Podcast transcript  

Matt Starnes (00:02):

Hey, Matt Starnes here, your host of Sweepers and Tankers podcast. Just want to let you guys know this episode is pretty special. It hearkens back to the day when street sweeping was just starting to get an idea of the origin of street sweeping itself, not really on purpose, but just the way that things shake out. Intrigued? Give the podcast a view and a listen. It's all about bike lane sweeper. For those of you who are just listening, that's fine too. You probably want to go afterwards, go ahead and check out our Bucher Municipal North America YouTube channel so you could see some of the slides that we're talking about and some short videos we're also talking about on the podcast. So all right, buckle up, and here we go.

Matt Starnes (00:53):

All right. Pierre Lermant, thanks for joining us. Really excited about this. I want you to tell everybody exactly what this is. But to me, it almost hearkens back to the origins of street sweeping, what you're doing and just that, "Hey, we need to clean it up, and just to go about it the most efficient way you can." But tell us a little bit about yourself and what exactly bike lane sweeping entails.

Pierre Lermant (01:22):

Hi, Matt. Thank you for having me today. Yeah, my name is Pierre Lermant. I've been a San Francisco resident for quite a few years now and an avid biker. The idea came about when I was riding my bike to work. The commute is about 10 miles. I realized that all the surfaces I was struggling on were really dirty. It could be glass, gravel, or even branches, or you name it. Week over week, you notice that these bike lanes would not get cleaned. But you had the different cities with traveling... I was traveling through so I figured, wouldn't it be nice to basically make my own sweeper so that I can clean the bike lanes that I drive along. So that's how I came up with the idea.

Matt Starnes (02:12):

Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, I used to, probably aging myself here a little bit, but I used to take apart and build my own Frankenstein 10 speed back in the day.

Pierre Lermant (02:23):

Yeah, same idea here.

Matt Starnes (02:25):

Yeah, I should get back to it. I'd be much skinnier, but I do know, I definitely understand what you're saying because a lot of times, even the small ones, a little bit of debris, anything can make you go flying over those handlebars if it's-

Pierre Lermant (02:41):

Exactly. So you hear it and for your listeners so they know I'm showing some visual support for the people that can watch the whole thing at home. Typically, the different bikeways can be broken down into bike lanes, that aren't just part of the shoulder and they are bordered by a gutter and the under curb. More recently, and this is developing pretty rapidly, we're seeing more and more protected bike lanes that are basically protected on both sides either by soft barriers or decorated things, flower beds, you name it. Then obviously, the millions of miles of just road size where bicycles travel on highways or secondary roads. As you mentioned, that creates problem. The fact that there is so much debris on these lanes and these debris accumulates over time. The natural flow, airflow that the cars and trucks traveling these main roads, they just tend to push all the debris to the side right where the bicyclist travel.

Pierre Lermant (03:52):

So yeah, you get flat tires, if you ever had that. I don't know if you cycle, but if you've ever had a flat tire, it's not fun to change, even less fun if you don't have a patch and then you have to call someone to pick you up. If the surface gets slippery, you could have an accident. I think you just mentioned, you could just wipe out. But probably the worst part is that, and I've seen myself do it so I know it happen, when we see that the bike lane is dirty, what do we do? We move over to the main traffic lanes, which obviously defeats the whole purpose of a bike lane. So there's an obvious need to have something to clean up these bike lanes.

Matt Starnes (04:32):

Yeah, I totally agree. I like seeing bike lanes. I'm near Charlotte, North Carolina, so other part of the country across from where you are here, but same thing. I love seeing the bike lanes and people there, but sometimes, yeah, I'll see it could be even like a real road, like a traditional motorist road, a roadkill, or-

Pierre Lermant (04:56):

Exactly.

Matt Starnes (04:58):

... whatever. It's like you don't really think of it sometimes in that manner, but yeah, they're quite a lot of hazards actually. It's almost like a runway. You need that to be very clear, so there's no-

Pierre Lermant (05:12):

Even cleaner than the traditional road.

Matt Starnes (05:14):

Yeah.

Pierre Lermant (05:15):

So it's not like it's the first time we realized the streets or bike lanes need to be swept. I'm showing here basically the conventional ways to clean these bikeways on the left-hand side. This is just a traditional what I'll call full-sized sweepers. You guys are in the industry. I won't go at great length, but what they do, you know a lot more than I do. But what I can guess that they are very expense, not only to purchase, but to operate, to maintain, to store. They need a specialized staff. It's not that I could jump in one of these trucks and just start sweeping. It's a pretty advanced technology these days. Due to their sheer size, they obviously cannot say access protected bike lanes, and even some highways where it could just be too much of a hazard to have a huge vehicle possibly go at a slow pace, sweeping the shoulders.

