Peugeot Concept Bike Channels Tron

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These days, the Peugeot brand is associated more with fixed-gear conversion of old road bikes (those old Peugeot racing frames are well made and good looking) than with modern design. But this hot concept design, the B1K, could mark either a return from Peugeot. Or they could just be the dreams of a fevered employee.

The info is limited to these pictures, and as ever with a bike concept they have some clever features sprinkled onto a fundamentally flawed design: It’s hard to improve on the classic double-triangle frame for holding the essentials – seat, wheels, pedals and handlebars – where they need to be.

What we like here is the handlebar, which puts you in the same position as you would ride a Tron light cycle. On the other, uh, hand it has no bar on which to rest your hands whilst riding more upright. Otherwise, it looks all wrong. The seat could just as easily sit atop a post, and the hubless wheel at the back seems to do nothing but put a strain on one edge while requiring beefy brackets to hold it there.

The chain-less drive might work, but again, why bother when the chain-driven bike is such an efficient vehicle already? Finally, what’s going on with those tires? Are they really held on with string, or do performance bikes need little cozies to keep their poor feet warm these days?

Gorgeous Peugeot B1K Concept Bicycle [Bike Rumor]


Bike-Mounted Bookshelf for Suicidal Readers

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This is the Performance Book Caddy, a $20 sheet of steel that could be the death of you, literally. The caddy clamps onto the handlebars of your bike and supports any manner of reading material so you can catch up on the morning’s news as you hurtle through downtown commuter traffic.

“Ok, Mr. Snark,” I hear you say, “this is meant for stationary bikes.” That might be the obvious answer, but it is wrong. Here’s the pitch, direct from the Performance Bicycle site:

Trying to find time to catch up on your reading and training? Do both at one time with the Performance Book Caddy!

Perfect for all types of reading material
It mounts in seconds to virtually any road, mountain or stationary bike [emphasis added]

Now sure, some folks actually hook their bikes up to practice rigs at home instead of just going outside (the equivalent of playing with yourself whilst wearing protection), but the blurb and the product shot combine to suggest otherwise.

It does have me thinking, though, that this would make a nice mount for a netbook (with shake-proof SSD drive, of course). Or a map. Or perhaps even lunch. After all, if you can read, eat and generally conduct a normal day whilst careening around in a couple tons of steel and glass (a car), surely doing the same on a bike should be at least perfectly legal, and at worst a good head-start on a Darwin award.

Performance Book Caddy [Performance Bicycle via DVICE]


Video: Motorized Bikes in Kenya

This is Samuel Magethe, and with him is his home-made motorized bike. Samuel lives in Nairobi, and bought the bicycle and engine separately before marrying them into this wonderful form. It looks a lot like the very first motorcycles. Samuel has been using his machine for two years.

The engine comes from Japanese company Adtec, and is sold in downtown Nairobi by bike dealer Julius. Erik Hersman of Afrigadget, who shot this video, tells us that the engine is a 48cc two-stroke that will push the bike to 25mph, and runs for 70 Km on a liter of gas, or 165 mpg. The range is double that, as the gas tank up top holds two liters.

You could buy the bike and engine together, for around $200, or the motor on its own for a mere $135. They are understandably popular in Kenya, but I imagine legal problems over licensing and road use would kill these immediately in the US. A shame, as a cargo-bike thus equipped would be an impossibly cheap replacement for at least one of your cars.

Motorized Bicycles in Nairobi [Afrigadget]

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Video: Sanyo Eneloop Bike Pedals For You

Sanyo has brought its electric Eneloop bike to the US, and when we were in CES we got to take a look. It’s certainly not the first electric bike around: Even Sanyo has been making them in Japan since the early 1970s. But it is one of the easiest to ride for a regular cyclist, and – because it carries the Eneloop brand – it is one of the greenest in terms of energy use.

The bike is a front-wheel drive (you can see the hub in the video) with the rear wheel assembly being completely standard, just like a normal pedal-bike. The magic is twofold. First, a special bottom-bracket monitors how hard you press on the pedals. This controls the motor in the hub and gives a power boost. There is no assistance when you are freewheeling on the flat, but as soon as you push the motor kicks in. The initial feeling is how I’d imagine a robot exo-skeleton to feel, but right away you don’t notice it anymore and it just feels like the bike is really easy to ride.

The second trick is also a hub/pedal double-team. If you are going down a hill and not pedaling, the hub will turn into a generator and re-juice the batteries. A sensor in the brake lever also switches the motor into regeneration mode. This increases battery life by around 20%, which gives a total of up to 46 miles on a charge (that charge takes three hours).

The power has other benefits. The lights of course run off the battery, but because of the sensors in the brake levers, there is a brake light, too.

