Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Chris Boardman's Bike

Psst! There's a contest!

Former UK Olympic cyclist Chris Boardman created what he envisions to be a bike of the future.



Built in solar cells overlaid on the carbon fiber frame power an electric assist motor and other electronics on the bike, including a fingerprint recognition anti-theft feature and built in cyclocomputer. Spokeless wheels reduce air drag, and puncture resistant tires are self inflating.

Boardman was known as "The Professor" for his meticulous attention to detail in training and for his technical know how. He's applied his knowledge in the bikes he helps design for Boardman Bikes.

More about this bike at the Daily Mail. Via Fast Company and Pedalr. I would've sent this to James, but he's having some Internet access problems in China.

6 comments:

Dominic Dougherty said...

why would the bike of the future look so different than the bikes of now? The bikes of now don't look any different than the bikes of the past. All the funky bikes that have tried to be "different" have failed. Everything goes in cycles... especially things related to cycles.

Dan said...

I guess the brakes must be in there somewhere. Do you suppose instead of brake levers, it uses voice or thought recognition? Thinking "oh shit" brakes hard?

Yokota Fritz said...

Maybe active radar detect obstacles and steers or brakes for you :-)

GeekGuyAndy said...

Uh huh... and with about 1sq ft of solar of solar panel you should expect to go an extra 1mph for 10 seconds? :D Not to mention where they are going to fit a motor in there.

Not having spokes would make a wheel faster, unless the entire rim of it has to roll on bearings which I think is the case here.

Looks fancy - but definitely not going to exist anytime soon

Fen said...

We all know the real bike of the future transforms into a sex-bot...Maybe as a reward for going on a long ride even.

kit said...

Oh yeah, those wheels are awesome at reducing air drag... until you get hit with a cross wind, get blown across three lanes of traffic and are run over by this.