Milan-based Danish designer Nils Sveje describes Bike 2.0 as the next generation bicycle… hence the name. At first glance, it looks pretty ordinary. Its very Spartan appearance doesn’t exactly turn heads, and in fact it’s the lack of external features that gives away the fact that this is no ordinary bike.
Instead of a chain, the bike has a pedal-powered internal generator that’s wired directly to the rear hub motor. Instead of derailleurs, it has a stepless gearbox. Instead of brake levers and discs, it has a regenerative coaster brake. And, instead of shifters, it has two wireless rings on the handlebar.
Regular propulsion is achieved via the bottom bracket-mounted generator, that creates power which is sent back to the 500 W brushless motor. Using the “superconductor” (which one would assume is a capacitor), however, the rider can get power boosts when needed. An Intelligent Cadence Leveling feature keeps the rider pedaling at the same speed, via a continuously-variable transmission. The rider initially sets their desired cadence using one of the handlebar control rings.
Very cool tech… but I’ll bet the price will knock your socks off.
Designer != Engineer
Chain = 99% efficent, dynamo+motor = 80% ?
Coaster brakes but no clip pedals – Denmark doesn’t have hills?
With no triangles to brace it that frame is either 3x as heavy as it needs to be, or is made out of some very expensive material – or both.
The bicycle is one of the least broken machines in the world – it really doesn’t need fixing (*), especially by some Bang&Olufson reject who has never sat on one.
* – except for anti-SUV wire guided missiles and a wandering pedestrian frying death laser.
Phooey! “nobody”‘s just being sensible.
I’d still give my left testicle to still be able to pedal one of those.
Sadly, I won’t be making any donations in the scrotal area.
Damn it looks cool…
Now all they need to do is get rid of all those spokes… (And it CAN be done. 🙂
So when are they going to make men’s bikes? That one’s a girl’s bike!
I don’t understand the need for gears and transmission with a generator and electric motor the effort is controllable like a transmission but without the added inefficiency.
I had a fantasy of a bike similar to this as a child. In fact it is very similar (I had the motor inside the crank housing and the batteries in the frame), I wish I had known about patents at 10 years old.
#1. No, there are no hills in Denmark. Pretty much flat as a pancake. But it wouldn’t have hurt them to put a proper brake on at least the front wheel.
#3. I agree it’s a girl’s bike, but really, now that ankle length skits and dresses are no longer in fashion, shouldn’t we reverse the sexes on bikes? If you’ve ever had your junk hit the top frame rail hard, you know what I mean!
Oh, and I don’t see any valve stems on the wheels. What kind of tires are those?
#%
I do see valve stems, they’re hard to spot at 8 o’clock on both wheels.
Was this thing actually built and demonstrated?
I am doubtful.
Bike 2.0? Someone is really full of themselves.
id buy it for 200$ lol
I used to be in a bicycle touring club, years ago.
Problems I see in addition to what Framitz saw:
No drop handlebars, so too much air drag from the user’s body.
No kickstand.
Sprockets are easier to deal with compared to what must be an old fashioned rear bicycle gear.
Electrical stuff seems highly subject to Murphy’s Law.
Also, not at all attractive to my eyes.
FAIL.
My one and only concern when riding any sort of bike is vehicle traffic. Any way to protect me from them? In case you haven’t notices most drivers today are myopic or distracted.
@#10 With couple of million miles under my feet (including places far more hostile to bike traffic than USA) I must say that your concern is not valid on any bike. All what is needed is confidence, predictability and assertive posture on the road. No one wants to hit you.
Main issues with this 2.0 are raised by other comments. It is “Apple” like in construction as it sacrifices engineering (real bike frame) for looks (which are good).
@#4 Electric motors are not idealized cases. Particularly that small. Transmission likely helps with extreme ends of usage. Typical in-hub transmissions have 2 or 3 gears and that would help to keep electrical motor at its optimum.
@dusanmal
Evidently you do not have my refined sense of paranoia.
Looks like the perfect accesory for the Apple ifag.
How good is it at dodging artillery?
Watch it get blown over when I blow by on my Harley Dude !
I had one of those bikes once. It only went downhill.
Looks like a Swatch bike, or perhaps a i2.0 bike by Apple.
dusanmal, what do you figure is the loss of energy without a direct drive? I’m thinking at least 40%.
Foobar:
Clue: there have been a LOT of bicycles built since before the start of the 20th Century. The standard road or track bicycle is energy efficient, and is very well designed. Most recent changes to bicycles have been about efficiency improvements to bearings and chains, use of lightweight materials, and adding fairings to cut down wind inefficiency.
The “Bike 2.0” is pretty, but doesn’t look very efficient.
Straying slightly off topic….
Bikes have long since been refined (improved) – they are called recumbant bikes, I have a recumbant trike. They allow for a more comfortable riding position, lower wind resistance and increased ability to put power into the pedals.
The reason thay have not been widely adopted is not so much to do with being lower to the ground (less visible), but mostly due to them being banned from all competitions in the 1930’s (because a recumbant smashed all the records).
Bikes entering competitions have to conform to very specific criteria.
NO MUDGUARDS
That pearly white frame wont be for long, not to mention the riders back and legs.
YUCK
All that technology and it still has a Prostate-exam-on-a-stick seat.
Let me be first, to state the obvious in a supposit Technology blog, the bike does not have a “superconductor”. A super-capacitor maybe but not a “superconductor”.
Only recently has a sufficiently high Tc superconducting material been reported (If you riding in below freezing weather). I doubt practical/usable wires have been fabricated from such a discovery.
The superconducting material discovery is a 16-layer 9223 structure, (Tl4Ba)-9223 or (Tl4Ba)Ba2Mg2Cu7O13+ and is reported to have a high Tc of 258 Kelvin (-15C, 5F). 4-point resistance tests on a sample pellet have shown a sharp resistive transition near 258 Kelvin (-15C, 5F).
What’s the bet this is just computer imagery.
# 24 cgp,
I think it is!
Because, if I didn’t have my computer I wouldn’t have seen it; Q.E.D. it’s computer imagery!
Bicycle 1.0 is one the greatest inventions in history. Bikes, even more than cars, ended the era of the horse.
But, it’s not progress to make it expensive and impossible-to-repair by amateurs.
Just fix the clunky derailleur gear system.
Amazing Video
Did you know that the old fashioned bicycle with roller chains is the most efficient self-propelled mechanism known? Food for thought.
Hey, we have hills in Denmark! One of our highest mountain is the “Himmelbjerget” which directly translated means “The Heaven Mountain” and it is nearly 200 meters high! Ok, 147 meters, but try to pedal to the top of it and then come and say that we have no hills here.
Actually there are quite a few who use el-bikes in this country, so it’s nothing new. It’s just that it have that Scandinavian (think danish) design look that is new
Such elegant perambulation upon which to become an organ donor.