only be accessed when a certain number of users simultaneously connect from the same location; and a machine that monitors a group's behavior and visually represents the most dominant individual by using algorithms. The jury shares their thoughts: "The author ironically proposes possibilities for a new kind of individualism and modes of action through interventions with common computer interfaces, e.g. a computer that requires multiple users at the same time. The project questions the foundation of our contemporary construction of the self and the self-ownership, which are also the basis for the existing design ideals for technological artifacts and network infrastructures."

» Learn more about Declarations of Interdependence

Last night, artist Jeong-Hyun Seok released this astonishing digital painting on social media, and it soon began popping up all over my feeds, racking up tens of thousands of shares, "Likes" and forwards in a matter of hours. It's no surprise why—the digital illustrator has managed to sum up human life in a few minutes using a Wacom tablet and Painter 11:

Seok whipped this out as a calling card for a digital illustration class he's teaching in Seoul. Judging by the comments coming in on the video in a multitude of languages, it's safe to say he's overshot his local market. Wacom and Corel oughta sponsor this guy.

Photos by Akseli Valmunen

As much as that teapot design above might suggest otherwise, I promise you won't get in trouble for reading this at work. That's right, I said teapot (c'mon—don't act like you didn't see those tea leaves on the side). Sure, it might resemble some sort of illicit or semi-erotic paraphernalia, but this tabletop brewer is really just a minimalist approach to steeping your favorite leaf. Finnish designer Nikolo Kerimov takes a note from nature in regards to the pot's process, specifically the motion of rain falling over a mountain top. I'll leave that to your own interpretation.

As any warm drink enthusiast recognizes, brewing a cup of coffee or tea is just as much a visual experience as it is a ritual. Following suit of the many well-designed beverage makers out there, "Upon" is pretty eye-catching when it comes to form and would look mighty nice nestled next to a lineup of well-designed tea canisters. NSFW doppelgangers aside, the combination of glass, ceramic and cork is the detail that really won me over. Way to hit us with the houseware trifecta.

Also notable is Kerimov's "Shelfie" design. Much like the "Pop-Up Linen" wardrobe we covered a while back, this storage unit can be flat-packed down into a convenient carrying capsule.

When I'm working with clients who have small kitchens, it's always a challenge to find places to store large utensils—so I appreciate it when designers create collapsible versions of these kitchen tools.

One such bulky item is the colander. The OXO silicone collapsible colander is less than 2 inches tall when collapsed, but still has the features end-users value, including plentiful drainage holes and raised feet. (Some end users say the feet are a bit too short, but that seems to be a design trade-off that goes along with the collapsibility; all collapsible colanders seem to have short feet, or none at all.) End users say it feels very study, but some say that collapsing it is a bit tricky; others say it folds fine as long as you "read the directions and practice a little." But since we all know many end users won't read the instructions, it would be better to have a design that doesn't count on that.

The collapsible colander from Rösle also collapses to less than 2 inches, and end-users say collapsing it is easy. Also worth noting: The colander, when collapsed, only takes the space of a dinner plate in a dishwasher—and it has a folding mechanism which "ensures that all parts that come in contact with food remain exposed for washing" even when it's collapsed. Given how much end users comment on how easy (or not) it is to clean their colanders, this is a feature that will have a lot of appeal. And the colander has an eyelet for hanging; an end user who does indeed hang her colander says it works well.

The Joseph Joseph folding colander, designed by DesignWright, is the thinnest one around; when unfolded, it's just 1 cm (0.4 inches) tall. It's made from a single sheet of polypropylene, and uses 12 living hinges to fold into shape; a clip at each corner locks the shape into place.

Applied Minds is something like a think tank that actually creates things. The "interdisciplinary group of artists, scientists and engineers, with skills in architecture, electronics, mechanics, physics, mathematics, software development, big data analytics, system engineering, and storytelling" has worked on everything from vehicle engineering to cancer treatments to 3D interfaces to algorithms. So it's no surprise that co-founder and inventor Bran Ferren came up with a project as crazy as the KiraVan.

The KiraVan is a massive truck that can do, well, everything, both on-road and off. It can scale 45-degree slopes. Its fuel tank can hold 170 gallons of biodiesel that provides a range of 2,000 miles between fill-ups. It stores enough food and water on-board for a crew of three to survive for three weeks between grocery runs, and all the while electricity is coming in from a bank of solar-charged batteries. The truck is engineered to run through both extreme cold and extreme heat. It can deploy its own freaking drones so you can scout ahead before you proceed. And oh yeah, there's a turbo-diesel motorcycle mounted to a small elevator on the back.

