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Ever wondered how a hard drive works? I mean, we know it has something to do with frikkin’ magnets, but how do they work? Luckily, the Engineer Guy is here to explain, and also to help you spend five minutes not working on a Friday afternoon. Learn about arms, actuators, heads and Lorentz forces. And learn how on Earth you store ones and zeros on a spinning magnetic disk.

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Meet the Surly Long Haul Trucker Deluxe. If you like to travel and ride, this may be your next frame.

The Deluxe is a special, plane-friendly version of Surly’s famous touring frame. The deluxe-ness comes from a pair of S&S couplings fitted as standard. These stainless-steel couplers let you split and reassemble the bike to fit in a travel-case, but they add very little weight (8oz or 227-grams) and don’t affect the stiffnees of the frame.

The Deluxe is also made to use 26-inch wheels instead of the usual (and larger) 700c wheels. This has a couple of advantages. First, you can fit the wheels into an airline-maximum sized case without deflating the tires (although maybe you shouldn’t be taking tires onto a plane fully-inflated). Second, 26-inch tires can be had anywhere in the world that you can find a bike shop.

The frame has mounting-points for pretty much everything: cantilever brakes, derailleurs, three sets of water-bottle bosses, fenders and even a spare-spoke holder. The rear dropouts are vertical, and there are routings for cables.

This frame replaces the current S&S equipped Travelers Check, which takes 700c wheels and has a horizontal dropout (better for fixed and single-speed). It will be available in spring 2011, for around $1,000.

Surly Long Haul Trucker Deluxe [Surly Bikes via Urban Velo]

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A bike rack should do two things. It should be secure, and it should be easy to get your bike in and out. A secondary consideration is the amount of bikes that can fit onto one bank of racks, and last comes aesthetics. Thankfully, the just-installed artist-designed bike racks in San Francisco conform to all of these requirements, and they do it with some clever and sometimes site-specific style.

The racks are the winners of the Treasure Island competition, and the designs are inspired by the SF Bicycle Coalition’s plans for this reclaimed island in the San Francisco Bay. Here they are, along with some pros and cons.

Todd Gilens’ sloped (and winning) design (above) is based on the diagonal street plan of Treasure Island, although it looks like it could be inspired by the hundred of abandoned bikes found in any city, fallen and stomped into death. You can find it on Market and 6th.

Pros: Locking points are almost identical to those of a standard staple-shaped rack.

Cons: Too tempting for drunken vandals to mash a bike until it matches the bends of the rack.

Kirk Scott’s Map Rack is shaped like Treasure Island, and the conceit is that an internal cross-hairs pinpoints the actual street location of the rack on the island. You can find this one in front of City Hall on Polk Street.

Pros: Almost identical to a standard rack. Easy to line up a lot of them in a small space. Extra cross of metal for better locking.

Cons: The extra bars are thin, encouraging bad locking. Every rack is different, making it harder to lock-up with your routine style.

Ryan Dempsey’s Wave Rack represents the waves that will engulf Treasure Island when the next big earthquake strikes, just before the very island itself liquifies due to being built on soft, reclaimed land and its building sink into the earth. Actually, it just references the waves in the Bay. You can find it near Scott’s rack, in front of City Hall on Polk Street.

Pros: The main legs are vertical enough and close enough to work like a proper rack.

Cons: Takes up a lot of space. Has annoying crest section to catch on handlebars and baskets. Reminds residents of impending, unavoidable doom.

New Artist-Designed Bike Racks in San Francisco [San Francisco Bike Coalition. Thanks, Teri!]

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Don’t get stuck in the snow because of Snowpocalypse 2010. With the right gear, you can still ride to work — on your bike.

One of the cheapest winter bike hacks is to attach zip ties to your tires. It’s a quick-and-dirty way of giving yourself some much-needed traction on icy, slushy streets and costs far less than a set of studded snow tires.

Fritz Rice of the Dutch Bike Co. explains how to install a package or two of zip ties on your tires. He admits that “it looks ludicrous” but makes up for its looks by giving your wheels some grippy ribs. As he’s installed them, the zip ties’ connectors are on the outside edge of the tires, which helps them bite even more when you’re banking to turn.

