Laptop-DRV » Transportation

Minimal Electric Bike Contained In the Single Wheel

admin — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:33:17 +0000

The Solowheel is nonetheless an additional take upon electric-powered personal transport. It is also only about a simplest possible design you could presumably imagine: the circle and nothing more.

The circle contains a 1,000 watt electric motor as well as gyroscopic controls, making it the kind of minimalist Segway. To drive it, you put it upon a road (it has a carrying handle up-top), flip down a foot platforms as well as step on. Lean forwards to go, as well as lean behind to delayed down. Turning is finished by leaning from side to side: As there is only a single wheel, no steering mechanism is indispensable.

It certainly looks similar to fun, right up to the inevitable face-plant which will occur as shortly as you try to bump up a too-high curbstone.

The Solowheel, that is not nonetheless for sale, is certainly small as well as rather moveable, though suffers a same disadvantage as any electric mode of ride. It is heavy, during 20 pounds, and while it folds up small, it’s not much not as big than the fully-collapsed Brompton, which weighs only about the same, doesn’t need recharging, as well as won’t send you face-first into the street.

Solowheel product page [Inventist around Core77]

Walking Stick Wobbles But it Won’t Fall Down

admin — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 01:58:55 +0000

Like a Weeble fondle mates with a basketball player, the Balance Stick won’t fall down. You can totter along, pause to buy a pack of cigarettes or a fifth of thwart as well as just let go of the stick. It will stay next to you, upright and watchful obediently by your side, somewhat wagging its hoop until you squeeze it as well as resume your journey.

I’m almost four months into the duration of walking upon crutches, as well as finding the place to column a crutch or hang when you stop to do something is the real suffering. My crutches have the slap which binds my forearm so I can let go of a handle and it stays there. With this I can, say, take photos during a mobile phone conference, though the crutches still dangle and get in a way. And the walking hang doesn’t even have a slap.

The design, by Cheng-Tsung Feng, has won an IF Concept award. Here it is on Chinese TV:

As the bottom doesn’t move or hurl, the stick must make use of a passive balance scheme, ordinarily well known as the “heavy weight”. And this might have it useless for a little weaker non-walkers. I’m in, though. I’m roughly ready to go onto a single crutch in a outward world (not for my change, though to whack drifting kids who kick their footballs as well close as I pass). This stick is approach more stylish.

Balance Stick [Cheng-Tsung Feng around Yanko]

‘The Beast’ Electric Bike: 50mph, $33,500

admin — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 01:23:21 +0000

This is The Beast, and rarely does a product so obviously merit its name. The 33KG (73-pound) monster is the hybrid electric bike, which means the engine kicks-in to provide extra energy as you pedal, instead of regulating the throttle-style switch to run upon a engine alone.

Despite its back-breaking weight (you won’t be carrying this up a stairs to your apartment), a Beast is quick, reaching up to 77km/h (48mph) with the pedal cadence of just 120. To keep this thing underneath control, the maker – M55 – has thrown a little motorcycle tools into a brew. The hoop brakes, for example, have been from Brembo, a name not mostly seen on bicycles.

The gears have been for a bike, yet, as well as come pleasantness of Rohloff, in the form of the tandem Speed Hub. Front as well as back suspension comes from Fox, and the aluminum frame, handlebar as well as holder have been custom jobs. The handlebar is more similar to a cockpit, with switches for a gears, lights and controls for the motor.

As you can see, a batteries have been inside a frame. They’re Tenergy cells, more ordinarily found in hybrid cars, and can be charged to 80% genius in just 15 minutes. Sadly, nowhere upon the site is the bike’s range referred to, a rather serious omission deliberation the cost.

And speaking of cost, how most do you think this Beast competence price? $5,000 (more than enough to buy a gas scooter similar to a Vespa)? Nope. $10,000, or sufficient for the used automobile? Nope. Try $33,500. For comparison, that income would buy you a Nissan Leaf, an all-electric car, with $500 left over. A savage in truth. Available for pre-order right away.

The Beast product page [M55 around Cycle EXIF. Thanks, Adam!]

Street Flyer: A Hang-Glider for a Ground

admin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:48:48 +0000

The Street Flyer is the hang-glider for a streets. It’s similar to an oversized tricycle, but instead of sitting on tip to pilot it, you cling to underneath. To propel a vehicle, you run and afterwards just drop into the harness as well as cruise. This patently functions improved upon a downhill widen, as well as ascending runs have been substantially most appropriate avoided altogether, unless M.C. Escher written your city’s streets.