D3O is a ground breaking smart materials company specializing in impact protection and shock absorption. This Brighton, UK based company continues to challenge and lead the world of impact protection and shock absorption with innovative, pioneering solutions for customers. From athletics and electronics to protective military gear, D30 changed the protection market with a range of lightweight, flexible and breathable protectors. How would you like to join their team and continue to revolutionize the smart materials market?

If you're the right person for this job, you will be a member of our Engineering department specializing in impact mechanics and design of future products. You will work with Product Management and Industrial Design teams to develop new concepts for future generation of innovative products. Check out all the preferred skills on the next page and Apply Now.

Whether you're taking your route into your own hands with a bike or traveling as a passenger on a commercial flight, transportation is about much more than just getting from point A to point B. While we're not holding our collective breath for, say, self-driving cars or commercial space travel, we've seen plenty of innovations on the ground and in the sky in the Transportation category of the Core77 Design Awards.

General Motors' Christine Park led the jury team in choosing this year's honorees, which cover transportation designs of various scales and end users:

Professional Winner: Sandwichbikes, by Basten Leijh

The latest manifestation of the flatpack construction craze is Sandwichbikes, a build-it-yourself bike model that helps riders get to know the ins and outs of their ride in an intuitive way. The bike, designed by Basten Leijh, uses locally sourced beechwood from Germany. The jury was most impressed by the designer's ability to involve consumers: "We were drawn to the concept of engaging customers through assembling the bicycle, creating a unique experience and heightened sense of ownership. The design of the bicycle along with its packaging and graphics were consistent and appealing overall. The usage of laminate wood and its sustainable story was equally impressive as the design itself."

» Learn more about Sandwichbikes

Student Winner: The Future of Offshore Supply, by Martin Skogholt Hansen and Mikael Johansen

The Future of Offshore Supply is an exploration into maritime design, specifically offshore vessels and how they contribute to the economy. Oslo School of Architecture and Design students Martin Skogholt Hansen and Mikael Johansen took the opportunity to increase efficiency, safety and flexibility while challenging the role of traditional industry designs with a vessel that features an attachable water trailer of sorts. "We were impressed with the concept of a supply vessel that is efficient in cargo handling while strategically adding value to the economy of Norway," says the jury. "The layers of details in the design created an interest that drew us deeper in wanting to know more. The design was best in appearance, concept and presentation in that it effectively utilized graphics, rendering composition, colors and details. All design elements cohesively tied together with the concept."

» Learn more about The Future of Offshore Supply

Price inflation doesn't usually make a physical noise, but it did in 2008, in Cam Woods' neck of the woods. As gas prices rose to $4.50 a gallon, California-based Woods noticed that less folks were driving and more folks were buzzing around town on mopeds and motorized bikes. "All of these bikes were using 2-stroke engines that sounded like chainsaws on steroids," he writes. "I thought the forest was being cut down."

Woods reasoned that there must be a quieter, cleaner alternative than whipping around on a smoke-billowing two-stroke engine, and as a bicycle/motorcycle prototype builder for nearly two decades, he was in a position to do something about it. His work background made him well aware of a certain ubiquitous and tiny (50cc) Honda motor with a very long history:

The Honda 4-stroke horizontal OHV motor is the most popular and most copied engine in the world. It was first introduced in the Honda Mini-Trail 50 in 1969 and is still being used today almost unchanged in the CRF50. Companies in China have been making copies of the Honda engine for years with all kinds of variations in design and displacement, but all have the same motor mounts as the Honda. The copies of the Honda XR50 spawned a whole group of minibikes called "pitbikes." The amount of aftermarket performance parts for the Honda XR50 and its pitbike clones is endless.

Woods figured that the ubiquity and affordability of the motor—you can buy them used and inexpensive on Craigslist and eBay, and a new Chinese-made 50cc Lifan clone can be had for a little over $200—made it the ideal DIY snap-in powerplant. He then Frankensteined together a bike using off-the-shelf mountain bike parts connected to a custom frame and swing arm of his own design, and mechanically solved the problem of having both a motor and pedals capable of driving the rear wheel.

Woods dubbed his invention the Motoped Motorized Bicycle. It was reliable, lightweight compared to a motorcycle, and slightly heavier than a two-stroke but a lot cleaner and quieter. It was also pretty efficient, delivering 120 miles of travel on a single gallon of gas. And swapping in larger motors was also possible; popping in something closer to a 150cc meant you could go as fast as 65 m.p.h, though the mileage dropped down to closer to 90 miles per gallon.

