If you use a bike for any of the things that most people use a car for—going to work, shopping, keeping appointments in town—and if you don’t have dedicated bike paths linking home to your destination, then you might have concluded that much of the cozy greenwash on the subject of transportation cycling is piffle. There’s the fear factor, for one thing: the knowledge that you dice with death on every ride, and that a moment’s inattention on the part of any one of the hundreds of motorists who pass you on every trip can leave your broken body stretched out on the highway. There’s not much about that in the transportation cycling hymnbook. Understandably, perhaps.

But fear can be mastered. What can’t be easily overcome is the parking problem. It’s all well and good to arrive alive at your destination. But what are you going to do with your bike when you get there? Aye, that’s the rub. And here’s where the glib chat of so-called “bicycle advocates” can reach delusional depths in all but exceptional cases. “Wow!” they opine. “Trade your car for a bike, and you’ll never waste time hunting for a parking space again!” Sure. Of course, you will spend plenty of time clearing snow and ice from buried bike racks in winter. Or wandering around like a latter-day Flying Dutchman, looking for a place to lock up that is (1) legal, (2) safe, and (3) sheltered from rain and snow, not to mention protected from random assault by car, shopping cart, or power chair. Then, when at long last you’ve found a suitable spot and locked up—that can be a five-minute job in its own right if you’re at the limit of your cable’s stretch—you still have to strip every removable object from your bike before you leave it (and then reattach them all before setting off again). On good days, I plan on it taking me something like a quarter-hour to “park” my bike. And on bad days? Let’s just say it makes me think fondly of those happy times when I could just pull into a parking space, lock the car, and go about my business. Car-free, it seems, is rarely carefree. Not where I live, anyway.

Not surprisingly, I daydream about a better way. But some clever German technical bods have done more than daydream: They’ve developed a fascinating proof-of-concept solution to the bike parking problem. Our Southern Hemisphere Correspondent, Marcos Netto, put me on to it, and I think you’ll agree it’s the answer to every cyclist’s dream. A little touch of blue-sky thinking, maybe, but wonderful, all the same.

Now here it is in action. Check it out (the narration is in German, but if you don’t speak the language, don’t worry; the pictures tell the story):

 
And there’s more good news: You can make one for yourself. The designers have posted the bill of materials on their website. But before you rush off to the shop, heed their warning:

Achtung: Der Fahrradlift ist ein Unikat und wurde speziell für den Dreh des TV Spots entwickelt. Das Modell ist nicht TÜV geprüft. Nachbau und Benutzung auf eigene Gefahr. Angaben ohne Gewähr.

Or, auf Englisch (a very free translation):

Listen up! The BicycleLift is a one-off proof of concept. It’s not TUV-approved, and if you build one, you do so at your own risk. We make no guarantees.

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