Bicycle designers had a chance to show the world their ideas earlier this year by taking part in the Seoul Cycle Design Competition 2010.
The online contest was organized by e-zine Designboom and the Seoul Design Foundation, and received entries from 3,078 designers in 88 countries. The ideas included everything from bikes that doubled as shopping carts, to frames shaped like horses, to handlebar-mounted wind turbines. The grand prize winner, while not as entertainingly-outlandish as some of those concepts, was nonetheless pretty far removed from your garden-variety Schwinn. It’s called, simply enough, Bike 2.0.
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.
