Transform your bike into a hybrid | The Copenhagen Wheel Project
It seems those creative young minds over at MIT, with a few other partners, have come up with a clever solution to transform your existing street bike into a hybrid bike. This may not be of that great of interest to the already strong bike crowd, but to those that don't like the thought of getting on a bike, pedaling to work and getting there all hot and sweaty without the assistance of their familiar GPS to guide them, well this may be the add-on they've been waiting for.
The Copenhagen Wheel is an add-on for your existing bike, that cleverly encompasses all the components into the hub that can be retrofitted to your bike. Inside the hub comes a 3-speed internal hub gear, batteries, torque sensor, GPRS & sensor kit that monitors CO2, NOx, noise (DB), relative humidity and temperature. All of this linked up, via bluetooth, to your iphone which also doubles as the key to lock / un-lock your bike, change gears, select how much assistance you get from the hub and for viewing real-time information such as traffic as well as km's you accumulate and tracks that you ride, which you can share with your networks.
A great invention that is built upon an existing and tested technology, I really like this for several reasons; One, it links something off-line to the on-line world i.e. real time data, and the ability to share it with social networks. Two, existing bike enthusiasts can adopt this technology without having to purchase a new bike or transportation device. Lastly, it's viral both through the sharing of data through the social networks but also via its visual impact.
I look forward to it's release sometime soon, would love to know when...
