Further to my post yesterday on Cycling in Norway, I want to share an interesting piece of bicycle equipment with you. The sykkel heis/trampe (bicycle elevator/lift) was invented in Trondheim, Norway in 1993 and is currently the only one of it’s kind in the world. Why Trondheim, you might wonder?
1) Trondheim is a university city with over 30,000 students.
2) Trondheim, like many other Norwegian cities is very hilly.
3) Jarle Wanvik, the inventor of the sykkel heis and owner of the company that built it, Design Management AS, is from Trondheim!
Wanvik wanted to use ski lift technology to design a machine that would increase the number of cyclists and frequency of cycling, while addressing the commuters´challenge of enduring sweat and overexertion on the way to work or school. Nobody wants to show up to work or to school all sweaty and exhausted. The University of Trondheim is at the top of a large hill, so most of the students have to climb that hill on a daily basis to get to class.
In order to use the lift, one must obtain a key card from the nearby bicycle repair shop. The cost is 100 NOK per year. Tourists and one-time users can rent a card for free. The lift is about 130 meters (400 feet long) long. The maximum length of a bicycle lift is 400 meters (about 1200 feet). The speed of the lift is 1.5-2 meters per second. 5 cyclists can use the lift at the same time. Please see the technical explanation from the official website here:
It consists of a wire rope with 11 foot plates attached to the rope. On its way downhill, the foot plates are cleaning the lift channel. At the starting point, there is an accelerator (kind of piston) to make the start easier. The foot plate takes over the cyclist after the accelerator. At the top of the hill, you find the 5,5 kW electric motor.
After the sykkel heis was installed, bicycling in Trondheim became more and more popular. Over 220,000 people have used it! And over 20 million NOK have been spent over the past 20 years in the city of Trondheim to encourage bicycling as a mode of transport. The official site of the Trampe is a very informative site that I enjoyed perusing. You will find many photos, videos, the history of Trampe, User instructions, and more.
Watch this great You Tube Clip on the Sykkel heis
Click here to see more pictures of sykkel heis on a blog.
I attended St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, where I majored in Norwegian and History. During college, I spent almost a year living in Oslo, Norway, where I attended the University of Oslo and completed an internship at the United States Embassy. I have worked for Concordia Language Villages as a pre-K Norwegian teacher and have taught an adult Norwegian language class. Right now, I keep up by writing this Norwegian blog for Transparent Language. Please read and share your thoughts! I will be continuing this blog from my future residence in the Norwegian arctic!