We haven’t tested this (the Wired offices are thankfully snow-free), so if you have experience with zip-tied tires, let us know in the comments how well they work.

For more winter riding tips, check out Wired’s How-To Wiki for detailed instructions on how to winterize your bike (and your bike clothing).

Dutch Bike Co. (via Gizmodo)

Photo: Fritz Rice

See Also:

• Cycle in the Snow With DIY Studded Bike Tires
• Gallery: Snow Bikes, Track Bikes and Dog Bowls Roll Out at Sea Otter Bike Show
• Alaskan Snow Bike Rolls Into Sunny California
• This Biker Brakes for Penguins
• As America Implodes, The Bike Industry Booms

An award-winning writer specializing in technology, science and business, Dylan Tweney is a senior editor at Wired.com and publisher of tinywords, the world’s smallest magazine.
Follow @dylan20 and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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The Livestrong Limited Edition Indoor Cycle differs from all other stationary bikes in just one way: It looks totally bad-ass.

The bike, which comes in the trademark yellow-and-black colorway, will cost $1,600, $1,000 of which goes to Livestrong, Lance Armstrong’s cancer charity. Just 500 will be made, and there are several Lance and cancer-themed design flourishes: the number 28 on the fork represents the “28 million people living with cancer,” and the “seven stars on the seat post represent Armstrongs record-breaking seven Tour de France wins.”

But what you really want to know is just how fit can you get, without even going outside on a real bike? The answer is “pretty fit, if you don’t use it once and dump it in the basement, next to the Bullworker and the in-line skates.” Up front is a 20-pound flywheel, spun via a belt-drive, and the seat and handlebars are adjustable for height. And what handlebars they are! More like a bristling nest of stag-beetles than a regular bike cockpit, there are enough hand-positions to sate even the most ADD of “riders”.

There’s also a computer to tell you every piece of info you might want: heart rate, time, distance, RPM and a calorie-counter.

Of course, you could get all this from an actual bike. An old beater with a cheap cyclo-computer would keep you just as fit, and stop you from getting bored as you ride. But then you couldn’t pretend to be Lance Armstrong, on your way to a “record-breaking seven Tour de France wins.” Or more correctly, “Tour de Spare Bedroom wins.”

Livestrong LS28IC press release [Pitchengine via Uncrate]

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Sturmey Archer’s new S2C hub manages to pack in a gear-shift and a coaster brake, all without any cables. Unsurprisingly, its first retail outing is on a clean-lined track-style bike.

The hefty hub weighs in at 1400-grams, or just over 3-pounds, thanks to all the hardware it packs inside. On the outside, though, the only thing that gives it away is the lever-arm for the brake.

So how does it work? To change gear, you pedal back, flipping between two ratios (direct drive and 138%). To stop the bike, you press back a little harder to engage the brake. Braking also automatically switches you to the lower gear, although a quick flip of the pedals will get you back in top-gear if you like.

You’ll probably want to combine this with a proper front-brake, especially if you live in a hilly area and don’t want to burn the coaster out. The first bike equipped with the S2C is the $400 Torker KB2, a cheap hi-ten and cro-mo “track” bike drilled for a front brake (and with fender-mounts and bottle-cage bolts). It even has a chain-ring guard, so you don’t need to wear skinny jeans to ride it.

You won’t be taking this into the velodrome, thanks to its porky 28-pounds, but it makes a cheap and easy-to-maintain commuter bike, especially if you add those fenders in winter.

Torker KB2 [Torker via Urban Velo]

Sturmey Archer S2C [Sturmey Archer]

Torker KB2 Kickback Review [Urban Velo]

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You’d be surprised how much you can carry on a bike, and I don’t just mean the site of a huge beer belly shaking over the front wheel of a Berlin commuter bike. Some bikes are made to carry a load, whether it’s the famous Worksman of New York, or the bright-yellow machines ridden by German postal workers in Berlin (again).

But the best cargo bikes are those that have been hacked to achieve a specific load-carrying task. And that’s what you’ll see in this gallery of great cargo-bike mods.

