“Sometimes, couples need help getting pregnant. In Seattle, that help may arrive by bicycle. To be more specific, a bicycle with a giant sperm cell replica on it. “It’s a delivery bike, purpose-built delivery bike, and inside the front of the sperm we can store one of our cryogenic shipping containers,” says Alan Dowden, lab scientist and occasional courier. Dowden works at the Seattle Sperm Bank. The front of the bike is the bulbous head of a sperm, about the size of very large beach ball, with a long tail stretching behind. It’s framed in electric blue. “You can’t help but feel a little self-conscious when you get all the looks,” he says. “But it’s mostly smiles, so it feels good, to be honest. It feels good.” The bike makes local deliveries, although the sperm bank ships as far as Australia. Manager Gary Olsem says the idea for the bike came from the sperm bank’s parent company in Denmark, where the owner is a cycling enthusiast. ‘He was looking for a way to deliver the samples in a more earth-friendly way, that also could be used as a marketing tool to bring more attention to sperm banking in general,’ he says.” w/ photo
