GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

If you can’t ride your bike safely with one hand, you probably shouldn’t be on the road. Poor control skills, though, are the excuse for the Seil bag, a bikers’ backpack with flexible LEDs and circuitry applied to the back which lets you make turn signals with both hands on the bars.

The Seil, by Lee Myung Su Design Lab, comes with a removable, bar-mounted wireless controller. Flick a lever on the side and arrows blink on your back to show where you plan to go. When not being used to warn other road users of your intentions, the LED display flashes with cute little symbols: space-invaders, hearts and the like, guaranteed to either distract or infuriate drivers.

Indicators on bikes keep popping up, either as concepts or as actual products, but never catch on. This is likely because anyone experienced and responsible enough will be comfortable with giving good, clear hand signals and would therefore never pay for extra blinking lights. These things are a novelty, and sticking them on a backpack is even worse. What if it stops working and you lurch across traffic thinking without signaling? Or if you don’t have your pack with you one day and (gasp) are forced to use boring old arms to signal?

Happily, the Seil remains a concept, not an actual product.

Seil bag [Lee Myung Su Design Lab]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

I like Knog bicycle lights. They’re cheap, bright, tough and more-or-less waterproof, and their rubbery bodies make them as easy to mount on the bike as they are to toss in your bag. What I don’t like is buying batteries, whether they’re AAAs or button cells. That’s why I’m excited about the Boomer Rechargeable, a USB version of Knog’s 50-lumen Boomer.

The light was spotted by the good folks from Urban Velo on a trip to the recent Interbike show. The Boomer Rechargeable works like every other Knog lamp: a plastic core containing the electronics and LEDs is wrapped in a stretchy silicone cover. The difference is that when you slip the skin off this one, you see a USB plug which you can jack into a computer or charger. It could hardly be better for a commuter who rides to work on dark winter days.

The regular Boomer costs $35, so expect this to be a little more. The lamp isn’t yet live on the site, but (hopefully) will be soon.

Knog Boomer Rechargeable [Urban Velo]

Knog Boomer [Knog]

Photo: Urban Velo

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

By Mark Brown

Bicycle designers from Hungary have revealed the Stringbike in Padova, Italy, a bike design that drops the common chain in favour of a wire and pulley system.

While it might seem like a complicated answer to a non-existent problem, the Hungarian creators assure that their symmetric system lends itself to an extra level of comfort and efficiency.

Typical bikes, of course, have a chain and gears on just one side of the bike. The Stringbike creators, at bike manufacturing company Schwinn Csepel Zrt, write that asymmetry has been the source of lots of problems. However, other than slipping chains and oily jeans, theyre mostly unnoticeable problems, until youve tried a symmetrical system first hand.

The new designs mechanics are considerably more complicated than the traditional chain, and is possibly best left to the video (embedded below) to explain. In the most basic terms, the movement of the pedal forces a swinging arm to move about its shaft, pulling a taught cable around a pulley system. With each push, the task is swapped from the left side to the right.

The Stringbike offers up a few extra advantages over its chain-driven predecessor. The pedal system can be replaced with different discs for separate purposes, for example. Racing and touring could use different shaped and sized parts, to alter performance and function. Plus, the rear wheel can be removed in seconds, for portability.

Youll also have no grease or oil to deal with, but it doesnt look like youll be able to fix this quite as easily as replacing a knackered chain. The official website mentions that while you will be able to take it an appropriate service location, you can repair a Stringbike at home. Although, that would presumably be the least of your worries if a fast-moving, taught, metal wire lashed off its piston next to your leg. Ouch.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Psych’s bike-bag works a lot like a cowboy’s saddle-bags. It is split into two parts, and when you sling it over your top-tube each part hangs down one side, putting the load in right in the center of the bike for good stability. The bag actually attaches to the bike with ratcheted straps that go around the seat-post and the headset housing. These are pulled tight and act as a kind of spring suspension.