Above:

Bottle-Carrier Bike

Photographer Alain Delorme loves crazy Chinese cyclists so much, he put together a whole project documenting the insanely overloaded cargo bikes in Shanghai. The images look to have had a certain amount of photoshopping applied, but if you have ever visited China, you’ll know that these precarious precipices are real enough.

Photo credit: Alain Delorme

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In June, we took a look at David Parott’s TrimTab 3×3, which I described as a “recumbent trike for scary bearded children,” giving this rationale:

Trikes are for kids and recumbents are for, well, Gore-Tex-clad hippies with too much facial hair. So the nightmarish rider of this machine, called the Trimtab, would be a bearded child with a taste for real-ale. Shiver.

Back then, the Trimtab existed on-screen as a concept design, its lean-steered body powered by electrically-assisted rear-wheels or a pedal-powered front-wheel. Now it is real, and David has taken the thing out onto the road for a test drive. Far from being a hippy-mobile for a hirsute stunt-child from The Shining, the Trimtab looks frankly awesome, like something out of a sci-fi movie. Think Tron, only with sensible, breathable outerwear, and you have the right idea:

According to David (and to the speedometer of the pursuit-car), the 3×3 hit 19-mph without pedaling, or even really trying. It also looks very stable in corners, thanks to the lean-in steering and off-vertical rear-wheels. I’d totally take it out for a spin.

Which brings me to my new theory of recumbent beard-wearing. I used to think that the joys of horizontal cycling were uniquely attractive to the fuzz-faced, but now I’m not so sure. Recumbents are of course still mortifyingly embarrassing, but clearly a lot of fun. What better way to hide your shame while taking one out for a spin than to don a false beard?

Trimtab 3X3 on the road [YouTube via Losantiville and @seanchon]

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At first, it’s odd, hopping on a bike frame made entirely of wood. After all, I’m used to high-tech composite framed made of carbon-fiber nanotubes impregnated with exotic resins, molded to tolerances of a thousandth of an inch. How could bamboo and hardwoods compare?

Actually, quite well. Renovo sent me its R4, a beautiful work of art, all swoopy lines and stunning finishing work. It’s a little bit like riding a perfect piece of furniture — you can really get a sense of the fact that a human being spent a massive amount of time making this thing.

It’s not the lightest bike on the market now, although at 18.8 pounds without pedals, it is lighter than many. But it might have gotten more looks and questions than anything I’ve ever ridden. Every time I was out on it, I had people asking me what the hell it was, and how it rode.

“Pretty well,” was my general answer. It’s not especially lively feeling — the wood dampens vibration nicely, but doesn’t have the taut feel that great carbon and steel frames have. You’re not going to want to race on it, but for a performance bike with comfort to spare, it would totally work.

I don’t know if it’s the bike for me, long term. But there is one nice thing. You get any bumps or scratches on it, and you can just sand it and refinish. The R4 frame will run you $2,950, without a fork.

Photos: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

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Sir Clive Sinclair, the English egghead that invented the revolutionary ZX Spectrum computer, and then went on the make the widely ridiculed C5 electric trike, is back with another, erm, electric bike.

Maybe Sir Clive was just way ahead of his time when he launched the C5 back in 1985, as this pod-like electric vehicle actually looks pretty smart today. The egg-shaped bubble is called the X-1, and works a lot like a recumbent, with a comfy seat, forward-mounted pedals and a nice, high, chopper-style handlebar. Then things get interesting.

The X-1 packs a 24v lithium-polymer battery which drives a slightly underpowered 190-Watt motor via a fixed-gear drivetrain. Disk-brakes front and back provide stopping power and built-in lights let the cars see you sat down in the road.

The whole vehicle weighs 30Kg, which is rather heavy for a bike, and I wonder if it could make it up a steep hill with that 190 Watt motor – especially as recumbents aren’t so great at climbing as it is. It could be heavier, though: the lower shell is made from carbon fiber to reduces weight (the chassis is steel and the screen is acrylic).

Most astonishing is the price, something that Sinclair managed to get right almost every time. The X-1 cost just 595, or $962, making it as cheap or much cheaper than many more normally-styled electric bikes.