Riding the Eneloop bike feels almost exactly like riding a normal bike, so it is well suited to aging cyclists who just can’t make it up the steep hills anymore. The problem is that it costs $2,000. That’s still a lot less than a car or motorbike, and if you are a keen cyclist who is having trouble staying on the road, or if you want to get fit but are a little too rotund to get started, $2,000 is a bargain.

Sanyo Eneloop Electric Assist Bike Recharges Itself [Wired Video]

SANYO ‘eneloop bike’ Electric Hybrid Bicycle Makes First San Diego Debut [Sanyo]


Bike High-Wire Lets You Fly Above the Streets

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Kolelinia is a high-wire for bikes, a skinny, suspended cycle-lane which lets riders glide over traffic, flying above the streets. It is amazing sci-fi, and is either a brilliant, forward thinking idea or the most ridiculously stupid traffic scheme yet concocted.

The Kolelinia consists of two parts, both suspended high above the street. The first part is a gutter in which you ride, a half-tube channel that keeps your wheels from falling off the thin track. The second part is a guide cable that runs alongside the rider at handlebar height. You attach a tethering device to your handlebar and it runs along the able like a safety line on a boat, with a neat mechanism to let it pass right over the supporting poles. In theory, this should work.

The Kolelinia isn’t meant to be a full length bike route. Instead, it is a way to pass problem junctions, or to offer a high-rise tourist route. But the flaws are many. First, if you have ever ridden your bike too close to the curb, almost touching the sidewalk, you’ll know that the bike feels very unstable. You need a little wiggle room to the right in order to turn left — the bike needs to be tilted slightly underneath you to shift the center of gravity into the turn. The restrictive gutter wouldn’t allow this.

Second, your handlebar is also fixed, another wobble-inducing nightmare. And if you do hop the track, or if you just freak out and fall off your bike, you will be headed quickly road-ward as the bike dangles above. A safety cable would stop you actually hitting the pavement, but I can think of easier ways to spend a commute.

We suspect that the scheme is doomed. Not that we don’t like it. Flying over cars would be awesome. Is’s just that this doesn’t appear to be the way to do it. A real flying bike on the other hand…

Kolelinia sky-bike lane [Kolelinia via Urban Velo]


Suspension of Disbelief: Cannondale’s ‘Smart’ Bike

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Cannondale has pulled out the old-fashioned mechanical suspension inside its famous Lefty front-fork and stuffed in some electronics. The internal skunkworks project, called Simon, uses accelerometers and electromagnets to give a fast-responding, almost infinitely adjustable suspension.

Still a prototype, Simon essentially computerizes the ride of your bike. You can dial in various stiffnesses using a joystick and small computer up top on the handlebars — a softer ride for downhills and a rock-hard, stiff ride when on the smooth asphalt. This can, of course, be done with mechanical suspension, but introducing electronics makes things faster and smarter.

The electromagnets that control where and how much the fork can move act almost instantly, in around six milliseconds, and allow the fork to collapse from its maximum length right down to zero. These are informed by the accelerometers – from Analog Devices – and this is where the magic comes in. For instance, you could have the suspension dialed-up to act like a solid road fork. If you were to hit a bump in the road, though, the accelerometer would detect this before you even feel it and soften things up, allowing the bike to completely cushion the impact and return you to a good hard ride before you realize there was a pothole.

More, the response curves can be tuned to push back just how you like it, and you can switch configurations at the flick of a thumb. The Simon does add some weight, but as you are also tossing out a tube full of mechanical components the net gain is just a couple pounds (and this is a prototype, so that should improve). The other problem is battery life. Riding on the road you should be good for all day, but if you’re riding hard down a mountainside you could be out of juice in as little as two hours. Still, an extra battery pack could nestle next to the energy bar and the “emergency” hip-flask in your jersey pocket.

No pricing yet, nor even a launch date, but Cannondale seems pretty stoked about this tech, so we expect to see something soon. To see a somewhat in-depth and nerdy demo of the tech (the kind of demo we like), watch this video from bike blog Cycling Dirt:


Bikes to Power Times Square New Year Display

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Scant decades ago, a ball drop in Times Square was more likely to take place in one of its infamous adult theaters than in the square itself. These days, when there is not even traffic in the iconic plaza, even the historic crystal ball which sees in the New Year is clean.

The new energy efficient LED ball, and the glowing “2010” numerals, will this year be powered by bunnies. Duracell has set up stationary bikes in the square which use leg power to generate electricity and then store it, ready for midnight tonight. The whole setup requires 32,000 Watt hours of juice, which is probably not much by Times Square standards, but isn’t bad for human-power.

Reading through the Duracell “Power Lab” blog, it appears that things are a little more surreal in Times Square. Aside from “celebrities” turning up to help juice the batteries (Gabourey Sidibe, anyone? Anyone?), there is also mention of special events being held in the Charmin Restrooms, a sponsored public lavatories, consisting of comedians showing off custom toilet seats “which include everything from bright colors to glitter and feathers”.