It’s a very smart idea, and if the bags can keep themselves and their contents out of the way of your knees as you pedal, they’re almost perfect as a rack-less pannier replacement. There’s even an insulated compartment inside for a water-bladder, or – if you don’t carry water – your hot or cold lunch. My big worry is just that it will get in the way. When I ride to bike-polo I have a pair of mallets ball-bungeed to the top tube. They’re skinny ski-poles and even they get in the way, so a bulky bag may not work.

If you’re willing to give it a go, there are two models: a small “Trail Bag” for $100 and a bigger “Commuter” model for $150. Available now.

Psych product page [Psych via Urban Velo]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

I spent the “Summer” in Berlin, Germany, where a cargo-carrying bike like this is a common site, stuffed with a pair of brats as its smug, over-breeding parents pedal it along the city’s many excellent bike-lanes. Berlin is pretty flat but even so, an electric boost would be nice. That’s just what the Urban Arrow will give you.

The bike comes from Amsterdam, the world capital of bike-crime, and along with its electric pedal-assist, it has a modular aluminum frame that can accept different front-ends. There’s the two-wheeled version seen here, as well as a short two-wheeler for regular biking and a three-wheel cargo-carrier for more stability. Along with the helpful power-train to get you going, there’s also a pair disk-brakes so you can stop again without dropping your up-to-180-kilo (400-pound) load.

As for carrying the kids, there is an optional rain-cover, and the EPP plastic box has a rail running around the outside to protect little fingers if you run into something while the monsters are climbing up the sides. The bike is billed on the information-free website as being the “first serious car challenger”, and that might not be too far off the mark.

The Urban Arrow won an award at the recently-ended Eurobike 2010, and should be on sale soon for an as-yet unknown price.

Urban Arrow product page [Urban Arrow. Thanks, Jorrit!]

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Source:wired.com

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The pre-Interbike news is hotting up, and if it’s this good before the Vegas show, I’m pretty excited to see what will happen at the show. This new belt-drive design is the CenterTrack from Gates, and it claims to have 20% more tensile strength than other Gates Carbon-Drive systems. It is also way cooler-looking, thanks to the CenterTrack design, which makes it look a lot more like a traditional chain-and-cog drive.

Instead of putting the teeth inside a two external rails, the new CenterTrack puts a retaining ridge down the center of the cog and chainring. This in turn makes the drive slimmer, allowing it to fit on more hubs, and it also means that the crap that collects in more tradition drives drops out much more easily.

The CenterTrack will be in stores next year, and pre-installed on new bikes in 2012. With that gorgeous-looking, chunky chainring and the possibility of candy-colored belts, combined with an almost silent operation, make me want to try one out on my fixed-gear bike.

Gates Centertrack [EcoVelo]

Carbon Drive Technology [Gates]

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Source:wired.com

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Bike-maker Surly has revealed its upcoming wares ahead of the big Interbike show in Las Vegas this year. Surly makes bikes which are tough, from the fixed-gear Steamroller through the touring Long Haul Trucker to the huge cargo-carrying Big Dummy. But the thing that caught my eye was the new Surly Trailer, a monster that will haul up to 300-pounds of gear, or as many of your friends as you can fit on it.

First off, the trailer ain’t cheap. At $750 for the short (32-inch, shown above) and $775 for the long (64-inch) models, you might not want this just to move house one time, but if you view it as a way to make your bike a true car-replacement then it’s a deal. A deal that will probably last forever.

The trailer hooks onto the back-wheel on both sides of the axle and fits wheel-sizes from 20-29-inches. The rig is adjustable up and down so the load stays level whatever size wheels you have, and you hook it onto the bike using simple thumb-screws.

The advantage of a trailer over a cargo bike are many. It means you can free your bike for everyday use, and the separate parts are easier to carry up to your apartment than a long-wheelbase bike. It’s also easier to carry large loads. Try balancing out 300-pounds on even a heavy-duty cargo bike and you’ll see what I mean. The Surly Trailer also comes with “DIY mounts all over it” so you can “Make your own bed, add some uprights, strap down your friends.”

The Surly Trailer will be ready for Spring 2011.

