You Saw It Here First: Pole-Climbing Bike Harness to Solve S.F. Bicycle Parking Problems

Easy parking is, more often than not, one of the advantages of using a bicycle as your primary form of transportation. But that's not always the case. San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival has become notorious for its lack of adequate bike parking. Even the office buildings of SOMA, filled with eco-preening white-collar workers who pedal to work rather than endure the indignities of Muni, sometimes suffer from a lack of adequate bike racks.

It seems there may be an answer on hand to such dilemmas. The Germans, famous for some very good and very bad big ideas, appear to have invented a sort of utility pole-crawling bike mantle that lifts the user's ride skyward, clearing space at ground level. (We're not really sure what would happen if two bikes were thus stacked on the same pole. Then again, we're journalists, not mechanical engineers.)

Also, it warrants mentioning that some special effects may have been employed in the making of this film.

Check out the video above from German firm Conrad to see how it works.

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