It's been years since I was able to ride a bicycle and I know there is at least one person who posts to this group who rides a bike daily. I was in very good shape when I rode a bicycle for transportation but I'll bet the bike in this video could give someone a real workout. ^_^
TDD
That's an awful amount of work for just a few minutes of video on Youtube.
Not many videos get 7,562,822 views. I bet he is quite satisfied with the attention it got.
It looks like he had problems steering it. He couldn't stay in the lane he was supposed to be in.
Don.
I ride a bike daily to work, except on rain days. I'm not that devoted.
BTW: That's a trike.
It's a penta-cycle, it has 4 back wheels and one front wheel. ^_^
TDD
You might have a chance at riding this gizmo:
I commute by bike around 25 miles daily in Queens and Manhattan. This bike would not make the cut but certainly is fun. As I age (over 60 now) I bought a bike that has an electric assist motor. No throttle, it will only work if you pedal, but it does make the big hills and headwinds easier to deal with. A very good use of technology.
Is it the Copenhagen Wheel bicycle? The guys and gals over at MIT came up with a very interesting electric add-on for a bicycle. ^_^
TDD
I'm more inclined to side with this guy:
Wasn't The Segway supposed to change the world too? ^_^
TDD
It's an interesting idea but I'm inclined to agree that the engineering isn't there yet. More exactly, battery power. I use a Trek Valencia+,
It's mostly an accurate review, except I can easily do my 25 mile r/t commute without recharging - I mostly leave the bike in the lowest assist mode (25%) and just bump it up when hitting big hills. I sometimes go 40 miles and have plenty of battery left over, but I do a lot of the work myself and rarely go over 15mph.
The copenhagen wheel simply can't store enough power to make it worthwhile. My battery is only 6.6 ah, which is vastly underpowered according to most EBike standards. And it weighs 6.6 lbs, which sort of gives an idea of what the battery alone needs to be to handle a real commute. Most people use 10-15ah batteries, which are of course
10-15 lbs. It isn't really that much, I mean I weigh almost 190 so what is another 10 lbs?Still, integrated into a hub, I just don't see how it can work without being one monster hub.
I believe the energy system will eventually be built into the frame of the bicycle and not necessarily just batteries but super capacitors which will charge very quickly from the energy recovery mechanism that would be a mandatory feature of such a bike. Instead of mechanical brakes, the electrical drive would do the braking in order to recover energy. ^_^
TDD
Didn't do much for the inventor.
I seem to remember a story about a fellow who bought out Segway then was killed when he drove one of them off a cliff. o_O
TDD
If your purpose were exercise rather than commuting, you should design an U rban Trainer bicycle.
The problem with bicycle exercise is not all of us have the space to put in the necessary miles safely (traffic, dogs, bad roads, etc.) Indoor traine rs work but are boring.
But most of us could go around one block easily. What if that took an hour ? Build a bike geared such that you only go very slowly. Add some mechani cal resistance (magnetic or hydraulic as is done in the expensive magtraine rs). Add a flywheel for gyroscopic effect so you don't fall over.
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