A Powered Bike Lane Sweeper? Interview with our neighbor Cedric at the 2024 BC Bike Show

[@cedriceveleigh]

Correcting myself, Pierre Lallement is considered by some to be the inventor of the pedal bicycle (not the bicycle). The push bikes from before then are apparently considered bicycles. Pierre Lallement added a pedal crank to the front wheel, making them pedal bicycles. My company, Lal Bikes, is named after him.

[@LeesChannel]

The two things I thought about for your bike sweeper: 1. If it were wider (I believe 4 feet is the average width of a bike lane) it could sweep the whole lane in one pass. 2. If you could fashion a small wedge shaped plow or brush to go over the front wheel of your bike, you could protect your own bike from street debris. It doesn't need to be that big, because the rear wheel should follow in the path of the front wheel, it just needs to push debris aside to be collected by your rear brush.

[@cedriceveleigh]

@@LeesChannel Hey, thanks for the suggestions. 1. The width of the sweeper was chosen so that it can work where bike lanes aren't wide and where it needs to pass between things. 2. We haven't had issues with the towing bike and debris, because the rider is very aware of debris and is typically going 10-15km/h.

[@heidenburg5445]

Thats a bicycle saint

[@christopheroliver148]

As someone who's lost high-end tires to road litter, I absolutely love this sweeper.

[@TANOCA17]

Can also be used for sidewalk cleaning. Municipalities will certainly like this tool. Can be operated by walking operator as well.

[@TANOCA17]

And the derailour system 😮 this guy is certainly a genius

[@squidge903]

I love this! I was thinking of something like this when riding my local paths just recently! I want one!!

[@MDonovan]

Wow 2 great ideas 💡👍🎩

[@LimitedWard]

How well does it perform over uneven surfaces and potholes? Any issues so far with durability? One idea on how this could be made more effective for municipalities: add a sensor to detect when the buckets are full and have that read back to an app on your phone which maps your ride. Detecting how frequently you need to empty the buckets in combination with GPS data will give you an estimate for which bike lanes require more frequent sweeping. And you can use this data to build a forecast of when each lane should be swept to optimize efficiency.

[@cedriceveleigh]

The brush is suspended so it follows the terrain. But the sweeper is meant to be used on paved bike lanes. About the tracking and bucket emptying, we are actively working on functionality along those lines. 😉

[@christopheroliver148]

@@cedriceveleigh I don't know if you're going to see this, but as someone who has lost more than a few expensive 250g sew-up tires to road debris, I absolutely love the sweeper. That would have been fantastic to run over time trial course I rode many years ago to make the surface safe for traction. And while I'm a roadie, I don't discount how marvelous this is for maintaining MUPs and bike lanes. You have a beautiful brain, mate. Cheers!

[@josephlunderville3195]

Ayyyy I need that sweeper for the shoulder by my place!

[@SkadooHusky]

This is great. I've thought about putting a magnet on my bike trailer to collect the metal debris along my commute. I'd pull one of these on occasion just to help myself.

[@AlbertPhan]

Very cool stuff Cedric! Love the DIY aspect going into a product. The drive chain looks really slick. It must have been hard to reinvent the wheel!

[@rpbutton]

Love it, great work Cedric!

[@profitgreenly5991]

Very cool. If it could also do snow removal I think it’d really take off. That might need to be a pushed model rather and a pulled trailer though.

[@LoveOfMules13]

The few protected bike lanes in Philly accumulate an insane amount of debris due to the poles and whatnot trapping them in, to the point that I prefer to just ride in traffic sometimes. We could definitely use this. I think the collection bins would fill up very fast here with large pieces of debris like cans and leaves and pieces of glass, with few places to empty them as you go, so the brushes pushing things out to the left and right without collection might be preferable here. In any case, great idea, something I had been thinking about myself, and I hope you're successful with it. I could definitely see some municipalities or bike share companies like Indego adopting it.

[@DrTofutybeast]

Lol watching you ride along the road is totally cool. I need one for my house 😮

[@neptronix]

This guy is awesome!

[@Mikesukes]

Great idea!

[@zalafinari]

I moved to a remote part of BC on Highway 16 last fall and haven't yet made any bike trips on it, I've been watching the shoulder of the highway and there's definitely a need for it to be swept. The loose gravel could easily prove fatal if it caused a spill/dump into traffic that has many large trucks traveling at high speeds. I've considered the idea of fabricating my own form of lane clearing but hadn't yet found a suitable solution. Your design here looks awesome. Highways are provincial in BC, right? So I should contact the Ministry of Transportation if I had any hope of this section of highway being swept using public dollars?

[@zalafinari]

I should have read the comments before posting as I immediately see that I should contact Lal directly @ their site.

[@cedriceveleigh]

Highways are indeed managed by the province here in BC. The contract that the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure gives to maintenance companies calls for a totally insufficient amount of sweeping of shoulders (bike lanes along highways).