In London, bike use has rocketed in recent years thanks to better infrastructure and rising transport costs. Could Sinclair’s X-1, which is uniquely suited to England’s rainy climate, actually take off? Maybe, but don’t expect this to be a welcome site in the capital’s bike-lanes, which the product blurb assures us the X-1 is allowed to use.

Available 2011.

Sinclair X-1 [Sinclair ZX]

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Is the Camioncyclette a bike with too many baskets attached, or is it just a giant, ride-able shopping-cart? According to designer Christophe Machet, it is in fact a “transportation bicycle”, and it can carry up to 150 Kg, or 330-pounds in those wiry receptacles.

What I like most about the Camioncyclette is that it is dead simple. So many bicycle redesigns try to get fancy, dickering with a shape that is already almost perfect, in practical terms at least. Machet’s bike is just a bike with storage added anywhere it would fit, and is even strong enough to fit a person in the back, if they can stand the uncomfortable ride. No superfluous carbon-fiber, no integrated seat-tubes, no hub-less crap.

The wheels are small, which gives more space for cargo and also makes it easier to get moving and to maneuver. The bike uses disk-brakes so you can stop however loaded-up you are, and it appears to be a single-speed or use internal hub-gears, again keeping things simple. Finally, a proper two-legged stand in the center means you can actually load and unload the thing without it toppling over.

In fact, the only concession to fanciness is the Brooks saddle, although anyone who has one knows that a Brooks is in fact about the most practical and long-lasting (and comfortable) seat you can buy.

Machet’s design is, right now, not in stores. A shame, because it looks to be cheap and ugly enough to be very, very practical.

Camioncyclette product page [Christophe Machet via Oh Gizmo and I New Idea]

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The Hvding is an airbag for your head. Mounted in a bulky collar, which can be disguised as a stylish scarf, the bag explodes on when you crash and surrounds your delicate melon with an inflated hood. I know there are some drivers out there who hate cyclists, so here’s a video of the Hvding in action, with a sneaky car-driver mowing down an innocent biker.

Hvding means “chieftain” in Swedish, and the air-helmet was designed by Swedes Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin as a university thesis project. The collar contains the bag itself, helium to inflate the airbag and sensors which tell the Hvding when to fire. The sensor unit consists of gyroscopes and accelerometers which constantly monitor movement and deploy to bag when you’re in danger. The Chieftain is charged by USB (firmware can also be updated via the same port) and you switch it on by zipping the collar shut around your neck.

With a car airbag, the time to fire is obvious – when impact is detected. But as you see in the video, there are many ways a cyclist can fall that look similar to normal, safe activities in other contexts: going over the bars and falling forward is a lot like bending down to lock a wheel, for instance. To eliminate false positives, Haupt and Alstin carried out extensive testing with both dummies and – amazingly – stunt men and women.

So why wear this instead of a helmet? Style is the first thing that comes to mind. You can change the covers of the collar to match your outfit, and you won’t muss your hair while you ride. I’d probably feel less safe in this active scarf than I would in a passive, always-on helmet, but the Hvding seems to be reliable, and I don’t wear a helmet anyway.

There’s one more thing that this protector will do: adapt. When you hook up the hood to a USB port, you can choose to upload your “chiefs”. The unit contains a “black-box” which keeps the last ten-seconds of sensor info in a buffer and saves it on impact. This information is then aggregated to improve the performance of the software.

Bonus: fall off a bridge on the way home and you won’t drown, however drunk you are.

How the Hvding works [Hvding via David Report]

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The Scubster is an underwater bike, a pedal powered submarine with twin propellors that push it through the water at a speedy 5mph. The sub is French, and has been in testing this Summer. The inventor, Stephane Rousson, hopes that rich little boys will buy it as a toy for their expensive yachts.

The James Bond-inspired submersible will dive to just 20-feet, making it less suitable for exploration than for playboy fun. The cabin is sealed against the water but air comes from a bottle and face-mask, so if you do spring a leak there’s no need to panic. It looks like amazing fun, and from the photographs it appears you could also run thing as a semi-sunk boat half-floating in the water, scaring swimmers.

