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Invention Makes Citibikes Electric
An anonymous reader writes "Inventor Jeff Guida has come up with a way to turn any Citibike into an electric scooter. His ShareRoller is about the size of a small briefcase, weighs just seven pounds, and has a 12- to 20-mile range. From the article: '"Years ago, I would've needed a giant engineering company and several million dollars in development research and it still would've taken two years or more," Guida said. But 3D printing has changed all that. In the coming months, Guida hopes to design a universal bracket so that the ShareRoller can be used on any bike. He has some competition there, as there are a few companies that make wheels that convert regular bikes into electric bikes, but he says the ShareRoller is more convenient.'"
Oh, right. They are too cheap and reliable. We need big business to be able to make money on bicycles, otherwise they are just toys.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I remember these designs. They absolutely stripped the tread off the rear wheels within a few hundred miles of using them, and kept the local bike shops in serious business replacing wheels. Not tires: the wheels.
Sinclair Zeta from 2004:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/g8koe/c5martin/zeta.htm
Chainsaws are cheap. The other day I walked behind a warehouse and there was an electric one jammed blade-deep into an iced-over snowbank.
Some of the ideas put forth are old. Motor assist for pedal bicycles has been around practically since small gas engines were available. Electric assist is newer, but still not by much. Battery and solid state technology are making it much more capable than what we had even a few decades ago.
What is interesting is combining all this into a unit which can be installed "in seconds". That opens its use up to some applications for which motor assist may not have made much sense in the past.
Oh, and all the carping about 3D printing? Sure, its not economic for mass production. But it has its place for smaller shops who need too knock off a few prototypes quickly and cheaply. Once the design is finalized, more traditional fabrication techniques can be used.
Have gnu, will travel.
If they make it compatible with bicycles that fold into a car trunk, it could reduce drunken driving. People who find themselves too drunk to drive could rent drivers to take them home. These drivers would arrive in a folding electric bike, fold their bike and put it in the trunk, take the sensible drunk home and return on the electrified bike. They could do it in a regular bike too, but with some electric assist more people would be interested.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Tire-drive systems are useless in the wet.
If you're impling that shops are taking advantage of people and selling them a new entire wheel, that's way, way down the "low" scale. I don't know a bike shop around that would replace rear wheel instead of replacing the tube and tire, unless the person damaged the rim by riding on it for too long with a flat tire; if you chew up the edge of the rim, it'll slowly destroy the sidewall of the tire.
Another reason rear wheel replacements can become necessary: most inexperienced cyclists brake exclusively with their rear brake, falsely believing that braking with the front brake will result in instant death/them being thrown from the bike. On bicycles with rim brakes, braking wears the edge of the rim, especially in places where it rains or snows (road sand etc.) Eventually the rim wears past the safety limit (on most modern wheels, there is a machined notch half-way on the brake track. If you can't feel it, your rim is too worn.) If you're the second or third owner and a bike is a decade old, having to replace a rim isn't unreasonable, as it's one of the wear components, just like the brake rotors on your car.
If you've got a nice hub and spokes, you can have a shop just replace the rim. Labor can start to become a factor, although a hand-built wheel is usually better built than a lot of machine-built wheels (ie what they'll pull off the rack.)
For example, if I were to destroy the rim on my bike (in a way that wouldn't have damaged the spokes), which has a generator hub to power the lights, and double-butted spokes...I would almost certainly just have the shop buy a new rim and re-lace everything to the new rim.
Please help metamoderate.
Seriously am I the only person who has been to China? E-bikes are the most common form of transport in most cites in China and retail at about USD $400. His unit is $1200 and has less features that a $400 e-bike. Does no one do their homework anymore before launching a new product?
It mentions 18 miles per hour in the article for the top speed, but I wonder if that's for 'not' or 'barely' pedaling. Can it take somebody with a max speed of 15mph pedaling on their own and get them up to 20 if they're really working at it?
but to fat and lazy to actually ride a bike enough to be in good enough shape to travel 20 miles without breaking a sweat.
Consider that there's a lot of work and sweat between 'fat&lazy' and 'slim&active'. Most people have limited choice about distance from work. A device that gets them started, to actually do it, can be of great assistance. I know there's a few hills where I would have liked this thing just for that spot. I'd still have to help it up, of course.
What about the guy who needs to travel 30 miles, and this is the difference between him biking and driving?
In other words, biking shouldn't be about exclusivity.
Selling millions - Not if it can only fit on one bike type. Fix that and maybe.
I don't read AC A human right
Yep, 3D printing, were the per unit price is likely 10x more than other techniques ...
That goes well with the one-grand-plus pricetag for a device that should be selling for a couple hundred bux or less in mass production.
If this catches on I expect to see an injection-molded version closer to the price I mentioned. Either this guy will go to that as he ramps up or the Chinese/Koreans/whatever will have a knockoff out in a few months after it catches on.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's a stupid law, but a law none-the-less.
19-176.2. Motorized scooters. a. For purposes of this section, the
term "motorized scooter" shall mean any wheeled device that has
handlebars that is designed to be stood or sat upon by the operator, is
powered by an electric motor or by a gasoline motor that is capable of
propelling the device without human power and is not capable of being
registered with the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. For the
purposes of this section, the term motorized scooter shall not include
wheelchairs or other mobility aids designed for use by disabled persons.
b. No person shall operate a motorized scooter in the city of New
York.
c. Any person who violates subdivision b of this section shall be
liable for a civil penalty in the amount of five hundred dollars.
Authorized employees of the police department and department of parks
and recreation shall have the authority to enforce the provisions of
this section. Such penalties shall be recovered in a civil action or in
a proceeding commenced by the service of a notice of violation that
shall be returnable before the environmental control board. In addition,
such violation shall be a traffic infraction and shall be punishable in
accordance with section eighteen hundred of the New York state vehicle
and traffic law.
d. Any motorized scooter that has been used or is being used in
violation of the provisions of this section may be impounded and shall
not be released until any and all removal charges and storage fees and
the applicable fines and civil penalties have been paid or a bond has
been posted in an amount satisfactory to the commissioner of the agency
that impounded such vehicle.
http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/LAWSSEAF.cgi?QUERYTYPE=LAWS+&QUERYDATA=$$ADC19-176.2$$@TXADC019-176.2+&LIST=SEA2+&BROWSER=BROWSER+&TOKEN=35384350+&TARGET=VIEW
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.