Oh, what the hell [Surly via Urban Velo]

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Source:wired.com

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Topeak has updated its top-of-the-line Alien bike multi-tool making it smaller and lighter, and easier than ever to carry an almost full bike toolkit in your pocket.

The ALiEN III CB DX comes in stainless steel (the other Aliens are CrMo steel) and has a carbon-fiber shell to keep the weight down. The rather childish alien-head on the side does serve one purpose: it helps you realign the two halves of the tool when putting them back together.

As for tools, what does it have? Everything, pretty much. There are Allen-wrenches, screwdrivers, a chain-tool, 8,9 and 10mm box-wrenches, a tire-lever (just one, and it’s metal), a knife and even a place to store two spare chain pins. The tool weighs in at a not-bad 260 g, or 9.15 oz, so it might not be comfy in a jersey pocket, but in a bag you shouldn’t notice it.

I have a Topeak Hexus tool and I love it. I snapped the tip off one of its two plastic tire-levers, and the chain tool could be a little more spacious for the fat track-chains I use, but other than that it just keeps on working. The Alien should be just as durable and, tossed in a bag with a 15mm wrench, a spare tube and a mini-pump, should make sure you’re ready for anything. $104.

ALiEN III CB DX product page [Topeak via Urban Velo]

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Source:wired.com

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I’m not writing this post only because the company involved has the awesome name of Schlumpf, but it certainly played a big part. The gadget in question is a new kind of belt-drive for bikes, the Advanced Belt Drive System, or ABDS.

The innovation here isn’t in the belts: the drive uses standard 14mm-pitch belts. It’s in the modular setup that uses a few standardized parts which can be changed around to work with pretty much any bike or belt you like.

Belt drives have a few advantages over chains, the most obvious being cleanliness. The belts require no lubricant, so there’s no dirt-collecting oil to soil your pants. They’re also lighter than chains. But there are disadvantages, too. For regular gearing, the “wrap-angle” around the rear sprocket is not big enough to prevent slippage. The answer has been to tense the belt, making it very tight. This increases wear and also reduces efficiency.

With Schlumpf’s ABDS, the bottom bracket has a gearing system, which means the rear sprocket can be bigger and pre-tensioning isn’t needed. Because of this, a bigger pitch (gap between teeth) can be used. 14mm is the industry-standard, but this is often reduced to 11mm for pre-tensioned systems just to get enough teeth engaged around the small sprocket.

The parts slot together like Meccano, and by combining several thin sprocket “plates”, you can make a kind of laminated sprocket of any width. The “chainline” can also be adjusted by moving around these plates relative to the adapters that hold them in place. And yes, you could even put one on a fixed-gear bike: Schlumpf makes an adapter for track hubs.

Whether belts will ever replace chains is questionable, but they’re getting more and more popular. Hell, even I want to try one out now.

ABDS Advanced Belt Drive System [Schlumpf via Eco Velo]

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Source:wired.com

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Interactive Map of Afghanistan for iPad. Image By/Used Courtesy Of Development Seed

GPS maps for smartphones generally require a fairly high-speed wireless internet connection, consume significant processor resources, and are optimized for driving. But what if your 3G connection is unreliable or unavailable, and you still need to get from point A to point B — perhaps on foot?

Last week, I spoke with Eric Gunderson and Ian Cairns at Development Seed, one of the companies developing tools to create custom maps that work in a wider variety of situations, like this one. It’s not that farfetched: In a natural disaster and in the developing world, mobile phones may be useful navigational aids, but only if they can work without a reliable data connection and are optimized for different kinds of transportation than just zooming down the highway to the nearest Starbucks.

Development Seed caught our attention with a post that Cairns wrote for PBS’s MediaShift Idea Lab on custom maps for cyclists and drunken, late-night pedestrians. For StumbleSafely, DC Bikes, and DC Nightvision, a typical street map was overlaid with crime data, bike lanes, bar and bike shop locations, and municipal infrastructure: “Not just buildings and roads, but even crosswalks, medians, and topography lines.” In short, all of the data that actually helps you get where you’re going when you’re not in a car.

