It's the chicken wing that put Buffalo, N.Y., on the map, but a businesswoman is hoping her latest invention will become the next big thing to give her hometown something new to be known for.
Ice bikes are the hottest items in the wintry town of Buffalo, where people wait for hours in line to ride one of the dozen of specially designed bikes down the expansive stretch of the Ice on Canalside ice rink, despite the wintry cold season plaguing this part of the country this time of the year.
Lisa Florczak of Lancaster, co-owner of a family business called Water Bikes of Buffalo, came up with the unusual contraption when the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. put out a call for new ideas for the new skating rink. Florczak's family rents pontoon bikes for riders who want to pedal them on the Buffalo River during the warmer months, so it was only natural for her to wonder if it was possible to ride a bike on ice.
Indeed, it is. A simple Internet search led Florczak to a recumbent bicycle made for use on ice in Beijing, China, where the biker had to sit in a reclining position. But she couldn't find additional information, so she proceeded to draft her own design and bring it to General Welding and Fabricating in Elma, outside Buffalo, which built the ice bikes based on a regular bike she bought from Walmart.
The 26-inch ice bike has two pedals, a handlebar, a studded rear wheel, a skate blade in place of the front wheel and axle, and additional blades under the frame. To ride it is simple; it's the same as riding a regular bike, but one does not need to balance the ice bike. To turn on the brakes, one only needs to pedal backwards. Riders need to be at least 48 inches tall to ride an ice bike. They must also wear a helmet and sign a waiver.
"We tried to address every possible safety issue that might come up," Florczak says in an interview with the Buffalo News. "Some blades flew too fast, which made them unsafe for a rink full of people. When we tested the bike, one of our concerns was what it could do to the ice. The rink guards said they did as much to the ice as a five-year-old would do while ice skating."
Sure enough, people are eating up the ice bikes the same way they eat up all those Buffalo wings. Christina Schultz, a graphic designer who just moved to town, says she felt very comfortable on an ice bike.
"We felt totally safe on the bikes, finding it very hard to tip over," she says. "Following in with everyone was also surprisingly easy."
Florczak says her family might start selling individual ice bikes to the public, with prices starting at $1,800, or ice bike kits to convert regular bikes into these hot new bikes. She also says the family plans to sell the ice bikes to other cold-weather cities in Canada, Wyoming, Michigan, and Minnesota to keep off-season busy.
