Transportation
Seattle Is Improving Its Bike Trails With a Garage-Built 'Frankenbike'
The city and Alta Planning are using the high-tech cycle to assess safety issues like potholes and obstructions.
Eight years ago, Colin Dietrich took an old steel Jamis road bike and started hacking it to answer a question about his commute: Is there a way to systematically record safety issues—a pothole here, cars parking in the bikeway there?
“My background is in mechanical engineering, and what does an engineer do with a problem? Go out and build something in a garage,” says the 36-year-old NOAA scientist and Seattle resident. “And that’s what happened.”