The Hermansen e-bike tells the story of Danish designer Anders Hermansen’s life-long love for bikes and bike riding and reflects his characteristic design style that merges conceptual transparency, functional performance and minimalist aesthetics.
Working with Bang & Olufsen for more than 20 years was a great space to explore and develop unique design. Examples include Anders’ BeoPlay V1 TV, the BeoSound 5 music player, and the Earset 3i. The latter is a decade long B&O classic that stands the test every summer when worn by professional bike riders during races like Tour de France and Giro d’Italia.
Bikes are a great part of Anders’ childhood memories: “As a child I had a lot of bikes. On average, I had at least ten bikes stored in our basement. In an infinity, I disassembled them, mixed the parts and components and reassembled them into new configurations that I found interesting or fun.”
In his professional career, the urge to design a bike has always been in play:
“The appealing, yet difficult challenge has been to fundamentally rethink but also match the beautiful logic and performance of the classic diamond frame.
I have tried many times without really having the feeling that I nailed it. Then a few years back, after becoming a parent for the second time, I thought it would be fun to design a bike for my family.
This somehow gave me a new kind of spark. One morning when I started sketching with my 3-dimensional steel wire hand-sketching method, it suddenly happened in a matter of minutes. The ‘dots’ connected and I had the feeling that ‘yes, this is it!’ because the asymmetric frame unites a strict and static logic with a human organic expression in a way that feels just right."