Hasta La Gadget!

Kevin Scott’s bike bends in the middle, and can be almost tied around a lamppost when locking it up.

The bendable bike has the top and down-tubes replaced by segmented sections, similar in appearance to an armored cable-lock. A ratchet mechanism on the seat-tube cranks the segments tight, stiffening the frame so it can be ridden.

It’s kind of neat, but you’ll still have to carry a lock to secure the bicycle after wrapping it around a pole, and the weight of the complex frame along the bulk of the crank-arm probably outweigh the extra locks they will be replacing.

I’d also worry about vandalism. An already-damaged bike seems to attract kicks and damage faster than an untouched one, and when locked up Kevin’s design looks like it has already received a beating. That’s not to say the bendy bike wouldn’t be useful: It would be easy to fit into a corner of a small apartment, and easy to squeeze around the corners of a tight stairwell.

The incredible ‘bendy bicycle’ [Daily Mail]

Industrial Design student is New Designer of the Year runner-up [De Montfort University]

See Also:

• Popular Mechanics Gallery of 10 Amazing Bike Redesigns
• Six Crazy Concept Bikes You'll Never Ride
• Cannondale Concept Updates The Dutch Bike
• Cannondale Concept Cross-Breeds Bike and Shopping-Cart
• Peugeot Concept Bike Channels Tron

British police are using poorly-locked or even unlocked “bait-bikes” to catch thieves. The bikes are loaded with hidden GPS tracking devices so the cops can simply wait for the stolen ride to end up at its final destination, letting them bust Mr. Big instead of just constantly pruning the teen-gangs and junkies that do the actual stealing.

According to test schemes, it works. After Cambridge police used bait-bikes, theft at a local railway station fell by 45%, reports the Guardian. The same article tells us that even in London, theft fell by 30%.

Bike theft is driven by the market. Recently I spoke to a bike polo player from Amsterdam, and he told me that people will buy two bikes for around €10 each if they lose their own bike, just so they have a spare. He knew that this was fueling the problem, but the alternative is to buy a brand new bike and have that stolen instead.

To me, the bait-bikes sound like a great idea. Not only do they allow the cops to catch the organized gangs behind the crimes, they sow paranoia amongst the foot-soldiers, making all bikes a less attractive target.

Inevitably, though, there is opposition. Some cite “entrapment” (not illegal in the UK, it seems), and others complain of false positives, as in the case of a drunken student who rode an unlocked bike home and then got a visit from the police (he was let off). These are technical issues, which will vary from country to country. I’m more interested in what you think. I know we have a lot of cyclists reading Gadget Lab, so let us know your opinions in the comments. Is it morally wrong to use bait-bikes? Or is anything acceptable if it stops people from stealing our rides?

Sure, we’ll never reach a lock-free utopia where we can just leave our bikes out in the street overnight, propped naked against a wall (unless we move to Canada), but it would be nice not to have to wrap the bike in twice its weight in chains and hardened-steel shackles just to stop off for a six-pack.

Bait bikes: the way to beat theft gangs or entrapment? [Guardian]

Photo: gen gibson/Flickr

Is it me, or are bike racks and baskets getting hotter and hotter? The latest example is the made-to-order Bent Basket by San Francisco designer Faris Elmasu. The plywood, nylon and aluminum construction sits over the front wheel where you can gaze upon its lovely curves as you ride.

In practical terms, the Bent Basket looks to be top-notch. You may not be able to toss in small items and ride away, but the open design with those stretchy straps is more versatile than either a tall basket or a narrow rack. Strapping a MacBook Pro straight onto it when it is mounted on a bike with skinny hard tires and no suspension may not be the best idea, though, despite the picture showing this dubious practice on the product site.

The maximum load is listed as a “12-pack of beer” and it is designed for the wheel-size of a 700c road bike, which pretty much means carrying Pabst Blue Ribbon on a fixed-gear bike. If you have a more utilitarian bicycle, there are less fancy-looking cargo-platforms available, for undoubtedly less cash.

Talking of price, you’ll need to get in touch with Elmasu to work something out, as each “basket” is hand-built. So beautifully simple is the design, though, that a quick trip to your local kitchenware emporium (for the tray) followed by a stop at the hardware store (everything else) should equip you to make your own, something I’m now planning to do. If you do make one, post images to the Gadget Lab Flickr Group, or just mail them in.

Bent Basket product page [Bent Basket via Design Boom]

See Also:

• Beautiful Minimal Bike Basket Built Into Handlebars
• Bike Porter: Handlebars With Built-In Basket

Shimano thinks that an electric bike “has to be a bicycle.” To this end, a new component set is designed to integrate with an existing bike to convert it into a full-on e-bike, but still let it work as a regular bicycle.

The system is called STEPS, which stands for Shimano Total Electric Power System. In the full set you’ll get a 250-watt front hub motor (geared), a torque-sensing bottom-bracket, a rotation-sensing crankset, a rack-mounted battery with integrated rear lamp, a pair of brake levers with switches to control everything, a front lamp and a bar-mounted computer so you know what it is all doing.

Finally, at the back you have one of Shimano’s 8-speed Nexus hubs which has electronic shifting.

The STEPS system has all the modern features you’d expect, from regenerative-braking (switched on when you hit the brakes), a Li-Ion battery (a one-hour charge gives 25 or 37 miles range depending on power-mode) and a decent-enough top speed of 15 mph.

You can mix and match parts, swapping in V-brakes and the like, although having the powered-hub without the battery would be rather pointless. The price has not yet been announced, as the STEPS system will launch at Eurobike in September. And while you’ll surely be able to grab the parts yourself, you’re more likely to see STEPS showing up as an option on ready-made bikes.

E-Bikes are certainly getting popular, and if they get more people cycling that’s got to be a good thing, right?. What do you think? Are electric bikes a good or a bad thing?

Shimano Launches Components Range for Electric Bikes [Bike Europe via Bicycle Design and Bike Radar]

With a rather ingenious piece of engineering, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials have come up with a way to force you to replace a damaged crash helmet: Make it stink.

A bike helmet is designed to absorb any impact meant for your head. Like your head, it will break when given a good enough whack, and also like your head, it won’t really work properly afterwards. The new Fraunhofer design mixes malodorous chemical capsules into the helmet’s shell. When the plastic is damaged, the oils are released and your head starts to smell like a hobo’s crotch.

The use of smelly chemicals to alert us to danger isn’t new: the gas that we use to cook is odorless and therefore undetectable without added smell. The Fraunhofer researchers haven’t specified the actual aroma they might use, but I favor something rank. If your lid starts to smell like roses, it is a warning easily ignored. If, however, it makes your noggin emit a hum that makes a dog’s breath seem like a fresh spring breeze then you will be shamed into buying a replacement.

Crash helmet with a useful smell [Physorg via DVICE]

Photo: Fraunhofer IWM