Hey NeaL,
I'm not sure but maybe
@Rick Youngblood can help with ideas how to custom make stickers. I know he re-branded his Vendetta very nicely.
I might ask him about that, especially if I ever get a business idea off the ground and want a whole fleet of recumbent trikes to have matching markings.
Ever see those guided tours of people riding Segways in some cities? My mind is working on a similar idea but using trikes.
This started when I got to looking for safe routes to follow while biking from where I live into town and back. I was disappointed in the limited availability of safe pathways and I got to wondering whether to bring it up with anyone in the town government.
As I was researching about cities and bike routes, I came across a TEDx talk video about a married couple in Arizona whose farm happened to be alongside a popular bike path. They got the idea to open up a little café right there on their farm and started selling products and crafts they made to bicyclists who found it to be a great place to stop for a break.
Around here where I live, there are historic sites from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. There are also vineyards with cafes and outdoor wood-fired ovens for pizzas and such, along with a stage for live music events. There's a distillery here which had some kind of reality TV show being filmed there, something about moonshine. One of their moonshiners, a guy named Tim Smith, is something of a celebrity. Many of the local farms which set up their wares at the Saturday farmers market also have little shops there on their farms.
In researching bike routes, I see a lot of examples in different cities where they poured public funds into creating bike lanes which no one in the area really wanted in the first place, so they go unused and neglected, or perpetually maintained-at ongoing public expense-because there's a government program for it and people might still want to use it, someday. Other towns and cities have bike routes so poorly designed that no one feels safe using them, or they're in places where no one wants or needs them.
Last summer, a local bike shop sent out a mailer about a schedule of social bike rides. Some were an ice cream social, others ended at a local brew pub. The idea was to just get people out for a ride; no racing, no long distance endurance races, just something to do. All we needed to participate was to bring our own bike and a helmet.
They had one staff member lead the group, one bring up the rear, and one or two others who mingled from the front to the back and served as crossing guards when we had to cross a busy road.
So I've been thinking, what if these different farms were willing to have a path for cyclists along the borders of their property? What if these paths could coincide with historic battlefield sites? What if enough of these paths could connect with each other from the area of the town and reach further out to the rural areas where people live? And what if all of this could be done using private, free-market solutions, designed by cyclists for other cyclists, and serve the community with increased revenue from tourism?
I've never started a business before. I have no idea how to proceed with this. There are a number of obstacles to overcome, but this is all giving me an idea of having guided trike tours. My kids and I all have our Cruzbikes, well, the kids' bikes will be built and well-used by the time I could hope to organize such an entrepreneurial endeavor; there's no real need for the tour "staff" to have trikes. They can guide from bikes, or even unicycles, maybe.
I would need to provide the trikes, so I'll need enough for the numbers likely in the tour groups. I'll need ones compatible and adjustable for people of different body types and abilities.
It would be great to have a variety of tour routes with maybe some options for simple but fun offroading along the way. Visitors get to enjoy the outdoors between points of interest while getting a workout and building up an appetite. No dragging a lawn chair to a music performance or outdoor theater, just roll up in a trike and set the parking brake. Panniers and seat-side saddle bags would provide places to keep their cameras handy and stow their souvenirs until the end of the tour.
And my three kids aren't getting any younger, so the "free labor" idea is running out of time. Oh, and my kids are homeschooled. This would be a great incentive for them to learn some local history, learn about running and starting a business, and improve their people skills while playing hosts.
Anyway, I'm kinda just daydreaming at my keyboard at the moment.
Another idea I'd like to throw in there is to have little GoPro-like cameras on the front and back of each trike, maybe have the guides each wear a body cam, and even throw in a drone-cam. After an organized tour, edit the footage together, trying to capture each member of the tour group enjoying something during their visit, overlay the footage with some music and graphics/credits to create a video keepsake of their visit to our town, and something to show their friends and family how fun riding recumbents can be.
For your viewing pleasure, here's a video of what I think it would look like if people could actually see my mind working on an idea.