These maps were built with TileMill, an open-source program the company created to help governments, NGOs, news organizations, and others easily create custom maps. The idea is to make map image tiles and Geographic Information System (GIS) data as easy to work with as RSS feeds or CSV databases are today.

“We want to put these tools in the hands of the subject-matter experts and see what they can do,” Gunderson told Wired.com. Development Seed won a Knight News Challenge award for the project.

Knight News Challenge: Tilemapping from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

One of the most-needed and currently most-poorly-served markets for mapping and data visualization support is in international development. As Gadget Lab reported this week, mobile devices are thriving in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the developing world, but data bandwidth and easy-to-find electricity aren’t.

“You can’t get an application like Google Earth working in Afghanistan,” Gunderson said. Maps On A Stick offers full-fledged, data-and-image-rich maps on a USB drive for no-bandwidth or poor-bandwidth use. The company and clients have plenty of experience with those scenarios, mapping uncharted road data in Africa, or helping relief workers provide housing assistance after Hurricane Katrina.

I think about those disaster scenarios often, just as I think about the people I love walking home alone in the city late at night.

When Apple launched the iPhone, it made a big deal about how its software team had written its own Maps client, using Google’s data only for the backend. It had to work for the touch interface, but it also had to make sense for how people would be likely to use Maps on a mobile device.

Now that easy mobile maps have become a natural part of our smartphone-carrying, 3G-surfing lives, it may be time for us to broaden our assumptions about the kinds of maps we’ll need and the conditions we’ll have when we need them.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

If you want to know just how fast you can go on your vintage fixed-gear conversion, but can’t bear to put an ugly plastic computer onto your beautifully curated bike, this concept bicycle speedometer could be right up your bike-lane. It comes from Estonian designers Redfish Creative and, despite some flaws, looks pretty gorgeous.

The computer works just like any other wireless bike-computer, with a fork-mounted sensor that detects a spoke-mounted magnet as it thrum-thrums past and beams the info up to the head-unit on the bars. The difference is in the interface which looks more Gran Turismo* than Tour de France, all analog dials and twisting knobs.

The speed is shown with a needle on a dial and the mileage (or, in this case, kilometer-age) reads out on a retro-style odometer that can be switched from trip-distance to total distance at the slide of a switch. The wheel-size, which needs to be input for this kind of rotation-counting setup, is dialed in via a knob on the magnet-sensor unit.

And now the flaw, although not really a big one. The Bicycle Speedometer has a built-in electronic “bell”, triggered by pulling back on that side lever. The sound would be both a drain on batteries and less loud than a proper metal ding-a-ling model, and the holes to let out the sound would also let in the water.

Ditch the bell and I’m sold. The device is mounted with a leather-covered clip. Classy.

Bicycle Speedometer [Redfish via Core77]

*not the video-game.

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Source:wired.com

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Today we point and laugh at yet another ill-conceived bike design, only this one will actually make it into stores and is the spawn of big-name Brit designer Ross Lovegrove, not just some dude with a CAD app.

The first thing I though when I saw the LDN (for “London”) was “How the hell do I lock it?” You could run your D-Lock through that hole in the frame (there to lighten the bike and let you hang it on the wall) but then you’re left with two unsecured wheels. And because the carbon-fiber frame lacks a down-tube, the front-wheel can’t be locked to it. The only answer is three D-Locks, inferior cables or heavy chains, hardly practical on a “London” bike. And that’s before we even get to securing the saddle.

Lovegrove designed the LDN for Biomega, and it is clearly billed for city use. It has a couple of saving features: hub-gears and a shaft-drive keep things clean (both in looks and non-dirtiness) and, well, that’s it. The Lady thinks that it would be hard to ride in a skirt, and I wonder why the rear-wheel mounts on track-ends, especially as the shaft-drive means no chain pulling on the wheel, and no real need to move the wheel back and forth for perfect tension.

One more thing: The press release somewhat naively states that “LDN [is] a true urban tool.” Indeed.