Don’t expect to be buying one of these soon, unless you have the money to commission a custom build. Even Rousson isn’t expecting success. “If it doesn’t take off, I’ll race it,” he told England’s most respected newspaper, the Daily Mail.

Scubster [Scubster via Urban Velo]

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If you were wondering what to buy Gadget Lab editor Dylan Tweney for Christmas, her’s your answer. Send him a Mechanicard, a mailable greetings card which is also a handmade kinetic sculpture. Dylan is both a tinkerer and a sucker for cool stationery, so he’ll love it. Just don’t expect it to be a surprise – I’m pretty sure he reads this blog.

There are five different Mechanicards, from the Radial Engine seen in the picture above through the Strum-U-lator (plays music!), the Dragonfly Surprise (it has a dragonfly. Surprise!) and the wonderful Ambigulator, “featuring a hand-cranked optical effect, and a mechanism that asks more questions than it answers.”

The kits are all hand-operated with a tiny, supplied handle, and can be had fully made or in kit form. The kits begin at $45 assembled ($35 for the DIY option) and the prices rise to $75 for the more complex models. If you’re feeling stressed today, then go grab a cup (or cocktail glass) of your favorite beverage and watch the video of all the Mechanicards in action. It’s hypnotic, and very relaxing.

Mechanicards mailable sculptures [Mechanicards]

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

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Meet the Dreamslide. No, it’s not a helter-skelter down which you slip, only to find yourself in school, and naked, and maybe able to fly, although it’s more like swimming through the air than flying. No, the Dreamslide is in fact an almost equally weird, and very cool, alternative to the bike.

The Dreamslide has two big differences from a regular bike. First, it has no seat and second, it has a new kind of crank which makes it possible to stand up and pedal without dying after like five minutes.

The stand-up part is that part that the Dreamslide people are pushing, billing the machine as a cross between cycling and skateboarding or, better, longboarding. You pedal to gain speed and then you can cruise and lean into bends as if you were carving a board. It actually looks like a lot of fun.

But the really interesting part is in the crank. If you ever rode home without a saddle, you’ll know how hard it is to keep pedalling whilst holding your weight on your legs, especially if you’re not climbing a hill. If you ever tried that on a fixed-gear bike, you’ll know that it is virtually impossible to go more than a few hundred yards.

The Dreamslide’s crank, called the APS (Adaptive Pedaling System) gets around this by having two independent crank-arms. At any time, the rear crank moves upwards around three times faster than the front crank descends.

This apparently gives a motion a lot more like running, and as you can see, it lets you rest your whole weight on the lower leg as the top foot comes over the top of the circle. Those oversized pedals also help you take your weight on your legs.

The Dreamslide also folds, although as it has no seat or accompanying tubing all you need to do is swing the steering-tube down flat against the frame, where it clamps in place with a big magnet.

You can actually buy this crazy vehicle, and although it costs more than a Brompton and a longboard combined, it’s less than some sports gear, at 1,250, or $1,730 in your Earth dollars.

Like any sport, it even has its own uniform which, in this case, can only be described as “preppy”: To ride the Dreamslide you are obligated to wear a polo-shirt and tight flannel work-pants. Groovy!

Dreamslide product page [Dreamslide via Bike Snob]

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Suntour’s Swing Shock is a swing-arm suspension fork that is clean-looking enough to put on a fixed-gear bike, however fancy it might be. The fork comes in two parts. The alloy top section is joined to the lower, magnesium forks by a pivot that juts out behind the fork, just under the down-tube. A piston and coil-spring sit vertically between these two parts and give 30mm, or just over an inch of travel to soak up cobblestones, curbs and small potholes.

The straight fork has an ingeniously simple design that doesn’t look out of place on an otherwise stripped down bike. The one you see here has mounts for a disk-brake, but you can also opt for V-brake/cantilever bosses.

Normally I’m not a fan of suspension, except where it’s needed: on mountain bikes. I prefer the mechanical simplicity of slightly fatter tires at lower pressure, and a sprung saddle because there’s less to go wrong. This Suntour fork, though, looks simple enough and pretty enough to consider.

The forks are up on the Suntour site right now, but pricing and dealer availability details are not.