The design comes from an old Gadget Lab friend, Dr. Carsten Mehring, final seen here on video with his wearable computer. Mehring has several prototypes for a Street Flyer. The one seen here is steered with the span of handgrips connected to the two front wheels, though other designs could let you drive by moving your body in a cradle, hang-glider-style. Dr. Mehring also suggests which his invention could be used by the harmed to travel suspended from its frame without any vigor on the legs. Think of it as a baby-walker for cripples.

Mehring’s Street Flyer is clearly not meant for daily travel, though as the weekend camp fondle, it could be awesome. Imagine bombing down high hills and slaloming only three-feet from the ground. That has to be a rush.

Street Flyer project page (Warning: Flash as well as auto-play music) [Streetflyer around UberGizmo]

Water-Powered Jet-Pack Runs for Two Hours upon the Single Tank

admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:17:48 +0000

Imagine a fire-hose in full, glass-smashing upsurge. Now suppose which it has gotten loose, and is defeat as well as snapping like the spastic cobra, during such terrifying speed that it is almost unfit to see the flailing tip. Now suppose which you have been strapped to the finish. Congratulations. You have been riding the JetLev Flyer.

Unlike “ordinary” jet-packs, a JetLev is essentially two vehicles, tethered by a hose a thickness of your thigh. On the h2o is a small speedboat-like section which contains the 250ho engine as well as a pump. This is continuous to a pack – into that you tag your thin body – by the ten-meter (33-feet) hose. The h2o is pumped from a sea or lake next, up to the nozzles upon the jet-pack, giving a 1,900 Newtons (430 pounds foot) of bearing, enough to live even the fat tellurian of up to 150 kilos (330-pounds).

Because of that hose, you are effectively tethered to a water, definition your limit altitude tops out at 8.5-meters (28-feet). Your horizontal distance is usually limited by flight-time, however, as well as you can bestir around at 35mph for up to two hours. Control is fly-by-wire, so the bearing handles are easy to twist, kept divided from the heated pressure of a water.

I love it. All a fun of the jet-pack with almost nothing of a dangers. Falling thirty feet onto h2o competence not be pleasing, but conjunction is is starting kill you. And two hours of flight time is way more than what you’ll get from the “traditional” jet-pack.

The rub is that this costs $100,000 to buy. At this price, it is directed some-more during water-sports let businesses than during the private user, although I’m certain plenty of opulence yachts will be adding them as essential apparatus. Expect to see this in the James Bond film soon.

JetLev Flyer product page [JetLev Flyer]

Flexible Traffic Light Wraps Around Trees

admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 10:25:55 +0000

Any city likely already has all a trade lights it needs, so any green alternative right away blows away its environmentally-friendly certification by replacing known-good hardware. However, the Wearable Signal is clever enough to merit a mention, as well as has a little additional uses that clear it.

The notion traffic light, by Gisung Han, Hwanju Jeon as well as Jaemin Lee, comes in two tools: the flexible LED belt that wraps around street furniture and a solar lid which protects it, shades it and powers it. Because it can hang around an existing stick, or even the tree, there’s no need to setup anything to reason it.

The Wearable Signal is perfect for temporary uses, either roadworks or emergency use, as well as it additionally looks cheap to make. I see dual intensity problems: initial, a cylindrical design equates to that you can simply see the vigilance for trade entrance in other citation, formulating potentially dangerous confusion. Second, easy-on can mean easy-off. This would be a target for students out to decorate their dorm bedrooms, as well as approach easier to lift home than a unchanging traffic light.

Another proceed, in city centers during least, is to remove traffic signals and road marking all together. The thinking goes that when people aren’t feeling so entitled by immature lights, they slow down at all junctions as well as have been in all some-more clever as well as civil. Tests in Europe have found that overload is also marked down.

Signs upon the Tree [Yanko]

Diesel as well as Pinarello Team Up to Make World’s Ugliest Hipster-Bike

admin — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 06:37:55 +0000

If you live in the comparatively prosaic city, the single-speed bike is the illusory idea. But if you live in any complicated city, dropping $1,200 on aluminum-framed fashion-bike probably isn’t so smart.

The bike is a “collabo” between the wardrobe company Diesel and a bicycle company Pinarello. Somewhat ironically, given the lightweight steal-ability, it is called a “Only a Brave Bicycle”. Or maybe the word “brave” refers to anybody courageous sufficient to take this monstrosity out upon a streets. It inherits a single of a worst habits of fixed-gear conform: odd-colored wheels. I always insincere which mis-matched wheels existed because a owner was saving up for a ornate second half of the set, but perhaps not.

That frame, as well, is ugly. With the crooked top-tube as well as bent seat-stays it looks like it has been pre-crashed. Perhaps this style-point came from Diesel, a bicycle equivalent of distressed, pre-worn jeans?

