Roulandt, Chinkara, and Flevo, three Dutch recumbents.
The absence of any visible tray-locking
mechanism and, indeed, the presence of the very trays themselves
tells me, that this bike- van was meant to be utilized for
gathering and inhouse distribution of mail within some large
company, probably the Dutch PTT itself, and not for house- to-
house delivery. Alas, that's where a pedal- driven vehicle would
have made the most sense. Inhouse distribution, postal or
otherwise, is easy to automatize, and that indirectly means
elimination of the human "motors". Therefore one has to judge
this Flevan concept, nicely bikecentric though it is, on
its base-functional , market merits, not on the degree
of its novelty alone.
|