Suntour Swing Shock [Suntour via Bicycle Design]

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Signa’s fuel-cell powered electric bike will run for 60 miles on a single charge. More impressive is that it runs on water.

The bike itself is really just a showcase for the fuel-cell tech from the energy company. The cells uses sodium silicide in the form of a sand-like powder. Add this to water and it “instantly creates hydrogen gas.” This hydrogen is then used to generate electricity. Because no hydrogen is stored, the cells are safe, and excess electricity is stored in batteries for an extra boost when you get to a hill. The cartridges are hot-swappable and are fully recyclable.

The main advantage (apart from the safety aspect) is that you can just swap-in a new cartridge when you need it, instead of having to stop to recharge (the units weigh around 1.5-pounds each, less than most batteries). You also get better range: a battery-powered bike typically gets 20 to 30-miles on a charge. The downside is infrastructure: you can find a power-outlet pretty much anywhere in the world. Try finding a compatible fuel-cell in a backwater general-store.

The current units can be designed to put out anything from 1-Watt to 1-Kilowatt. Their futire is probably not in electric bikes but in bigger transportation. Imagine driving your car into the gas-station, popping the hood and swapping in a fuel-cell, just Like Doc Brown drops a tube of plutonium into his time-traveling DeLorean.

Pre-orders for the cells are being taken by Signa. For a bike, you’ll probably have a long wait. Full, technical press release below.

Produce High-Pressure Hydrogen From Water [Signa. Thanks, Mike!]

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Press Release:

SiGNa Unveils The Most Energy Dense Power Solution For Electric BicyclesPower system produces clean, safe and portable hydrogen power zero air pollution

NEW YORK October 5, 2010 — The race to create a hydrogen-based portable power platform sped forward when SiGNa Chemistry, Inc. demonstrated its new ultra-high-performance range extender at the Interbike International Trade Expo. This ground-breaking power platform produces hydrogen gas instantaneously and then converts the hydrogen to electricity using a low-cost fuel cell. The extender creates up to 200W of continuous power; excess energy is stored in a lithium battery for use in more energy-intensive acceleration and hill climbing conditions. A unique attribute is the high level of inherent safety as demonstrated by 3 days of continuous operation at Interbike. The hydrogen is produced at low pressure (50% the pressure of a soda can) and the only emission is water vapor.

For the rider, the extender triples the range of their e-bike with minimal additional weight. Existing e-bikes have a range of up to 20 miles without pedaling; SiGNas system reaches up to 60 miles without pedaling for each carried fuel cartridge. The energy density of each SiGNa cartridge is more than 1,000 Watt-hours/kilogram compared to advanced Li-ion batteries at approximately 65 Watt-hours/kilogram. The fuel cartridges are hot-swappable, lightweight (< 1.5 pounds) and inexpensive, making this a realistic solution for any e-bike owner.

The extender uses inherently-safe reactive metal powders to produce electric power. By integrating SiGNas hydrogen-generation technology with an e-bike, we have demonstrated an unprecedented power solution with no greenhouse gas emissions,” says Michael Lefenfeld, President and CEO of SiGNa Chemistry, Inc. SiGNas range extender was demonstrated on a Pedego electric bicycle, but it is directly compatible with most electric bicycle models.

Sodium silicide makes this portable power system possible. Sodium silicide is a safe, air-stable reactive metal powder that instantly creates hydrogen gas when it comes into contact with water. Any type of water can be used including potable water, polluted water, sea water, or even urine. Once the fuel cartridge is depleted, the rider is left with an environmentally-safe byproduct (sodium silicate) that is fully contained in a disposable or reusable cartridge.

SiGNa has adapted its award-winning powders for use in many industrial applications including pharmaceuticals and oil refining. Since sodium silicide is safe, inexpensive and easily transportable, the portable power market is a natural fit. Says Lefenfeld, SiGNas portable-power system overcomes two key challenges with using hydrogen for transportation applications adequate hydrogen storage and safe transport. SiGNa has begun by developing a system that provides power to e-bikes; we envision this platform will become a primary or back up power source for many transportation applications.
SiGNas portable power platform can be utilized in any standalone application that require from 1 W to 1 kW of power including generators, lawn mowers, golf carts, and consumer electronics.
Pre-orders are being taken now at sales@signachem.com.