Thankfully, you can opt for an all-black version, but it still suffers from a little support. It might still be most appropriate to avoid this representation in favor of the cheap DIY representation based upon an aged steel frame from Craigslist: When a press release ends like this…

[Diesel] make[s] people feel gentle and we have people feel tired…but we share a typical Italian creativity as well as the constant enterprise to stupefy as well as warn our clients!

… and fails to mention a single spec of the bike which costs over the grand, your warning bells should begin a-ringin’.

Diesel/ Pinarello civic bike [Bicycle Design]

Pinarello for Diesel: Only the Brave Bicycle [Prolly]

Monstrous Grace Pro E-Bike Defies Description

admin — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:39:13 +0000

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The Grace Pro Race electric bike is most appropriate described by a difference of those who upheld along a sum of this brand new photoset to me.

Chuck Squatriglia of Wired.com’s own Autopia blog asked “What would happen if you crossed an old-school Cannondale with the complicated downhill towering bike as well as afterwards done it electric?”

The Cycle EXIF blog, that sent this to Chuck, calls it the “Teutonic behemoth.” And Derp, the commenter on Cycle EXIF, calls it the “Stillborn Transformer.”

The official line, though, from Grace, is which this is a “world’s initial street-legal e-motorbike.” And it is. The bike can strike 45km/h (28mph) by spinning the rear-wheel brushless 1.3kW engine. It’ll run for up to 50km (31-miles) as well as do it all off the one-hour assign, powered by a li-ion batteries dark inside a support. And as you can see from a photographs, it looks nasty

The support as well as CNC-milled aluminum blocks which have up the bike and engine have been done in a same factory in Berlin – somewhat suitable as this looks some-more similar to an aged East German moped than the push-bike. How most for this intimidating piece of machine? The Grace Race is accessible built-to sequence usually, as well as will cost you just 7,398 Euros, $9,944. For more upon this Teutonic behemoth, check the previous coverage, with equally awesome photos (warning: silvery jumpsuit).

Grace Pro product page [Grace via Bike EXIF. Thanks, Chris and Chuck!]

Photos: Gracebikes / Flickr

Surly Troll Bike Frame is Good, Bad as well as Ugly

admin — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 17:12:19 +0000

Surly’s brand new Troll frame-set is built for anything – roughly literally. The 4130 CroMoly steel mountain-bike support has enough options as well as add-ons to have it befitting for anything from mountain-biking by commuting to hauling cargo.

The first thing you’ll notice is the back dropouts, which are horizontal as well as rear-facing similar to track-ends. This makes the frame great for fixed-gear as well as single-speed setups, nonetheless the derailleur hanger as well as the mounting-slot for a Rohloff heart mean gears have been in, as well.

The bumps as well as nodules around the frame allow fixing of fenders, brakes, water-bottle cages as well as racks, along with lots of cable-routing, as well as the tilted top-tube gives clearway to mount even with a fat tires you can fit upon there (up to 26 x 2.7-inch).

With all these pimples as well as dimples, the Troll isn’t a prettiest bike (just like its namesake) though it sure is practical. Price TBA, accessible this month.

Troll support [Surly around Urban Velo]

Rael Concept Bike With Rear-View Camera

admin — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:29:20 +0000

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Evan Solida’s Rael is nonetheless another notion bike, nonetheless this one doesn’t haggle with a time-tested double-triangle frame, wheels as well as sequence. Instead, it aims to make the regular carbon-fiber road-bike safer to ride.

What you don’t see is Solida’s Cervellum Hindsight digital rearview camera dark in a seat-stays. It continuously records the loop of video and if it detects the pile-up with its accelerometer, it keeps recording for ten seconds as well as afterwards stops, gripping the footage as justification. The Cervellum can additionally be bending up to a 3.5-inch transflective (viewable in object LCD screen mounted upon the handlebars, giving you a digital rear-view counterpart.

The part you do see is the redesigned brakes as well as handlebars. The drops have been refashioned into pistol-grips, as well as the stop levers flipped to point up instead of down. The indicate is to let the index fingers get to a levers either you’re roving upon the hoods of a brakes or down in a drops.

Everything else is flattering customary, as it should be, nonetheless distant from walking. the gears, for e.g., are Shimano’s Di2 electronic-shifters.

The bike might be the notion, but a Cervellum camera is upon its approach to market, nonetheless there’s still no launch date. And as notion bikes go, this one looks like it would actually be great to float.

Rael: a highway bike concept by Evan Solida [Bicycle Design]

Cervellum camera product page [Cervellum]