Move over brompton!

you felt the need to tell us which brand it was?

are you a brand snob? ; )

totally.
robinsons is king of squashes...
also it reminds me of being 7

vimto for me

All I can see happening is this:

and:

Fully sick bro!

Emma Chissit?

Forget Kiwi whales, it's all about British Whale.

Stop talking about your Mom like that.

Stop talking about your Mom like that.

oooh mick's Irish.
that's an insult and a half!!!!

He's Northern Irish isn't he?

I think the YikeBike looks pretty sweet.

human powered>electric ... but charging using solar energy could at least do something offset the obvious envronmental drawbacks of using hazardous materials in cell production.

Yeah it looks like it should be unstable over rough ground (a 20 " or 24" wheeled one, which theyr'e sure to make eventually, could be a little more solid-feeling). But falling fowards with nothing impeding your tumble is surely less scary than falling over handlebars, sitll clipped in, etc.

i think it's essentially a good thing.

YouTube- Check Out My Subaru

Needs a Donk placed somewhere

I'm both too tall and too heavy according to their spec sheet. Yikes

oh yeah and it costs £3,000

yikes

It's made of carbon, maybe that's why it costs a fortune. But what the feck..?

So it will shatter to pieces if you have a prang?

I'm out.

No. Carbon doesn't shatter.

No. Carbon doesn't shatter.

Have you ever shot a carbon fibre arrow into a brick wall?

He's Northern Irish isn't he?

Irish passport thank you very much!

Disowned.

Is it a new Aussie past time thing - shooting carbon fibre arrows? Sweet!

Have you ever shot a carbon fibre arrow into a brick wall?

Well, the cross-weave carbon that this is made out of wont shatter.

Yup, not human-powered.

I think the YikeBike looks pretty sweet.

human powered>electric ... but charging using solar energy could at least do something offset the obvious envronmental drawbacks of using hazardous materials in cell production.

Yeah it looks like it should be unstable over rough ground (a 20 " or 24" wheeled one, which theyr'e sure to make eventually, could be a little more solid-feeling). But falling fowards with nothing impeding your tumble is surely less scary than falling over handlebars, sitll clipped in, etc.

i think it's essentially a good thing.

You have to see it in the wider transport context.

This isn't the only whizzy, gadgety people mover that's being worked on or is already in use. There are other things, like horizontal 'travelators' at airports etc. (I don't mean vertical escalatators--I hate it when people call escalators 'travelators', which architects seem to have decided is the euphemistic new term for them, or something), the Segway, more and more electric bikes (which, if people actually pedal them are good mobility devices, and very suitable for a range of contexts, such as electrically-assisted long commutes, or for people with certain mobility difficulties, etc.), and so forth. No doubt there are many more inventors working on other ideas like these. Oh, and the range of the Yike Bikes will improve. Look at the leaps and bounds that battery technology for electric bikes has taken over the years. I've been following those developments through A to B magazine for quite a while.

The more of these options will be available, the more people will get used to the idea of assisted and increasingly less limited travel. You say they already have, through driving. Yes, but the above devices are a very different order. People do use cars to make stupidly short trips, but the Yike Bike et al. are even more likely than cars to replace normally human-powered trips down to the corner shop. They seem to me to be a distinct next step to a more sedentary and inactive lifestyle. We already have mobility scooters. These are very useful for people who have genuinely lost mobility, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were used by people who still had mobility but gradually lose what mobility they had left through the use of their scooter.

The ultimate next step after that, which is obviously some time away still, much as I hope it'll never happen, is to invent devices that move us around our homes, cutting out a lot of that vital micro-exercise that we get merely by walking from room to room. That's not so unlikely a horror vision of the future--already, you have a massive industry developing that's concerned with inventing households robots, making us more and more passive. I sit in front of a computer all day, I need all the exercise I can get, and I'm like an increasing number of people.

All these inventions are fun and whizzy. Cars and lorries are a great invention, but people use them in stupid and pointless ways all the time, like going a mile down the road to pick up a pint of orange juice. Cars are a status symbol to many people. SImilar things will happen with these inventions. I still hope that they'll never become widespread, but forty years ago people probably thought that clothes dryers in individual homes wouldn't become widespread.

I'm sure it's a lot of fun inventing this stuff, but it wouldn't be the first time that an inventor might eventually have to throw his or her hands up to say 'Ah, but I didn't intend it to be used in this way. I only invented it and I'm completely innocent of any harm done later.'

A good example is Kalashnikov's thinking about his invention:

http://www.philosophynow.org/issue59/59forge.htm

In his old age, Mikhail Kalashnikov has come to have some doubts about his invention. He told The Times in June 2006, “I don’t worry when my guns are used for national liberation or defence. But when I see how peaceful people are killed and wounded by these weapons, I get very distressed and upset. I calm down by telling myself that I invented this gun 60 years ago to protect the interests of my country.”

There's obviously a slightly different mechanism here, as inventing a weapon is quite a few grades different from inventing a mobility device, and Kalashnikov of course doesn't want to claim that he's innocent of any harm done, but some.

Immobility kills, too, and reduces lifespan. Current research indicates, for instance, that not riding a bike regularly is twenty times as dangerous as riding one (simply calculated from research into the resultant lifespan, i.e. factoring in current road traffic casualties). Being immobile is not so widespread now, but who knows what might happen when people might have got more used to it?

Anyway, I just think we need to protect and promote human-powered wherever we can and be very wary of these devices. It's a subject I'm passionately concerned about.

I believe the best thing to come out of NZ, is in fact, me.

I believe the best thing to come out of in NZ, is in fact, me.

Not quite sure what you mean. ;)

Is it a new Aussie past time thing - shooting carbon fibre arrows? Sweet!

Well, I was an archer.

I always had you down as a darts man, no idea why...

;)

Well, I was an archer.

So you got your arrow to do a Murtle Hurtle into a wall?