Source:wired.com

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The BOND bike is a result of design-by-committee, Mad Max-style. The name stands for Built of Notorious Deterrents, and although it has the trademark James Bond ejector seat firing from the seat-tube, the real inspiration is clearly the Road Warrior.

The origin of this pavement-assault-vehicle is odder than its appearance. A UK bike insurer asked 800 cyclists what they most hated about cycling, and then addressed these problems in the BOND. The result is deadly.

The bike has a flamethrower to smoke any vehicle that gets too close, a caterpillar-track to deal with pot-holes, the aforementioned ejector-seat for dealing with thieves and a retractable ski-blade for bad weather. It’s clearly impractical, and is coincidentally almost identical to the drawings of bikes I did as a seven-year-old.

You can’t buy it, and we don’t recommend making one unless you want to be arrested as soon as you leave the front yard. You can, however, buy bike insurance, which will help a lot when you have to pay the medical bills of a recently immolated truck-driver.

BOND bicycle boasts ejector seat and flame thrower [ETA Insurance]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Want to ride to the office, but can’t find anywhere to put your briefcase? Then try the commute with Marcos Madia’s Bikoff concept: it is both bicycle and briefcase.

Contrary to appearances, the bike doesn’t go inside the briefcase. Instead, the case is an important structural part of the bicycle, which is itself a very simple folder with a hinge in the main tube. When assembled, the case slots in, locks the bike open and provides extra support to that rather weak-looking tube.

Going on the computer-generated images, the specs include a carbon-fiber body, disk-brakes with the cables running inside the tubes, rear suspension and a rather neat-looking seat/seatpost combo. I like the simplicity, even whilst I worry that the rear brake-cable could easily be snipped by the scissoring hinge. If I was in the market for a folding bike, though, I’d likely choose a Brompton – they fold up into a tiny package, and they seem to do it with nothing more than the flick of the wrist.

Marcos Madia’s Bikoff [Coroflot via Core77]

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Source:wired.com

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The Smart is a great little car, perfect for the city. It’s tiny, has one of those clever gearboxes that can be either manual or auto, it fits into almost any parking space and despite popular ignorance – is very safe. But how do you stop somebody from just picking it up and carrying it off in their pocket?

With a big-ass bike-lock, that’s how. Just take a giant Kryptonite Evolution Mini (maxi?), pass it through the open windows and lock it to a lamppost. Easy, unless you left anything valuable on the seat.

Of course this is an ad, but when ads are this good we don’t care. The spot was created by the BBDO agency of Toronto, Canada, and is supposed to show that the Smart is as versatile in the city as a bike. I spot one big mistake, though. That giant shackle uses the old-style Kryptonite lock-mechanism that could be opened with the barrel of a Bic pen. All you need is a giant biro and you have yourself a new car.

Smart Bike Lock [Ads of the World]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Every year, the Interbike show in Las Vegas brings new and updated products from the big bike-makers. It also has lots of weird niche bikes, which are probably a lot more interesting. And you can’t get much more niche than polo bike designed for travel.

This is the Joust, from Fleetvelo. It was designed by a fellow named Tucker Schwinn, who is both part of the famous bike-making Schwinn family and also a bike polo player. It is this last part that has lead to a bike that looks almost perfect for the sport.

First, the Joust is tough. It has fat steel tubes which have extra reinforcement where they join. I have snapped two frames this summer, both where the bottom bracket meets the seat-tube, so this is important. Second, the fork and frame are wide enough to take fat-tires (the front in this case is made for a 26-inch wheel). Fat tires are more comfortable but more importantly give better grip when braking hard into a turn, where a front-wheel skid can cause disaster.

The Joust is also made to take v-brakes front and back. The most popular polo bike so far is the Cutter, from BMX-maker Volume. It has no drilling for a front brake. The same 135mm axle-length is also used front and back, so you only need carry a spare rear-wheel and you can also use it up front.

But the last, most impressive piece of design is the S and S coupling. This is a super-light yet strong pair off joints that let you split the bike in two for travel. S and S makes travel-cases that are barely larger than the diameter of a wheel, and not very deep, either. Using these makes air-travel a breeze, and you can avoid the crazy charges some airlines levy on bikes.

