George Bliss is a bicycle designer living, working and teaching in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, New York City. He has taught bike frame welding at

Parsons The New School for Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhat ...

. Bliss coined the cycling term "

Critical Mass In nuclear engineering, a critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, its nuclear fi ...

" in the Ted White documentary ''Return of the Scorcher'' (1992) to describe the way cars, bicycles and pedestrians negotiate uncontrolled busy intersections in China. He pioneered the niche bicycle industry in Manhattan, specifically custom designed cargo bikes including the "Dump Trike" and the smaller "Pick-Up Trike" and

pedicab The cycle rickshaw is a small-scale local means of transport. It is a type of hatchback tricycle designed to carry passengers on a for-hire basis. It is also known by a variety of other names such as bike taxi, velotaxi, pedicab, bikecab, ...

s. From 1995 to 2015, Bliss owned and operated a pedicab rental business (The ''Hub Station'') in

SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

and then in the West Village. The business also sold and repaired recumbent bicycles,

folding bicycle A folding bicycle is a bicycle designed to fold into a compact form, facilitating transport and storage. When folded, the bikes can be more easily carried into buildings, on public transportation (facilitating mixed-mode commuting and bicyc ...

s, electric bicycles,

kick scooter A kick scooter (also referred to as a push-scooter or scooter) is a human-powered street vehicle with a handlebar, deck, and wheels propelled by a rider pushing off the ground with their leg. Today the most common scooters are made of aluminum, ...

s and

Xootr Xootr (pronounced "zoo-ter") is a manufacturer of folding kick scooters and was formerly a seller of folding bicycles. Xootr scooters are characterized by 180 mm wheels with aluminum hubs, and a hand brake for the front wheel (for the rear o ...

s with electric motors attached. Facing rent increases, and competition from the Citi Bike bike share, Bliss closed his retail location. Later he opened a traditional bike store in the

West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, West 14th Street to th ...

, near the

Hudson River Greenway The Manhattan Waterfront Greenway is a waterfront greenway for walking or cycling, long, around the island of Manhattan, in New York City. The largest portions are operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. It is separate ...

, HUB, (Hudson Urban Bicycles).

References

Thomas Beller's
article in Slate

The New York Times
Transportation: Quadriceps for Hire
New York Magazine
Three-wheelin': pedicabs make inroads on city streets
Columbia

Transportation Alternatives

Downtown Express

The Christian Science Monitor

References

Living people Cycle designers Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) {{US-cycling-bio-stub

See also

References

References