While we like the thinking behind the BaubBike, a bicycle both modular in design and also fairly easy to build from standard square-section steel tubes, in practice it looks both dangerous and rather uncomfortable.
There’s a reason bike frames have been triangular for so long: stiffness. A steel frame will flex a lot, and the triangle is an inherently stable shape. Stiffer modern materials mean that today designers can experiment more, but if you’re using off the shelf tubing, a square is going to crumple in a collision.
Of course, looking at the Bauhaus-inspired frame by designer Michael Ubbesen Jakobsen, we’re not thinking about damage to the bike. We’re thinking about damage to ourselves: Check the iteration with a second saddle and cojones-splitting handle. Ouch. In fact, all the sharp corners in general make this one of the scariest-looking rides we’ve seen. Far better is the slot-in carrying-rack, but that still leaves a lot of sharp corners.
Unlike many concepts, there is a “buy” button on Jakobsen’s site, although right now it leads only to an e-mail contact form. If he does put it into production, he might consider adding a “sue me” button alongside it. Either that or just only sell the BauBike to men who are already wearing tight jeans and taking very hot baths in order to deprive their baby-hungry wives of vital proteins.
Product page [BauBike via Design Boom]
