I am so slack.

Back in April, I mentioned the competition to [design the new bike racks New York City][], then promptly forgot to keep an eye on it. The finalists were announced in July and it took an entry at treehugger and a reminder from tom before I bothered to mention it again today. I even saw this entry in the New York Times blogs and it didn't register. But I got there in the end.

They all look both beautiful and practical, although I do wonder about the more curvy ones (especially that orange spirally one)—if people have trouble locking up to straight bars, how much more trouble will they have with something like that? A bike rack shouldn't be a puzzle, although perversely the absent-minded may be forced to lock more carefully to an odd-shaped rack.

And given what's happened lately, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable locking up to David Byrne's dollar sign rack!