Retractable sail could give bikes a boost of wind power
newatlas.com
Although there's nothing like cycling with a good tailwind, your bike and your body are only capable of catching a limited amount of that wind. The CycleWing was designed to help, acting as – you guessed it – a sail for your bike.
    • Bloody Harry@feddit.deEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I bought my last bike used for 10 €. That’s less than a pizza.

      Sure, I needed to tighten the brakes, buy new batteries for the light, and the gearshifting only works on 7 of 21 gears. But come on, what do you expect from a pizza?

    • HubertManne@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      I had high hopes for the carboard bike but the guy seemed to be to restrictive in his ideals to get it to production. I was hoping for a bike so cheap I could lock it up with a luggage lock and light wire. something like what an av projector might have in a classroom.

    • insomniac@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Where are bikes more expensive than a used car? I literally just bought a pretty sweet used touring bike for 200 bucks. I guess you could find a cheaper used car but it isn’t going to run.

      Decent commuter bikes from the major brands have gotten in to the 600-700 dollar range which sucks but is still pretty far away from used car prices.

      You can still get bikes for less than half that from the direct to consumer companies.

      So you either really need a carbon fiber bike with all the latest and greatest technology or you have incredibly low standards in used cars.

  • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    So they expect to get the weight down to 15 lbs, and think it would interest long distance cyclers? I can’t imagine that going well - “hey, I understand you plan to ride 50 miles today. Do you want to carry an extra 15 lbs?”

    • snooggums@kbin.social
      3·
      1 year ago

      “It will totally help as long as all of your roads are the optimal direction to catch the wind!”

  • Jeena@jemmy.jeena.netEnglish
    51·
    1 year ago

    This is practically how my older cousin died, but he was on a motorcycle and comming out from behind a truck and then the wind hit him from the side, he lost control, went off the motorway crashed and died.

    This is a terrible idea and totally unsafe.

  • xapr@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Cool idea, but only a small minority of people will adopt something like this given that electric bikes seem to be all the rage right now. I can maybe imagine touring cyclists getting into this, but that’s it. This would make cycling even more complicated*(!) for most people.

    *Probably three quarters of the people I see riding bikes don’t even know how to set the proper height for their saddles. They’re usually way too low to they can plant both feet flat on the ground while seated, and not high enough so they can extend their legs almost completely to maximize their pedaling efficiency. They also don’t know which roads are appropriate to ride their bikes on, or to follow the direction of traffic, or to not ride on sidewalks. Oh, and no lights at night either. It’s no wonder that the US has a high rate of cycling fatalities.

  • Grass@geddit.socialEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Lol I’ll stick with the motor and battery. For an extra pound and a half of weight over this I can get home from work uphill, even if I happen to get injured enough to not be able to pedal.