Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A Smart Electric Bike: Taking the Copenhagen Wheel Out For a Spin

Posted by timothy on from the would-like-one-of-these-immediately dept.

New submitter mlamonica writes Bikes are a great way to get around the city. But what if it's just too hilly or far to commute by bike? That's where Superpedestrian wants to come in. With a license from MIT's Senseable City Lab, they're commercializing the Copenhagen Wheel, a bike wheel replacement that gives riders electric assist, and through 12 embedded sensors, lots of information on a smart phone app. I took the bike for a ride at the Cambridge office and offer this review.

3 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. what's the point? by silfen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't see the point of all this electronics or intelligence in a bicycle. If anything, the location tracking means that bicycles now also are starting to invade my privacy.

    For regular distances, a purely mechanical bike is simple, robust, and inexpensive. For longer distances, vehicles designed from the ground up for motor assist seem a better choice than this, and the additional design freedom from designing bike and assist together likely results in a better and cheaper bike.

  2. rotating mass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not sure the wheel is the best place for the battery! TFA says the wheel weighs 13 lbs, which is a ton, and it's rotating mass. I'd rather have a hub motor but have a small battery pack affixed elsewhere, maybe in a bottle cage, where it doesn't have to rotate.

    Also the topping out at 20 MPH is a little low. It would surely be useful in conditions of headwinds or uphills, where you cannot ride very fast, so that's nice. But for normal cruising, 20 MPH can be sustained by a fit rider who isn't elderly. I can just do it on flat ground with no winds, and I'm 52. Younger riders have no problems at all. I understand it's a regulatory issue but it would be nice if the top speed could be upped just a little, maybe to 25 mph. It's far harder to ride 25 mph on a bike - I cannot do it for more than a minute unless assisted by hills or wind. Power demand is not linear with speed. It would be nice to have that power difference made up by a motor.

  3. The Real Problem by cinnamon+colbert · · Score: 5, Interesting

    here in Boston, where I live
    Narrow twisty roads, and when the snowbank gets high, narrower roads
    non highway routes are often circuitous
    Dark at 5PM much of the year (and add in the snowy, narrow twisty roads...)
    Potholes
    Did I mention potholes ?
    Rain snow sleet
    weather down to teens to single digits many days of the year
    lack of decent bike racks (some day, some smart person will write a n y times op ed about how bad bike racks are)
    no showers, or cruddy showers
    not so good when you have to go pick up your kid at school, or dance recital, or...

    maybe inside Cambridge or Boston itself, a bike might work
    For much of MA, no so good

    the problem is NOT that we need easier to use bikes
    the problem is that we have a car suburban orientation; change tax laws and zoning so people are packed into citys, and bikes will take care of themselves