Cratorial Biomega: LDN & NYC (Press release) [Cyclelicious via Bicycle Design]

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Source:wired.com

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Trust Wallpaper magazine to make a folding bike not just useful but desirable. And expensive. The brakeless fixed gear (natch) bike combines a steel frame by Kinfolk (a Japanese frame-builder) and Coat (a paint-shop in Portland) and comes with S and S couplings which allow the frame to be broken in two but add almost nothing to the weight, while keep the ride good and stiff.

You’ll probably guess the rest. The saddle is a specially made racing seat from Brooks, and the bike, when broken down for travel, can fit into a bag handmade by one Nivaldo de Lima. Wallpaper is actually selling the thing, in a limited edition of just two (and they have different paint-jobs). How much? 2,450 ($3,800) for the 54cm and 3,000 ($4,670) for the 58cm. The bag will be another 2,500 ($3,890). And remember, people: this is a fixed-gear bike, with no brakes.

Wallpaper* limited edition bikes for sale [Wallpaper]

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Source:wired.com

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This trike would fit right into a remake of The Shining, only instead of being ridden by the bowl-haired Danny Torrance, it would be piloted by a stretched, nightmarish cross between a creepy child and a psychedelic, broken-backed dachshund. The movie would, of course, be directed by Terry Gilliam.

The tricycle is in fact a sculpture by Dallas, Texas-based artist Sergio Garcia, and would likely be no less useful than a normal bike in that big, car-friendly state. The 50-inch-high piece is titled “Its not always easy to tell whats real and whats fabricated” and could probably be ridden if you sat backwards and didn’t mind people staring, pointing and murmuring “Red rum, red rum” over and over.

I wonder if Garcia would be interested in a commission. I snapped the frame of my bike at last weekend’s Bike Bolo World Championship in Berlin. I imagine fixing it up with a vertical version of Garcia’s looping tube, arranged around me like a big, skinny steel forcefield stopping any other player for getting near the ball.

Trike Sculpture [Sergio Garcia via the Giz]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The Social Bicycle System (SoBi) turns bike-sharing on its head, and is set to test in New York City this fall. Instead of big, central base-stations from which the bikes must be taken and returned, the SoBi puts all the tech on the bike itself. Here’s how it works:

The service consists of three parts. First, the SoBi unit which clamps to the bike and contains a GPS unit, a cellular device and a honking-great lock. Second is the SoBi server, and third is you or, more specifically, your cellphone.

Once registered, you can use your phone to track down a bike on a map. This may be locked to a regular bike-rack or at a designated base-station (yup, there are base-stations, but you don’t have to use them). Once you find a bike, you unlock it with your phone and ride away. If you don’t have a smart enough phone, you can just punch an unlock code into the unit or unlock it via SMS.

Because of the GPS and cellular connectivity, the server can authorize you and also always know where the bikes are. It will also allow you to track yourself, totting up the calories you burn as you avoid the legendary NYC pot-holes.

The bikes have some extras. If your bike is broken, hit the “repair” button and the bike will be flagged for pick-up. And what if you pop into the liquor store and come out to find another SoBi user has already taken off on “your” bike? There’s a “hold” button. which gives you ten minutes after locking the bike before it goes live again.

SoBi founder Ryan Rzepecki says that the startup costs are a fraction of those using traditional infrastructure-based systems, like the Velib in Paris of Bicing in Barcelona. Rzepecki says that these cost around $3,000 to $4,000 per bike to set up. SoBi costs less than $1,000 per bike.

The testing of the lock is the next part of the scheme. And we probably don’t have to point out that, being in New York, the lock is probably the most important part of the whole bike.

SoBi [Social Bicycles via Crunch Gear]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Oh man. If the LiveRider is anywhere near as good as it looks, then it’s going to sell roughly one zillion units. It’s a hardware/software combo that turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a cycling computer, and it looks pretty hot.

First, the hardware. It comprises a frame-mounted sensor which cable-ties onto the chainstay and senses speed and cadence via magnets attached to the wheel and crank. This beams its info via 2.4 GHz RF to a dongle plugged in to the iPhone. The iPhone itself sits snug in a shock-absorbing handlebar-mount.

