Concept Bikes & Bike Innovation - for better or worse

http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/halfbike-kolelinia-upright-simplified-bike-combines-biking-with-jogging.html

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lol could be a good pub bike !the old 'flowers' bitter is alright

i like it !! id like it even more if it fitted in with uci rules .apart from the discs ,which bits don't? i dont think its ugly for a tt bike

uci rules .apart from the discs ,which bits don't?

Possibly >3.0 chord:thickness on some parts, and the seat stays don't lie within the UCI frame template.

I'm fairly certain that George French (of Gsport / Odyssey, designer of the elementary stem) has already patented that idea. And if it works like a free coaster it'll probably require a bit of maintenance, if not great!

seat tube less ness

Re-cock-u-less-ness.

Why do "designers" take the strongest geometric shape (triangle duh) chuck it away and replace it with the most uselessly weak collapsible shape (rectangle innit)?

Why?

Because "designers".

i would say its ugly but ok for putting a food tray on and eating your breakfast if your late!

plenty of space there for an advertising board ?

it's in our human nature to strive to create something new even though it may be unreliable.

if you dont like that how about this:

MOAR designer shite.

unless designers innovate we will be stuck with conventional frames forever.

@zaurbek Designers generally don't have a fucking clue, though Mike Burrows is an exception.

Apparently someone in oz has 3d printed titanium. They have done a few now but still seem to be prototypes. Could be some awesome titanium shapes soon if someone gets a bigger printer as it essentially it takes how hard titanium is to work with out of the building equation and opens the doors to any/all shapes that can be imagined and drawn in cad for the printer.

http://www.flyingmachine.com.au/2014/01/3d-printed-titanium-bike-of-the-future/
http://www.flyingmachine.com.au/2014/02/3d-printed-titanium-f-one-number-two/
http://www.flyingmachine.com.au/2014/03/3dp-f-one-3/
http://www.flyingmachine.com.au/2014/07/f-one-hd-luxury-single-speed-3d-printed-titanium/

i agree some people design bikes completely ignoring common sense and using imagination more than anything else but had Mike Burrows not put a pen down on paper and let his imagination fly this bike would not have been created.

Charge bikes had Ti dropouts 3d printed.

http://vimeo.com/66306325

We are amongst the very first to embrace 3D Printing for bike building and firmly believe this amazing technology is the way of the future.

It really isn't. Certainly not for frames.

Additive manufacturing might be handy for making lighter, hollowed out, versions of dérailleur knuckles, so expect to see that on weightweenies when the technology spreads a bit wider.

I could look at that Lotus all day.

@mdcc_tester I'm thinking of it the same as how stamping car parts has changed the car industry. I visited the vw plant in germany a few weeks ago and the stuff they can already print/stamp/mould is impressive but for bikes the shapes they can form aren't detailed enough, with 3d printing the floodgates open to any shape/size at the press of a button. I'm not sure how detailed they can print atm but give it a while and they will have it so precise they can print something that looks like sheet metal or a regular frame tube but is actually a crazy honeycomb. Not to mention no welds ever again and things that aren't just butted but have mind blowing patterns within that. Only thing that could slow this train down is graphene the new super material that everyone wants everything made of until in 2050 we find it's the asbestos of 2025-2050 but with the added landfill qualities of plastic bottles.

had Mike Burrows not put a pen down on paper and let his imagination fly this bike would not have been created.

But I'm guessing he had some sort of end goal in mind or was trying to solve a problem.

An awful lot of the 'designer nonsense' you see doesn't seem to have been designed to solve a real problem. Why aren't they trying to design a lighter and more aerodynamic front disc brake wheel and fork combo (as an example off the top of my head from someone who doesn't know much about bikes or design)?

On a large scale wouldn't layed up and molded carbon fibre be cheaper and still allow you to design what ever crazy internal and external shapes you want? (providing you have access to inexpensive labour).

In the examples the first link gives 3d printing a ti frame sounds like something that would be better on a small scale, such as making a custom frame... which is always going to be a small niche largely governed by an individual's tastes. I'd guess lugs and bonding a ti frame means you don't need to worry about having a skilled welder and all the heat treatment... but for me that would be an important part of buying a custom ti frame.

Fair point (and you show Burrow's Lotus bike above as an example) but design should first and foremost be about function and then about looks/style. Most of the time designers, especially of bikes, have it all arse over tit, designing the 'look' of the bike then trying to make it structurally sound.

Burrows started with an idea - make the bike as fast as possible. Then he took the materials available to him and created the lotus. A beautiful bike which is essentially a trussed parallelogram, or if you prefer two triangles sitting on top of each other filled in with carbon. Fast, strong and by virtue of these two things beautiful.

i do ! is it painted to give that stepped effect?