Empire Public School celebrated Earth Day today with an environmental fair.  The Bicycle Forest was invited to promote the benefits of cycling.  We brought along a laptop so kids could design their own bikes using BikeCAD.  Here are a couple of designs created by the kids.  Pretty creative!

Because it was rainy today, Mohrgan and I elected to ride the pickup truck bike. We stayed nice and dry as we pedalled away inside. There was room in the back for a Hulabike, so we brought that along too. Both bikes were a big hit with the kids.

Here’s a video of our ride across town.

BikeCAD 5.01 is now available.   New features that are common to BikeCAD and BikeCAD Pro include:

• The ability to change any colour on the bike including tires, rims, saddle, handlebars and stem
• Two new paint schemes to highlight lugs
• New XML file structure
• A notes section to record customer info and additional comments about the design
• Bullhorn handlebar option
• Aerobars can be used in combination with any handlebar
• Choose between traditional aerobars and S-bend style aerobars
• Control pedal dimensions
• Individually control the placement of dimensions on the screen.
• Improved dimension style (New arrows.  Text size is infinitely adjustable)
• Selectively read in elements from BCAD files.
• Decal display is no longer tied to paint schemes.  Decals can be displayed on any of the three main frame tubes through simple checkboxes.

New features that are available in BikeCAD Pro include:

• A new customization dialog box (the bikecad.properties file is now obsolete)
• The option to edit the library of standard forks and wheels
• New customization interface for the Fit advisor
• The Fit advisor can now recommend values for handlebar drop
• User defined dimensions
• Title block display
• Improved PDF export (Sample PDF with dimensions, Sample PDF with rider)