Cleveland CycleWerks has sponsored several semesters at Cleveland Institute of Art, they have strategically aligned themselves with several universities for the last 5 years, and most of what they are doing is not public. There is the public Cleveland, and the big picture Cleveland. They generally do not release any information to the public until they are ready to release the product, but the student work gives them a sense of where our vision for the future is.

Scott Colosimo: “Cleveland CycleWerks has a public face and a private face. Publicly, we fill a specific niche, and it has a certain aesthetic, a lifestyle component, and that is how we are viewed in the public lens. It seems like a rather unsophisticated company, and we are OK with that because we produce beautiful, affordable products that fill a unique niche in the market.”

“Privately, we have been creating advanced development projects for the last 6 years, exploring transportation, and trying to get a solid handle on what transportation is. That may sound simple, but major OEM’s do not know anymore either. Our partnerships with universities are crucial to giving us direct feedback from the people who will be running our world in a few short years.”

“Technology has evolved so quickly that it is changing an entire industry, and those of us on the inside are either excited (like Cleveland), or scared (the traditional motorcycle companies). Car companies are not going to be car companies anymore, bike companies, motorcycle companies, these old paradigms are not going to exist in 10 years, that is only 2 product cycles in automotive and motorcycle design.”

The students of CIA had the task to show the Cleveland brand what the future of mobility will look like.

“We are encouraging the students to think deeper on the business model, to explore socially conscious design, to understand what is broken with transportation, and to not just provide an incremental improvement, but solution that propel the brand into the future. We are 1/2 way through the semester, and we already have some amazing solutions to todays transportation problems.”

Note, this is midterm, so these are not the final concepts, this is in progress work at the halfway point. If anyone is interested in a students for an internship or full time design positions, please contact Scott Colosimo: Scott@ClevelandCycleWerks.com

Note from EMN: all published pictures have been chosen ad random. We don’t now any students and we wish them all good luck this year!