Strange activity in the bathrooms? I guess Times Square hasn’t changed that much.

Duracell Powerlab [Duracell]

Pedal-Powered Generators to Illuminate Times Square on New Year’s Eve [Inhabitat. Thanks, Yuka!]

Image: Duracell Power Lab


It Had to Happen: Bike-Polo Mallet Shafts Openly On Sale

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We’ve remarked before that once a perfectly good home-made solution becomes popular, somebody, somewhere, will turn a buck by hawking a ready-made version. Exhibit A: Bike-polo mallets. Mine is made from a ski-pole, a piece of gas pipe found in the street and cut to size, and an old inner-tube wrapped around the handle to make a grip. But now, you can buy a ready-made bike-polo shaft for $15.

I have wondered for a while how long it would be before somebody would sell a commercial bike-polo mallet. One of the best parts of the game is that it is almost free to play. The goals are made from traffic cones, the mallets from found parts and the bikes are.. well, you have a bike, right?

To be fair to Milwaukee Bicycle Company, the purveyor of these sticks, the aim is to provide ski-poles to those who live far from the slopes. The poles are also tougher than the average aluminum stick. This is the description:

Made from 7075 T6 Series 4 Aluminum, these poles are constructed with the strongest commercially available, aircraft-grade aluminum alloy and are twice as strong as the industry standard, rated to 75,000 PSI.

The poles are a generous 49-inches long, weigh 195grams (7 ounces) and are powder coated in a rather fetching orange. Better still, the $15 price tag means it costs about the same as one half of a pair of ski-poles (mine cost €20, or around $28, for the pair). Finally, you still have to make your own mallet, which means that this component is no worse than buying gas-pipe from the hardware store instead of scavenging it from the streets.

Could it be that the purpose made solution is in this case better and more friendly to the environment? After all, there is no plastic grip, plastic circle or strap to cut off and discard.

Milwaukee Bicycle Co. – Bike Polo Shafts [Benscycle via Urban Velo]


Turbospoke Turns Pushbikes into Motorbikes

If you owned a bike when you were a kid, you would have, at some point, turned it into a “motorbike”. You would have taken a clothespin and a playing card and attached the latter to the chain-stay with the former. The resulting flickety-flack sound was enough to turn your pushbike into a roaring speed machine. And it was free, as long as you didn’t suffer punishment for choosing any card other than the joker.

The Turbospoke does exactly the same, only it costs $25 and is way better. It even uses a card to do the sound-making: There are three differently “tuned” cards in the pack, and they are made from longer-lasting plastic. These cards fit into a supplied clamp and onto this you mount the exhaust. And this is the best part, as the exhaust not only looks like a motorbike exhaust, but it acts as a horn speaker to amplify the sound.

About that sound. It’s less “motorbike” and more “lawnmower”, but it sure beats the old fashioned, home-made way of doing it. In fact, if the kids in your street ever get one of these, it’s likely to be just as annoying as the teenager who guns his two-stroke 125cc bike past your house twice a day. So annoying would it be that I’m thinking of strapping one on at the next bike polo game to psych-out the other team.

Turbospoke Product page [Turbospoke]

Turbospoke review [Gram Light Bikes]


Power Brain Connects Bikes to iPhone, Web

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Pedal Brain is a kind of Nike+ for cyclists, an iPhone accessory and application that, despite looking quite excellent, could possibly nickel and dime itself out of existence.

Pedal brain comes in three parts: a handlebar-mounted iPhone (or iPod Touch) case (called the Pedal Brain Synapse), an iPhone application and a web-app. The case (plastic initially, with a carbon-fiber version to follow) communicates with your bike monitoring devices using the ANT+ wireless protocol, a standard utilized by power-meters, heart-rate monitors and speed and cadence sensors. This is the first deviation from the successful Nike+ model, which comes with its own sensor.

This requirement for expensive accessories might explain the price of the unit, which will go for between $130 and $200, and more for the carbon fiber case. This is in addition to a (undecided) monthly fee you’ll have to pay if you want to keep your data for more than a week. It’s true that amateur cyclists like to waste money on their hobby, especially on training kit they don’t need, so this could be a hit. And let’s face it, nobody will buy the plastic version. Anyone who has a power-meter will already be a carbon freak.

The app pulls together all of the information available and collates it into pretty graphs, which are shared in real-time with the web (iPhone-only) as they are recorded. An interesting twist is the coaching function, which lets cycling trainers submit coaching plans to which riders can subscribe. The prices of these are determined by the coach, and Pedal Brain adds $4-a-month on top.

The whole kit-n-caboodle should be available in March, ready for wussy, winter-shy cyclists.

Pedal Brain site [Pedal Brain via the Giz]

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