How often are you out on a bike ride when you’re faced with a hill that you just can’t quite cycle up? Maybe you don’t have any juice left in your e-bike battery, or you don’t have enough gears to make the hill manageable. Usually, this would leave you struggling on, or giving up and pushing. In Norway, however, they have dedicated lifts to carry cyclists up steep hills.
In the town of Trondheim, Norway, there’s a creation called the Trampe. It’s a specially designed bike lift that was installed along the side of a road way back in 1993. The lift whisks bikes out the way of cars traveling up the hill by scooting them along at speeds of around five miles per hour, without the rider needing to exert any energy at all. It looks fantastic.
The Trampe, which carries more than 20,000 cyclists every year, carries riders in Norway up a 500-foot, 18 percent incline. To board the bike escalator, riders simply have to rest their foot against a spring-loaded plate. Then, with their other foot still on the pedal, they tap the start button and the plate slowly moves up the hill. As the Troondhein tourist board explains:
The elevator has two speeds; one for beginners and one for experienced users. After a few seconds, the user is pushed forward on a footplate that appears. A common mistake among tourists and first-time users has been that they do not keep their right legs outstretched and bend forward. This makes it difficult to keep your balance and can cause them to fall off. If someone falls off, the spring loaded foot plate will disappear under the ground.
On every trip up the Brubakken hill, the bike lift can carry five riders, each with their own plate to cling onto over the course of the ride.
While the bike lift was originally installed and carried its first passengers way back in 1993, the elevator hasn’t been running this whole time. It was closed down in 2012 and underwent repairs, after which it reopened better than aver and with a new name: CycloCable.
Now, the CycloCable remains operational and is capable of carrying as many as 300 cyclists up the hill in Trondhein every hour.
Image: Open Source Lab