You then fire up the free companion app and get access to all the usual data: speed, cadence, calories burned and so on, but on the big screen and in easy-to-view color. If you have GPS in your iDevice, it will also use that to let you know where you are.

My favorite feature is called “Chase Rider”, and it is like nothing so much as the ghost-driver feature in Super Mario Kart. It will remember past rides and play them back so you can race against your own best times. Neat.

The whole setup weighs in at just 3-ounces, and costs a very reasonable $100. You will, of course, need to supply your own iPhone (everything fits except the first and last iPhones). Available now.

LiveRider [New Potato Tech]

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Source:wired.com

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The Tunebug Shake turns the shell of your bike-helmet into a speaker. With it splayed across your cranium, you can listen to music on the road without blocking your ears and, by extension, blocking out traffic sounds.

It works by clamping down onto the helmet and vibrating, turning the surface of the lid into the actual speaker. You can plug it into an MP3 player via 3.5mm jack, or better, it can be paired with any music player using Bluetooth. The battery is lithium polymer, charged over USB and lasting a claimed five-hours.

I’m pretty sure that this isn’t the way to go. Because of the surrounding traffic, you’re likely to crank the volume up anyway, drowning out horn-blasts and shouts of warning. You’ll also annoy pedestrians and other cyclists.

If you must listen to music as you ride, use over-the-head, open-backed cans to let the sound in and keep the headphones on your head: earbuds get caught up as you turn your head and can prove fatally distracting. Should you decide you want to vibrate your noggin as you cycle, the Tunebug Shake will cost you $120.

Tunebug Shake [Tunebug via NYT]

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Source:wired.com

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The roll-up tool-bag is probably only hours younger than the invention of tools themselves: Soon after whacking away at a monolith with a femur, or cutting his thumb on a sharpened flint, the handy caveman would have needed a place to stow his kit. One dead, skinned woolly mammoth later thunk! shik-shak! and the tool-roll was born, complete with a furry surface on which our inventive neanderthal friend could wipe his greasy hands.

My poor knowledge of history aside, the tool roll is a great invention. And Timbukt2’s Tool Shed tool-roll (say that five times quickly) is now on my shopping list. The $35 tarp bag has pockets for your bike tools with an elastic strip at the top to keep long wrenches in place, and a netting pocket for small spares, chain-ring bolts and so on. The roll lies flat in use and once you’re done, you cinch it up and toss it in your bag.

Importantly, it’s also greaseproof. The Tool Shed comes in at a half-kilo (1.1-pounds): not the lightest roll, but it looks like it might last long enough to be your only roll.

I have a couple Timbukt2 bags already, and I love them. Just one thing, Timbukt2 designers: the strap on my mini-messenger bag is way too stiff. It’s nice that it’ll outlast me, but does it have to cut into my neck every time I wear it, too?

Tool Shed [Timbukt2 via Uncrate]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

A while back, the folks at Portland Design Works sent over a couple bike lights, a set containing the Spaceship and the Radbot. After opening them up and almost blinding myself, I set out to test them, with the intent of killing them. Read on to find out if they survived.

The kit consists the Radbot 500, a 0.5-watt red LED powered by a pair of AAA batteries, and the Spaceship, running on two AAs, which shines its white LED through a “German-engineered lens” and will “withstand rain showers and meteor showers,” (according to the blurb).

I started out the test in Barcelona, but it quickly became clear that the hot temperatures, lack of rain and smooth roads weren’t going to tax these lamps. Worse, Barcelona is so well lit at night that you really don’t need lights on your bike (although the law says otherwise). So I took the pair to a rather more difficult terrain: Berlin, Germany.

Berlin is almost bankrupt, which means long stretches of unlit road and teeth-rattling cobbled streets. It is also in the North of Europe, which gives it hot, dry days (up to 40-degrees, or 100 F) punctuated by cold nights and day-long thunderstorms. It is, in short, a very tough place for bikes and bike accessories.

