Two Bicycles Built For Two

Inventors have been trying for many years to design a device that would link two bikes side-by-side so that bicyclists can ride together. Now the creator of the Barbie doll and a Valencia engineer have found a way: a cross-linked polyethylene connector that attaches two bikes in minutes and includes insets for drinks and a rear cargo department.

Jack Ryan, 60, one-time vice president of research and design for Mattel Inc., who counts Barbie among his 1,000-plus patents, and Bruce Parker, 64, who developed a polyethylene garbage can used by the City of Beverly Hills, co-invented the device, which they call the Ditto Bike.

With mounting hardware, it weighs 13 pounds and measures 51 by 26 inches. The inventors recommend that the device be installed the first time by a bike dealership, but after that it can be linked or unlinked easily by the bicyclist.

Parker, who holds a dozen plastics patents, conceded the concept was not new but said the duo resolved what had perplexed other inventors--crystallization of metal from twisting, wracking and torsion. The polyethylene is durable enough to take the pressure, he said.

Locally, Valencia Schwinn and Sylmar Schwinn sell the linking device, which is manufactured in Pacoima. The cost is $225 to $250. He said the bike connector, which is available in a variety of colors, is designed to fit almost all styles of bicycles and can also link 26- and 20-inch bicycles with each other.

Ryan, of Santa Monica, said the bikes that are connected by the Ditto Bike are especially suitable for senior citizens because “you don’t need good balance and you can ride slowly.” But people of any age can enjoy the company of side-by-side riding, much as people have enjoyed tandem bicycles for generations, he said.

“This is a fun way to ask a girl for a date,” said Ryan, who added that when he was young, before he owned a car, he would ask girls out to ride a tandem bike, where one rider sits in front of the other.

Tom MacLennan, manager of Valencia Schwinn, where a yellow Ditto Bike stops curious customers at the front door, said that in his 11 years in the bicycle business he has seen the linkage concept tried, although unsuccessfully, with metal braces.

The nice thing about the Ditto Bike attachment, he said, is that “one person can fall asleep and the other can do all the work.”