Monday, March 3, 2008

Fold! Do Not Spindle or Mutilate


I love the concept of folding bikes. Because they remove one of the arguments about taking up cycling; “I don’t have any room for a bicycle.” Here is a folding bike concept to would make short work of that excuse, were it ever to transition into a real world commercial product.

Gregor Dauth, a student at the Coburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany has worked with Cube bikes to develop his Urban Street Concept Bike. Gregor reckons you can fold up his full size bike to fit in a Smart car. Continue folding it like the blades of a Swiss Army Knife and he says the frame willl fit into a rucksack. See more pics by following the link to Cube Bikes below.
::Cube Urban Street Concept Bike

Gregor has also integrated front lights into the brake levers, added an integrated dynamo in that front wheel hub turns on lights automatically in darkness, and included an integrated rear and stop light in the seat post.

The concept site is only in German, though the video found there does have a translation, and the schematics are pretty obvious. However from the information offered it is hard to judge just how structurally sound the unfolded bike would be. But it does exhibit very clever thinking none-the-less. I’d like to see Cube bikes turn Gregor’s vision into a reality.

Some other full size folder concepts:

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