By Tim Adkins

Ambitions are often simple dreams, born in shallow pocketbooks, that yearn for accoutrements larger than whatever the Joneses own. Some dreams deviate. They're more elemental, more profound. Consider Walter Dorwin Teague's ambition:

"I will strive to make the name I bear a loved one long after I am gone."

More than 50 years after his death, Teague's name continues to resonate. But the story of the man who strove to give it an eternal life has largely been untold. Last night, Jason Morris premiered Teague: Design & Beauty, a documentary on the seminal industrial designer, for a few hundred designers attending IDSA's 2014 International Conference in Austin, Texas. The film, nearly five years in the making, fills a substantial gap in our contemporary memory.

Jason Morris addressing the crowd

In the film's first few frames, we meet Walter Dorwin Teague as he faces a mid-life problem that he must design his way out of: He's a successful industrial artist who is restless. He sees the road ahead and envisions an intersection where his many interests and skills—including fine art, illustration, typography, fashion, architecture and storytelling—could converge to create a new method for giving form to experiences.

After Morris frames the conflict for us, Teague backtracks and follows a straightforward chronology. We learn that Walter—as Morris's narration refers to him in the first act—listed in his childhood diary all the books that he had read from age ten onward. We see some of the beautifully composed short films that Teague—as he is known in the second act—shot of the Chartres Cathedral in 1930. And we get some insight on the creative tension that soured the relationship between Mr. Teague—of the third act, of course—and the talented son who inherited his name and many of the senior Teague's creative gifts.

Once again, Core77 is pleased to be the media partner for the Bike Cult Show, which will once again bring the very best custom framebuilders in the Northeast region to New York City this month. Set to take place this weekend, August 16–17, at the Knockdown Center in Queens, the second annual Bike Cult Show promises be bigger and better than before. Earlier this week, we heard from new kid on the block Mathew Amonson of Airtight Cycles; the subject of our fourth and final builder profile is the venerable J.P. Weigle, who has seen fit to chronicle his storied career in a photo essay.

If you like what you see here, head over to Knockdown Center this weekend to see these works of art in person at the Bike Cult Show!

Text and images courtesy of Peter Weigle

I never dreamed about being a frame builder—in fact, I had no idea such a person existed. In 1972, a friend encouraged me to interview for an 'interesting opportunity,' and three weeks later I was standing in this shop in Deptford, England. The shop was old, old school: No jigs, no machinery, no alignment table etc. We drilled vent and pin holes with hand-spun twist drills. Hacksaws, files and elbow grease got the job done.

After a seven-month stint, I came back to the States. I worked in a small frame shop, Witcomb USA, along with Richard Sachs. I rode and raced my bike as much as I could. I made this bike for myself in England; this road race, at left, was a hilly one up in Vermont.

At right, a few of the mid-years crew at Witcomb USA. That's Chris (Fat Chance) Chance on the left, Fred Widmer in the center, and me at the right with my Clockwork Orange haircut.

Witcomb USA closed its doors in '77. My plan at first was to get a real job... but instead I bought one of the Witcomb jigs, some of the tooling and some material inventory. This photo was taken at my first shop, a Quonset hut at a local airport. I had no phone, so I used the payphone over at the field office. Customers took quite a chance driving there, wondering if I'd be there or not.

This mixte touring bike was one of the first bikes built in my new shop. Fenders, Ideale saddle, hmmm...

Click here for high-resolution image of newspaper clipping

In the early 80s, a friend from California told me about a 'mountain bike' he had just purchased. He sent photos of his Ritchey and some sketches. I made my first mountain bike in '82 and rode it everywhere. I went to Fat Tire Bike Week in Crested Butte, CO, in '83–4. All of the MTB luminaries were there and it was ground zero for that sport. Moab was just a dusty place in the desert at that point.

Racing soon followed. The early days were real grassroots affairs—nobody knew much about the sport, so sometimes we made things up as we went along. No one knew what to wear at these events either... you might see a classic Brooklyn jersey next to a racer in cut-offs.

I also used my lightweight specials in cyclocross events, which was legal back then. At the 1988 National Championships, I won the Vets race in fine style.

Even though mountain bikes were my newfound passion, I still made my share of road frames. This bike was displayed in a show and was also selected for the cover photo at left. I was just learning how to do these three-color schemes and was having trouble. I used a tooth pick dabbed in paint to touch up my mistakes... and I used the same 'tool' to paint the clown's face on the back of the pump bump. ;~)

And on the right, the 'money shot' in a Cigar Aficionado article. I called this bike 'French Reminiscence'—all it needed was fenders.