Oh! Gizmo

By Evan Ackerman

Bicycle helmets are a useless inconvenience every single moment of their existence except for that one super important one when they protect you from death (or such less punishment). Part of the problem is their shape, which (while a predefined inevitability) is not an efficient use of space. The Tatoo helmet (that comes from the french ‘tatou’ which means armadillo) is made out of flexible (and recyclable!) interconnected polypropylene that unsnaps from itself and packs flat for storage.

The problem here is that the convenience of having a bendy helmet kinda means that the helmet is, uh, bendy. As in not rigid. And last time I checked, rigidity was a rather important part of the whole “protecting your brain from impacts” thing. Good thing it looks like it’s still a concept at this stage.

[ Abitare ] VIA [ Fast Company ]

By Andrew Liszewski

So I guess Japan is really serious about bicycle safety, so much so that Honda developed this bicycle safety simulator that allows riders of all ages to learn proper traffic rules and manners before they get on the road. The simulator includes different courses and scenarios like “going to school” or “going to the grocery store” and a rear mounted LCD even allows riders to see traffic coming up behind them. The simulators will be available from Honda starting in February of 2010 for an undisclosed price, though pre-orders will be taken starting in November.

[ FarEastGizmos - Honda Bicycle Simulator offers realistic experiences for user groups of different ages ]

By David Ponce

Most modern bicycles come with a bottle holder of one form or another. Which is why this product might seem redundant to some of you. But that’s because you’re forgetting an oft ignored class of society: the hipsters. Yes, they’re people too and like us they get dehydrated now and again. It would also seem that part of their wacky shenanigans involve an unexplainable compulsion to acquire certain types of bicycles that are conspicuously devoid of any bottle holder (or gears for that matter; a truly soothing sight to nervous downtown motorists’ worldwide). To their rescue comes Matthias Ries’ concept product called simply enough, The Bottleclip. It’s a little piece of plastic with a threaded opening that accepts most bottles on one side, and a clip that attaches to standard size bike frames on the other.

Of course, like most good ideas this is only a concept for now. But given that it’s just molded plastic, all it takes is one enterprising manufacturer to license the rights and start up production. Someone in China reading this?

A few more pictures if you keep reading.

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