The lamps do their most important job admirably. They’re ridiculously bright: the red Radbot alone can illuminate a whole room at night, and that’s when its still strapped on my rucksack, pointing in the wrong direction. The Spaceship’s tight beam, a mere curiosity in Barcelona, was essential when cycling through the pitch-black Mauerpark at night, picking out a glowing ellipse on the ground in front to illuminate a safe path between the potholes and broken beer-bottles.

The lights are removable. The Spaceship clamps onto the handlebars with a wraparound collar and a finger-operated screw to tighten it. It stays in place, even over the cobbles. The Radbot comes with a few different fixings. I clip it to the Brooks tool-bag hanging from my saddle, but you can screw an adapter to the light-mount on a rack, the seat-stay or the seat-post.

Despite hanging on tight, I managed to drop both lights plenty of times (usually while trying to drunkenly fix them onto the bike, post-beer-garden). They bounced, and neither of them has even a crack (yet. I’m still trying). Both lamps have also sat outside in Berlin rainstorms: They’re waterproof.

Problems? Very few. While the Radbot needs a long, 1.5-second press on the power switch to turn it on and off (to stop it lighting up in a bag), the Spaceship doesn’t, and actually switched itself on in my bike-bag on its air-trip here. Also, to change the batteries, you need to unscrew the lights to open them. A minor pain, as the screw-shut cases are what keeps the rain out. Otherwise, they come highly recommended (especially the Radbot’s cool pulsing flash-mode). The Spaceship even doubles as a handy weapon with which to blind rival bike-polo players (I have tested this).

Available now in a set for $45.

Spaceship/Radbot 500 [PDW. Thanks, Dan!]

Photo: Charlie Sorrel

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

The Tato is a $1,500 commuter with one added gimmick. Instead of schlepping a load on your back, on a rack or in a basket, you slide it into a slot in the frame itself. As you can see in the photo, the briefcase (or laptop-bag) sized cage is integrated, putting your luggage safely between your legs.

It’s a nice idea, although whether it is worth adding the weight of the extra tubing is debatable. I have seen a similar thing done with mixte bikes, those step-through frames which have two top-tubes running from the head-tube down to the wheels. The gap between these two tubes is perfect for holding a D-lock.

The Tato comes with a rigid or suspension fork, hydraulic disk-brakes front and back and a trouser-dirtying exposed chain running through derailer* gears. All the components are Shimano Deore. The bike, should you decide you want one, will come from Lichtenstein, so you may be looking at a rather hefty shipping charge depending on where you live.

I have mixed feelings about this novelty frame. It is certainly very good at its single task: carrying a briefcase to work whilst keeping the bike unencumbered by carrying devices. But if you’re not carrying a package that is 400 x 320 x 95 mm (16 x 13 x 4-inches) or smaller, it is pretty impractical. Available now.

Tato CSSB [Tato via Oh Gizmo!]

*Thanks, Sheldon!

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

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

No matter how frustrated a cyclist gets at badly-behaving drivers, there’s nothing they can really do against two-tons of glass and steel piloted by an idiot. But if you and a few friends happen to be riding the BigDog, a four-wheel, four-man-powered behemoth of a “bicycle”, you could crush drivers and their vehicles like the Hulk crushes… well, like the Hulk crushes everything.

The giant bike, made by Tom Wilson, is a “wonderfully impractical assemblage of bicycle, go-cart, and golf-cart pieces and parts, drainage pipe, steel tubing, and patio chairs.” Tom is not from the home of bike smugness, Portland, but from the equally appropriate Detroit. His big-wheeled, traffic-stomping creation will be rolling around the Maker Faire Detroit on July 31 and August 1 this year, so you might even be able to get a ride. In the meantime, head over to the Makezine blog and read the interview with Tom.

Maker Faire Detroit: BigDog interview [Makezine]

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

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

If you buy this IF Mode folding bike, you’ll be glad that it packs up small and can be safely stowed in a corner, because it costs $2,500.