[@fredred8371]

We need these in Amsterdam.

[@cedriceveleigh]

Really?

[@SkyhawkSteve]

Very impressive!

[@redsorgum]

This is very cool. It kinda reminds me of the old school non powered push carpet/floor sweeper.

[@strepto42]

Love this, hope it gets picked up!

[@bucketofbarnacles]

Fantastic!

[@allenbrodess8510]

what about running inner chanels in the stator arms themselves for water cooling using a pump,rez and external radiator ?

[@jcwms17]

Have you tried it with snow? My university would use a brush attachment on a tractor… I bike to work daily. Clearing snow from our trail system has not been a priority for our operations and maintenance group. I would certainly pull this thing to and from on my commute though for sure and bet I could get a fleet of volunteers to ride the primary routes with their own… I should add, I work for my municipality but in a separate department. I wonder if we could apply some grant funding to purchase some of these, should you get to manufacturing them.

[@LimitedWard]

This definitely would not work for snow unless it's a light dusting. That said, gas-powered snowblowers are not that expensive, and there are tons of models that fit in a bike lane.

[@TK-OK]

Always learn from your content. Thanks 👍

[@LexYeen]

Now that's a good idea.

[@douglee7364]

Cleaning curb groove ???

[@DaveNorona]

Awesome!!!

[@mashvids1018]

Epic video that's guys got the goods just want alot of towns need innovative ahead of the game

[@spidennis]

Nice!

[@wrathofsocrus]

I would love to see larger versions of the pick up model. I went to the junkyard and got a large truck bed toolbox, rear hubs and emergency brakes from a Chevy Impala, and a set of donuts for around $100 to make a trailer. I think that might be a great platform for picking up more debris in one trip for the more DIY minded people out there.

[@charliebozzo9948]

I been thinking of this and bike plows. Why not? Create jobs! Would like to see a lever that lifts the brush when not in use.

[@MattsAwesomeStuff]

I need more data! I want to know what percentage of debris it picked up of various sizes! I want to know what the cost is to manufacture them. Really need idea.

[@jaro6985]

Sounds like in the $3k-6k range

[@mouchoirs_blancs3582]

Man only 2000 view you deserve more

[@Bunny-Power]

Nobody cares about bicycles in the US. In California, only the rain cleans the roads every now and then. I bet they would even make that sweeper illegal.

[@jeanmariegaillard545]

Maybe you could pair up with "Phil's shop" (youtube avatar) that did the snow plow long john in Vancouver. This way you also get work in winter.

[@rpals5412]

genius idea!

[@BillSmithPerson]

I wonder where commercial road sweeper machines dump their debris. I assume it’s not just dumped on the side of the road when the container is full.

[@cedriceveleigh]

I've spoken to operators of those sweeper trucks and they have to dump them in specific, designated places. This makes the logistics limiting for them to pick up debris. That's why they sweep the main road here on the Sunshine Coast with a powered push-aside broom (like our push-aside bike lane sweeper) at the front of a truck, even though they have a pick-up sweeper truck (which costs half a million dollars by the way).

[@handbaked4937]

awesome!

[@VietPho]

We need this in portland oregon

[@cedriceveleigh]

I delivered a previous bike lane sweeper prototype in Portland. The group BikeLoud PDX has been using it. I'm sure you're welcome to volunteer to use it!

[@karlahovde]

I want one!

[@wootenbasset8631]

I want one. I would ride around cleaning bike lanes just for fun.

[@binlagin]

I WANT ONE!

[@jessta314]

This is great

[@comethiburs2326]

the brush alone costs a fortune, on a minimum of 130 bucks for a 500mm wide one (that's like 20 inches). I'm looking for a similar method because my local bike lanes are full of debris, and the council sucks..

[@cedriceveleigh]

Brushes like this aren't cheap, and neither is the battery or motor or metal fabrication. But the overall cost of our bike lane sweepers is orders of magnitude cheaper than bike lane sweeper trucks (which can cost around 200k USD).

[@markifi]

now i want to know what other invention Pierre Lermant is thinking of

[@francikaa1]

The exact reason why I never ride in bike lanes. If you ride in the car lane: no punctures.

[@jacobe2995]

this seems like a solution in search of a problem.

[@noe616]

Make it self powered, and Rumba steered and you have a self driving parking lot sweeper .

[@Eric_Tennant]

Need him to ride in front of me on tour

[@jasonkroll2735]

Ride your bike through your house.

[@GrinTechnologies]

Ha ha, actually they're are many corners of grin that could use a drive by sweeping too.

[@EvolveOutdoors]

Whats cool about the sweeper is not only does it sweep away debris, the bike tires in front of it picks up any sharp objects that may be in the road making it a win win for the rest of us.👍🏼

[@zalafinari]

I fail to see your logic, nor any humour here whatsoever.

[@bikebudha01]

I think city's should buy these. Then make the homeless ride them for food....