Pierre Lermant (06:18):

More recently, when you read the biking news, you're aware of it, especially in the bay area that tries to be as ecological as possible, we've seen the advent of basically scaled down sweepers that fit the protected bike lanes. They are very cute. They do, I'm sure, a great job, but in a way, they still suffer from a very high cost of acquisition, United States operation and maintenance. They are specially designed for protected bike lanes, so it comes in addition to traditional sweepers. Obviously, I'm not saying we're going to replace these. These are here to stay. What I'm trying to say is that maybe there is room for another category of devices that are much cheaper to operate and that basically could be acquired by a lot more people or municipalities because the costs would be so much lower. So that's what I-

Matt Starnes (07:23):

I think that's a good point too. Obviously, I work for Bucher Municipal and we make truck-managed sweepers and the bike lane sweepers, the compact sweepers as well. But the truth of matter is that a lot of small municipalities with a very small tax base, till you get to a certain tax base, you're not going to be able to afford some equipment. So I think what you're proposing is, again, going back to that origins of sweeping, where it's a simpler approach and you can actually exercise and get in shape at the same time, which is neat, right?

Pierre Lermant (08:05):

Exactly. I think that the sweepers not only they are a lot more costly, but their goal is slightly different. Again, you guys are the experts, so forgive me if I'm not right on the target, but I think it's beyond just collecting the debris and the garbage. The efficacy or the traditional sweeper, the industrial sweepers is really to grind the pavement very, very tightly so that the smaller particles will be picked up and won't flow into the drain right here. The goal is not necessarily to have a surface that's perfectly impeccable with nothing left behind, but something that basically is no longer a hazard for the bikers and then make just the surface smooth enough and looking good enough so that people actually stay in the bike lanes. So what I try to set for myself as a goal is, and it's listed here, that it should be very economical.

Pierre Lermant (09:02):

When I say economical, it's like orders of magnitude is less than the industrial sweepers in use. It should be ecological, that goes without saying, because biking is part of the ecology movement. I wanted these device to be operated by anyone or very, very minimal training. So basically, a low tech device, although I work in the Silicon Valley. I'm going against the grain and proposing something that actually, as you mentioned, back to the basic of sweeping. Obviously, this device should be able to sweep any bike way that I categorize again from the protected bike lanes all the way to highway roadsides, basically.

Matt Starnes (09:51):

Yeah. You have some nice video on bikelanesweeper.com of it fitting in back of an automobile trunk. So it's not a huge unit. To your point, you're not trying to get every little fine piece of particulate matter there. Oh, there you go. Excellent, excellent.

Pierre Lermant (10:13):

Right. So over the past year and in a way, thank you, COVID. That was one of the very few, a positive side of the pandemic that I did spend more time at home. Since I was pretty motivated with this idea, as I said it came about two years ago, I built a couple of prototype that I'll describe as I run the different videos. As you said, it can be seen at bikelanesweeper.com or on my Facebook page. On the left-hand side is what I call the angle sweeper to describe it. It's just a regular cylindrical brush that's rotating against the direction of motion. It's angled, so that as it moves forward, it'll push the debris to the side. It's very good for roadsides when on the side, you'd have a natural landscaping or gravel, or even in urban areas where the bike lane is bordered by a gutter under curb.

Pierre Lermant (11:15):

Because eventually, that might be cleaned up by industrial sweepers, but in the meanwhile, we could clean up just the bike lane. So I'm going to play the video. These are very short video, but it will give you a sense of how these could be operated. The contact is very minimum between the brush and the pavement. You can tell that I'm just riding my bicycle. My bicycle is not powered by anything. The brush is powered by your motor that you see in the back, but there's very little resistance, that's what I'm trying to show here. You see it does actually a pretty good job of cleaning. This is a bike lane near my house. The great advantage of this solution is that there is no capacity problem. There's no hopper. You push the stuff to the side, either disappears in nature or someone again, later on, we'll bring the full-sized professional sweeper to pick it up. So that's the angle sweeper. On the right-hand-

Matt Starnes (12:19):

Again, you're not riding an e-bike, that's a traditional bike, if you will.

Pierre Lermant (12:22):

Exactly. On this topic, I think eventually, because I could see it's always easy on their little stretch short of 100 yards to power the device. I think of maybe a pathway that go uphill or for long distances. I do have this vision that eventually, an e-bike would tow the devices. And thinking even a bit further, I'm thinking of the e-bike, a battery and electronics would control the sweeper. That's the ultimate way where you'd have a package bicycle and sweeper that work in concert.

Matt Starnes (12:58):

Very good.

Pierre Lermant (13:00):

So on the right-hand side is a sweeper with a hopper. The brush is the same, but this time it runs orthogonal to the direction of motion, so basically, it picks up the debris and these are wrapped around guard all the way around the brush that dumps the debris into a hopper in the back. This is in Cupertino, in the bay area where they built this protected bike lane not long ago. I went there to show this little demo. Same thing, pretty easy to pull. The bike lane this time was pretty clean so you won't see a lot of debris, but I'm sure you get the idea. It works also very well. It would be way economical alternative to the dedicated bike lane sweeper, with the so-called mini bike lane sweeper. Now I understand the capacity is not the same. If I could do the same thing, the traditional sweepers do at 100th of the cost, I'd be rich by now, but this is all about a balancing act.

