Few designs are as close to perfect – or as well-tested – as the modern double-triangle bike. It is comfortable, strong, amazingly efficient and compact enough to carry, but that hasn’t stopped designers trying to find a better way, year after year. Not since the chair has an object inspired so many crazy interpretations.
Popular Mechanics showcases some of the weirdest (and coolest) takes on the bike in a gallery of redesigns. The list of designers runs from backyard makers (Georgi Georgiev’s amazing 83 mph Varna Tempest) to car companies (Lexus’ odd hybrid with the frame of a racing bike and the wheels of a granny’s shopper).
You’ll also find a modern take on the penny farthing, or p-far, in the form of the Mini-Penny (below) which comes on like a cross between a chopper and a shopping cart.
They’re not all oddballs, though. In the gallery you’ll see the Strida, that folding triangular bike with tiny wheels that was born back in 1987 and despite looking almost impossible to ride is seen zipping around cities the world over.
But the most fantastic of all is Blair Hasty’s machine (top), a machine of which the designer seems to have missed the point entirely. From the name (“Collapsible Bike”) to its purpose (relief of rider back-pain) it is humdrum through an through. But look at it. It’s a human-powered Tron Light-cycle!
10 Brilliant Redesigns for the Bicycle [Popular Mechanics. Thanks, Rob!]
See Also:
- Peugeot Concept Bike Channels Tron
- Scary-Looking Concept Bike is All Corners
- Flawed Bike Concept for Danger-Loving Hipsters
- Six Crazy Concept Bikes You'll Never Ride
- Future Bike Design Concept Misses Point
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