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Parking your two-wheeler in a shady neighborhood, but left your secondary lock at home? No problem — to protect your wheels, just bend your bike around a nearby post and thread your U-lock through the whole kit at once. That’s the idea behind UK designer Kevin Scott’s folding bicycle, which is rigid enough to freely ride, but releases its flexible ratcheting mechanism when you push a lever on the side. The design won the 21-year-old student £500 at the New Designers exhibition in London this week. He’s presently looking for partners to help commercialize the concept, which looks more practical than some, so we expect it’ll be only a few years before you’ll see his creation zipping down the street. One question, though — why not go the whole nine yards and give it a built-in lock, too?

Bendable bicycle wraps itself around a pole – by design originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Fraunhofer developing bike helmets (and other products) that stink when damaged

Fraunhofer developing bike helmets (and other products) that stink when damaged originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been seeing dynamo-powered gadget bicycle chargers for, well, ever. But it’s good to see a company with the global reach of Nokia getting into the action with a €15ish kit all its own. Nokia says that a 10 minute bike ride at 6mph (10kph) will produce enough power for 28 minutes of talk time or 37 hours of standby. The kit, primarily intended for developing markets, ships globally before the end of the year with a handlebar mount, dynamo, and 2-mm charger jack. But there’s nothing stopping you from picking up a micro USB adapter (at your own cost) and using the charger with Nokia’s smarter (and more power hungry) handsets like the N97, N900 and forthcoming N8** — any micro USB handset really, regardless of vendor. Coupled with Nokia’s free turn-by-turn guided Ovi Maps, the kit could be quit handy when navigating the countryside on a long weekend bike ride, or for navigating within cities, like, oh we don’t know, Amsterdam.

** Nokia N8 can be charged over 2mm or micro USB connectors, fancy.

Continue reading Nokia’s €15 bike charger will abide

Nokia’s €15 bike charger will abide originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 08:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While walking to a home office in slippers is probably the best way to get to work, riding on a bike isn’t far behind, but these people-powered contrivances aren’t exactly known for their storage space. If you need to lug a laptop or tote your tablet you really don’t have many options beyond somehow strapping it to your body or throwing on a set of bulky saddlebags. The Central Storage System for Bicycles (CSSB) from Swiss start-up TATO makes room by splitting the top tub on the frame, leaving space to slip in a laptop bag, purse, or your oversized copy of the Necronomicon, making this perfect for getting to the next Cthulhu fhtagn meeting while minimizing your environmental impact. It’s all yours for about $1,450, but shipping out of Switzerland will likely add a good bit on to that.

[Thanks, James]

Continue reading TATO’s Central Storage System for Bicycles makes room for your briefcase, manpurse

TATO’s Central Storage System for Bicycles makes room for your briefcase, manpurse originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 May 2010 08:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re running an Android phone and you’re lucky enough to be using 1.6 or above (our deepest apologies, CLIQ owners), we might recommend you pop open the Market and score the latest version of Google Maps that just launched today. What’s new? It adds support for bicycle routing (something they’ve had on the desktop for a while now) and sharing of destinations via the usual array of mediums like email, Facebook, Twitter, and so on, but the most significant change might also be the smallest: the addition of a dedicated icon for Google Maps Navigation. The product is still in beta, but this seems like an early sign that it’s starting to come of age — and on a more practical level, this obviously makes it quite a bit easier to launch right into a route when you saddle up in the car. Anywho, Motorola, about that CLIQ update?

Google Maps for Android adds bike routes, sharing, dedicated navigation icon originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 May 2010 18:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Volkswagen rolls out foldable ‘Bik.e’ electric bicycle concept

Volkswagen rolls out foldable ‘Bik.e’ electric bicycle concept originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Volkswagen rolls out foldable ‘Bik.e’ electric bicycle concept

Volkswagen rolls out foldable ‘Bik.e’ electric bicycle concept originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lexus shows off hybrid bicycle, won’t sell you one originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Honda U3-X might look all futuristic and highly portable, but it doesn’t pack much speed — probably for the sake of stability. The Segway? Far too bulky, plus it’s so yesterday (sorry, Woz). This brings us to the YikeBike — a bizarre-looking foldable electric bicycle that was announced back in September. Since then this mini whizzer’s been given a slight bump to its top speed (now 25km/h or 15.5mph) and range (10km; 40-minute charge time), while weighing just 22 pounds thanks to its carbon fiber composite frame. Once you’ve folded the bike up, you can even wear it using the supplied shoulder strap to go on the bus or subway.

During our hands-on, we started off with a bit of a wobble while adjusting to the backward handles, but five minutes later we learned to ignore the conventional cycling posture and leaned slightly further back, plus we got the right grip for the throttle (right) and brake (left). We also found the indicator, front light and horn buttons to be easily accessible by our thumbs. As you will see in the video after the break, we were traveling at fairly high speeds towards the end. The only problem that couldn’t be fixed was our legs being a tad short for the pedals, but word has it that YikeBike’s planning on releasing a smaller model in the near future. No word on US availability yet, but if you happen to be carrying £2,995 / €3,495 / $4,659 somewhere in Europe, then you’re eligible to pre-order now for a June delivery — just in time for the summer breeze.

Continue reading YikeBike foldable electric bicycle hands-on

YikeBike foldable electric bicycle hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Apr 2010 03:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Renting a bike in most urban areas of the US is a difficult proposition. In Japan not only can you easily rent a bike, you can now rent an electric bike — a solar powered electric bike to boot. Sanyo has dropped Eneloop stations on three locations around the Setagaya ward of Tokyo, each having 100 of the company’s electric rides on offer for passers by to borrow (for a sadly undisclosed fee). When the bikes aren’t being pedaled around town they’ll sit in the station, being recharged by 46 square meters of solar panels that not only juice up batteries but also provide LED lighting for the station itself. While Sanyo does offer some solar stations for Eneloop owners, these look to be for renters only, meaning those who’ve bought their own will have to take themselves and their little baskets somewhere else.

Sanyo surrounds Tokyo with Eneloop charging stations and bikes to match originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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