For that, though, you get a bike that rides like a proper, full-sized bicycle, avoiding the tiny wheels that can make folders like the Brompton feel unsafe to newcomers. The wheels on the IF are a full 28-inches, and the single-sided hub-connection lets them squeeze up together when folder making for a skinny package.

Talking of folding, the designer, Mark Sanders, says that it uses a “single-action automatic fold” which does everything in one go, from collapsing the frame and handlebars to swinging the wheels around.

When in use, the bike works like any other. It has a chain (hidden in that tube), a pair of disk brakes and two-speed gears shifted with a heel-switch on the bottom-bracket. Apart from the slick design, its hard to see where your money is going here: after all, for the same price you could pick up a Vespa or other gas-scooter.

It’s heavy, too, weighing in at 32-pounds (14.7 kg). The bike is aimed at commuters, but if I was commuting further than the distance between bed and desk (and sometimes not even that far) then I’d find an old beater road-bike and strip it down to a single-speed. It’ll weigh nothing, it will never go wrong and with the right (ugly) paint job and a big ‘ol lock, nobody will steal it either.

Available now, in cream or black.

IF-Mode: An Engineering and Design Masterpiece [Babygeared via Uncrate]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Kevin Scott’s bike bends in the middle, and can be almost tied around a lamppost when locking it up.

The bendable bike has the top and down-tubes replaced by segmented sections, similar in appearance to an armored cable-lock. A ratchet mechanism on the seat-tube cranks the segments tight, stiffening the frame so it can be ridden.

It’s kind of neat, but you’ll still have to carry a lock to secure the bicycle after wrapping it around a pole, and the weight of the complex frame along the bulk of the crank-arm probably outweigh the extra locks they will be replacing.

I’d also worry about vandalism. An already-damaged bike seems to attract kicks and damage faster than an untouched one, and when locked up Kevin’s design looks like it has already received a beating. That’s not to say the bendy bike wouldn’t be useful: It would be easy to fit into a corner of a small apartment, and easy to squeeze around the corners of a tight stairwell.

The incredible ‘bendy bicycle’ [Daily Mail]

Industrial Design student is New Designer of the Year runner-up [De Montfort University]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Take one old bike, a big ol’ box and a whole lot of steel tubes and welding gear and what do you get? A cheap, stable cargo-carrying trike with enough space to haul the kids or carry groceries to feed the family for a week.

Over in Vienna, Austria, Instructables member Carkat took a crappy old mountain-bike and turned it into the handsome beast you see above, which will actually be used to carry kids – up front is both more fun for the child and less scary for the rider, who can see that his offspring are safe. The construction is straightforward, although Carkat had some headaches.

The first “draft” was a meter wide, and the pivot that allows you to steer the front-section (like a headset, but underneath the box) just wouldn’t turn. Once the box was slimmed down to an Austrian street-legal 80cm and the pivot replaced with another, welded in at a better angle, Carkat’s bike was good to go. A pair of caliper brakes on the front wheels, with a customized lever to trigger both at once, made sure that it could stop, too.

The resulting load-carrier is way cheaper than buying a proper delivery bike, and with a lick of paint looks almost as good. I’d probably upgrade those brakes to v-brakes or even disks if I was to, say, load this up with beer and ice, but Carkat’s DIY project is pretty fantastic. And I bet his kids totally love it, too.

How to build a cargo bike [Carkat/Instructables]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

An astonishing new device is set to shake up the world of cycling, and to make the road a safer place. The bicycle accessory is called the “Electric Sound Bell” and comes from a forward-thinking company called QBell. It mounts on your handlebars and – at the push of a button – it will sing out a warning to pedestrians and other road users, enabling them to smilingly get out of your way as you slowly pedal through town.

This miraculous invention requires just 2 AA batteries to do its work, and the four different “ringtones” can be trilled at any of three volume levels. We recommend starting low so as not to startle strolling citizens, as at full volume it is capable of a swoon-inducing 110 dB. It is even waterproof, to keep you safe in a passing shower.

The price? Just $24. Who would have thought such a revolutionary product could be sold for so little?

Electric Sound Bell [KJ Global via Oh Gizmo!]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews