Eric Rich is Pedaling his Pianobike Across Europe

Photos by Elizabeth Wilhelmsen (@ewlizzi)

Eric Rich is a roofer, carpenter, and visual artist from Salt Lake City, Utah, who fell in love with the piano after teaching himself to play in his early 20s. In the years since, he’s also helped create some truly fascinating pianobikes, a future version of which he’ll be riding across Europe next summer as part of his Pedaled Piano project.

In 2010, Eric’s brother designed and built the first pianobike, which he says was more of a piano trailer, for roughly $500. The 100-year-old piano it was built around wasn’t in great shape to begin with, and it was poorly stored when not in use. There were some design flaws with the original trailer design too, so it was retired after just three years in 2013.

The next year, Eric and his former busking partner Corbin launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to build a second version of the pianobike, which is shown in the photos here. They raised around $7,000. Money in hand, the pair realized their dream of a new piano on wheels thanks to welding and engineering help from a couple of friends.

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Beyond making it more durable and easier to maneuver than the original version, one key consideration was designing it to be more compact for ease of transportation when it wasn’t being ridden. When I asked Eric what went into building the second version, he told me he wanted it to feel special and unique—not like something that’d been slapped together. To that end, Eric and company designed a reverse steering linkage and cantilevered the rider out over the front wheel, resulting in a unique design that’s as functional as it is eye-catching.

The process of building the updated pianobike involved countless hours of research to figure out how everything would ultimately fit together. Diving deeper into its construction, Eric said, “Certain parts and details are highly specific and go unnoticed by passersby. For example, the bottom bracket needed to bring the chain line out as far as possible, so we scoured the internet for the widest possible bottom bracket. Then, we needed a left-drive chainring made for a tandem bike that drives the internally geared hub. We mounted a cog where the disc brake usually goes, which then transfers to another chainline that goes to the drive wheel. That’s a mouthful, but those details were so fun. As parts came in and ideas were coming together, I hand-drafted everything to see how it would all come together.”

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In the lead-up to the COVID-19 pandemic, Eric had been scheming a radically different third approach to the pianobike based on an Una Corda piano, which doesn’t have the cabinetry of a typical piano and uses a single string per note instead of three like a traditional piano. He spent some time in Hungary working with David Klavins, the German-Latvian designer of the Una Corda, and met with the Austria-based team at GLEAM Bikes to discuss the possibility of integrating a custom carbon fiber Una Corda into one of their e-cargo bikes. The pandemic hit just as plans for the third pianobike started to take shape, halting progress.

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After some time away from the project, Eric recently announced that he’s working on a third version of the pianobike, though he’s not ready to disclose details of what form it will take just yet. Among the pianobike ideas floating around are versions that are electric or human-powered, carbon fiber or stainless, and integrated with a bike or pulled behind one. Eric says nothing is set in stone just yet, and he’ll reveal details when the time is right.

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Readers in Europe might be lucky enough to see the new pianobike and catch a performance in person, as Eric plans to ride across mainland Europe next summer, from its northernmost point in Nordkapp, Norway, to the southernmost point in Tarifa, Spain. For now, he envisions using a pop-top camper built into the piano case that he can deploy as a shelter along the way—protecting him and the pianobike—and he’ll play impromptu street concerts between performances in larger cities. He says he’d like to perform in wild places too, and he’ll surely have plenty of opportunities to do so throughout the thousands of kilometers separating Norway and Spain.

Stay tuned for more on Eric’s incredible Pedaled Piano project. For the time being, you can follow along with Eric on Instagram and Tiktok. We’ll be sure to update this post with a link to his new YouTube channel when it launches.

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