By Chris Scott Barr
Electric bikes are nothing new, but this Copenhagen Wheel is one of the coolest ideas I’ve seen along those lines. Whenever you are breaking, the wheel will begin to charge up an internal battery. Then, when you’re trying to pedal up a hill, it will sense this and kick in its motor to help you on your way. It can also be used to increase your speed when traveling over a flat surface. This isn’t the sort of electric bike that lets you rest your legs, but rather increases the bike’s speed while you’re pedaling.
A bonus feature is that the wheel is iPhone compatible. Yes, that sounds absolutely absurd, but it does do something rather useful. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and records trip information such as speed, direction and distance traveled. It can even pull information from the web to alert you of traffic and weather conditions. Look for this awesome wheel sometime next year for between $500 and $1000.
VIA [ Cnet ]
Regenerative braking has been tried before on bikes and it does not generate nearly enough energy to be worth the cost. http://www.ecospeed.com/regenbraking.pdf
“It can even pull information from the web to alert you of traffic and weather conditions”
How does the wheel get credit for this? I imagine the iPhone app is doing that on top of the other wheel-related stuff.
Stupid wheel, hogging all the credit.
OK, we'll see how useful it becomes.
I like the tracking information on miles, energy, and things of that nature. All the other features seem unnecessary.
OK, we'll see how useful it becomes.
I like the tracking information on miles, energy, and things of that nature. All the other features seem unnecessary.