Evan Solida’s Rael is yet another concept bike, although this one doesn’t dicker with the time-tested double-triangle frame, wheels and chain. Instead, it aims to make a regular carbon-fiber road-bike safer to ride.
What you don’t see is Solida’s Cervellum Hindsight digital rearview camera hidden in the seat-stays. It continuously records a loop of video and if it detects a crash with its accelerometer, it keeps recording for ten seconds and then stops, keeping the footage as evidence. The Cervellum can also be hooked up to a 3.5-inch transflective (viewable in sunlight) LCD screen mounted on the handlebars, giving you a digital rear-view mirror.
The part you do see is the redesigned brakes and handlebars. The drops have been refashioned into pistol-grips, and the brake levers flipped to point up instead of down. The point is to let the index fingers get to the levers whether you’re riding on the hoods of the brakes or down in the drops.
Everything else is pretty standard, as it should be, although far from pedestrian. the gears, for example, are Shimano’s Di2 electronic-shifters.
The bike may be a concept, but the Cervellum camera is on its way to market, although there’s still no launch date. And as concept bikes go, this one looks like it would actually be good to ride.
Rael: a road bike concept by Evan Solida [Bicycle Design]
Cervellum camera product page [Cervellum]
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Toyota got mostly good news this week when the Department of Transportation concluded that ill-designed floor mats but not electronic throttles were to blame for sudden-and-unintended acceleration issues in Toyotas and Lexuses. That and driver error. But Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood chose to say “pedal misapplication” instead of “driver error,” leaving the impression that drivers needn’t shoulder any of the blame. All this may leave Toyota with the same oh-what-a-lousy-feeling as former Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan when he was indicted in a widely publicized fraud case then acquitted on all charges in court. Donovan asked, “Which office do I go to get my reputation back?”