All this design does’t come cheap, though. The frame alone is $650 ($620 unpainted). That’s a lot for a bike that you’re just going to thrash into the ground, but then again, it’s a lot cheaper than buying a new beater road-bike every couple months, which is what I’m doing now.

The Joust is built-to-order, and currently takes around three weeks to ship.

Fleetvelo Joust Polo Frame [Urban Velo]

Joust product page [Fleetvelo]

Photo: Urban Velo

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

What happens when a bike maker forgets about the UCI rules that govern the weights of competition road bikes? You end up with a machine which weighs just six pounds. That’s not a typo: 6-lbs.

Lance Armstrong and the other racers in the Tour de France must have bikes weighing 6.8-kilos, or 15-pounds. This machine, built by Fairwheel Bikes of Tuscon, weighs in at less than half that. And according to the anonymous owner, it is tough enough to ride, having clocked up around 20,000-miles.

To get the weight down, pretty much every part has been tweaked. Almost everything is made from carbon fiber, of course, but here are a few ridiculously small numbers for you. The brakes are AX Lightness (130-145 grams the set, depending on model). The crankset, iuncluding bearings, is 281-grams. The AeroLite Lite Pedals weren’t Lite enough, so they have been drilled to further reduce weight. And the wheels? According to Rico de Wert, the builder of the cranks, both wheels together weigh just 585-grams. That’s 1.29-pounds for the pair.

Velonews spoke to the folks from Fairwheel, who were showing off the machine at this year’s Interbike, and you can read the full list of specs over at the site. It really is a crazy-light bike, and it gets me thinking about just how pointless it is, too. While properly inflating your tires won’t add a significant amount to the weight, drinking just three liters of water before getting in the saddle would actually add more to your weight than the mass of this entire bike. And imagine how light this thing would be if they took off the gears and made it fixed.

The bike isn’t for sale, but if you were to make your own, it would cost you $45,000.

A $45,000, six pound carbon road bike assembled by Fairwheel Bikes [Velonews]

Photo: Velonews

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Owleye makes solar-powered bike-lights, but don’t worry if you forgot to leave one on the window-ledge all day – you can quickly juice the built-in li-ion batteries via USB.

The lamp in question is the catchily-named 1996-906. Like all Owleye’s other lights, it has solar-panel on the side which will provide enough charge for 90 minutes if left to soak in the photons for two-hours. LEave it in the sun for four hours and switch the 200-lumen LED to flashing-mode and you can enjoy six-hours of night-biking.

The trick here is that you don’t need to turn the house-lights on if its a cloudy day, or to charge the lamp overnight. With the 1996-906, you can just plug in to a handy USB-port or charger and juice it that way.

The idea is a good one – I hate buying batteries or even swapping-out rechargeables. The lights are also small, so you can keep them handy in a backpack or pocket. They’re not cheap, however. Online, this model is going for $80 a set. If you don’t need the USB option, Owleye makes cheaper, bulkier lamps starting at $20.

Owleye product page [Owleye via Urban Velo]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Mikey Wally is serious about bikes. He’s also serious about gadgets, and he snapped this shot of an amazing but rather dangerous-looking iPad-powered bike stereo at June’s Subway Series Ride in Los Angles

The iPad handlebar mount, seen here on a BMX, appears to be as sturdy as the bike itself. It looks like nothing more than a sign-holder from a conference-center, with rubber strips slid in to offer a little protection against the rattling steel (take a peek at the full-sized picture, though, and you’ll see it is custom-built). It also shows just how perfect a ten-inch screen is for in-bike entertainment. Sure, here it’s just using iTunes to feed the stereo, but maps, movies and anything else would work great on the big (ish) screen.

So how serious is Mikey about his bicycles? First, he lives in LA and doesn’t use a car. Second, according to his Flickr profile, last summer he rode from New York to LA. That’s as bad-ass as the 40 Glocc track playing on the bike stereo.

BMX bike-stereo [Mikey Wally / Flickr]

My June Subway Series Ride Photos [Mikey Wally]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews