March 18th, 2010

Filed under:
Mixed Bag, Technology
2 Comments »

The YikeBike Looks Like Fun

Somebody sent me a link to this foldable electric bicycle designed, I gather, for urban commuting. This ad is ill-advised in a number of ways (is the more egregious crime the green wave of faux-exhaust or the attempt to make ‘yike’ a verb?), but you get the general idea:

There’s a longer Discovery Channel piece on the site that explores the design and features of the bike a bit more. I like that it breaks the ‘lean forward over the bars’ paradigm of biking.

The key question, though, is this: is it less nerdy than a Segway?

Tags: , , , ,

Comments: 2 Responses so far

Ashley Grayson
March 19th, 2010
9:03 am

I liked the Yike when I first learned of it and its website last September. It had apparently been around for some time before that. My concern is that the company seems to have made no progress in over nine months. They are still teasing with promises of a $3,500 product RSN, and still making few public appearances. The Yike seems such a good idea that even if the developer is having trouble mass producing them, the pirates and product cloners would have some inferior version out by now. Anyone actually ridden one of these?

Reply

Ryan Cousineau
March 19th, 2010
1:48 pm

Hubless designs are such a concept-bike trope that it’s a near-guarantee of a concept-only. In practice, they’re almost always a bad idea.

Keep in mind this: “The Yikebike can go 9-10 km on one charge.” For a vehicle that has no pedal-power abilities, and is a bulky 10 kg when you have to carry it, that kicks range anxiety up a notch.

It has a benefit over small folding bikes (it’s smaller and lighter) but the cost and speed limitations means it’s a terrible vehicle for actually getting around.

By comparison, C$3000 would get you into a very fancy electric folding bike. It would weigh 31 pounds instead of the claimed 22 of the Yike. It’s probably faster unassisted, and definitely faster if you pedal. It folds up well.

The Yike, btw, is USD$4450 (their conversion from 3500 Euros). That’s too much.

In my opinion, it’s natural competition is not bicycling, it’s walking. It’s a machine for letting you navigate walking distances faster.

Reply

Add a comment