Matt Starnes (14:06):

Yeah. How big is your, in the prototype here on the right, that hopper? Do you know? Roughly-

Pierre Lermant (14:15):

Yeah, good question. It's about riding or give or taking with the size of the hopper, but it's about 40 pounds, by the half of it being the brush. That's what you said that I have my daughter you saw on the video. Poor daughter, she was not very happy doing it. I knew I wanted to show that a young lady could actually take it out of a car. That's another benefit is that you could put it in the back of a standard car, a station wagon, and just take it with your bike wherever it's needed. Last thing I can say about the prototype that except for the brush, which obviously was custom made, all the parts are really were ordered online. So it's all off of the shelf, including the motor that happens to be used, I think, in some e-bike when the motor is tied to the crank. So pretty easy to build, just a matter of dedication and time.

Matt Starnes (15:14):

Yeah, absolutely.

Pierre Lermant (15:17):

So where do I stand? You've seen two prototypes. I know they work. I'm working on the third one where I would combine it with the same frame these two approaches, the angled brush that pushes the debris to the side and the horizontal brush with a hopper that picks up the debris. I'd like to find one system or with the same frame just by changing the configuration of the sweeper. I could actually alternate the mode so that we could with one machine, pick up what mode you want to use that day. So anyway, these prototypes work, but I need help, any help to move to what I call a proto product, which would be the very first instance of a product if it ever gets to be productized. I'd like to have these proto product done not only for the sweepers themselves, but also as we mentioned, a possible e-bike connectivity, how we could basically power this sweeper from the e-bike, from the e-bike battery and control.

Matt Starnes (16:31):

Interesting. Any designs? Did you go on a Shark Tank or one of those shows or?

Pierre Lermant (16:38):

I wish. Obviously, I have looked at this. I've looked at also crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, and all the things that could be in the balance, but from what I've seen, to be successful in these endeavors, you do need with what I call again, a proto product. They want to see some kind of potential. They want to see that it's already been manufactured, even if it's one only one sample. They want to see the finished product. So it might come, hopefully will, but it will be a little later.

Matt Starnes (17:12):

You have to catch.

Pierre Lermant (17:15):

Potential market did something on paper. Obviously, as I said, there's millions of roadsides to be a swept, but who would be willing to buy such a device and how many people would actually use it? I tried to anticipate who would be candidates for this product. So far, I see two kind of pools of buyers. It would be the bike clubs, because since the price point would be pretty low. Bike club that are sick of seeing their preferred route littered could buy or share a device. Even individuals have reached out to me because I'm on social media and they say, "Okay, I want to buy one now. How much is it?" I say, "Well, I need to productize it, but I'm keeping your name handy when it becomes a product." Obviously, municipalities as an option to come as a compliment, obviously, to what they already have. Instead of sweeping at very high cost some bike lanes, maybe once a week, that could be once a month, and in between use these economical device to just keep the bike lane cleaned between more intense sweeping.

Matt Starnes (18:28):

Yeah, yeah.

Pierre Lermant (18:29):

So that's also something I'll spend a bit more time on, try to gauge and size the market. So that's me. I'm showing a picture right outside my house for posterity. Remember it was during the COVID with the mask on. I don't wear it anymore. Just again, if anyone is interested, either just feedback, comments, any resources that could be put to work, just type in your browser bikelanesweeper in one word, and hopefully either my website or my Facebook page would come up.

Matt Starnes (19:11):

That's excellent. It's interesting, I was reading an article about street sweeping in Jamaica, which I guess is really, really challenging. The only roads that are comparable to the United... I've been there once, but I was only on dirt roads up in the mountains. So I never saw Pedro when I was there, but very briefly, but it was talking about the toll roads that they have now that you have to obviously pay to access are pretty comparable to US regular surface straight up traffic roads. But the majority of it is either dirt or they're very broken up and not maintained very well. But it was just something like this, having just read a little bit of that this morning, that interests me. That might be a possible application as well for you, and not only Jamaica, but other countries where obviously, there's a lot of bike riding already. Even somewhere like China might be a good option,-

Pierre Lermant (20:14):

Right.

Matt Starnes (20:15):

... the bike rider. Also, what fantastic exercise, right?

Pierre Lermant (20:18):

Yeah. On top of that, that's why I named my website ride and clean, so hopefully it will entice people. There's also all the very different applications like golf courses, right?

Matt Starnes (20:32):

Yeah.

Pierre Lermant (20:32):

These things are long enough so that it's hard to clean by hand, but you won't buy a sweeper to clean your pathways between the different greens, maybe not. I'm still in the discovery phase as far as a market.

Matt Starnes (20:46):

Very good. Very good. This picture could be famous. We could be looking back just like the Wright brothers with their airplane.

Pierre Lermant (20:54):

All right.

Matt Starnes (20:55):

This is when Pierre launched the-

Pierre Lermant (20:59):

We'll see.

Matt Starnes (21:00):

... launched it. So it's exciting. But yeah, I'd really love to check in with you in the future and just check in from time to time, see how it's going, and keep in touch for sure.

Pierre Lermant (21:12):

I will, for sure. Thanks again for having me.

Matt Starnes (21:15):

Absolutely.