Retractable Sail Could Give Bikes A Boost Of Wind Power
Retractable Sail Could Give Bikes A Boost Of Wind Power
Although there's nothing like cycling with a good tailwind, your bike and your body are only capable of catching a limited amount of that wind. The CycleWing was designed to help, acting as – you guessed it – a sail for your bike.
Perfect if you ride your bike along a 100% straight salt flat speed-record-attempt course with a predictable steady breeze from the right direction. Dreadful for real people riding real bikes on real roads in real weather, with real distractions.
The power-up I wish to see for bicycles is the one that makes them affordable enough to cost less than a used car, again. Wish I was kidding.
22I bought my last bike used for 10 €. That's less than a pizza.
Sure, I needed to tighten the brakes, buy new batteries for the light, and the gearshifting only works on 7 of 21 gears. But come on, what do you expect from a pizza?
3Where are bikes more expensive than a used car? I literally just bought a pretty sweet used touring bike for 200 bucks. I guess you could find a cheaper used car but it isn’t going to run.
Decent commuter bikes from the major brands have gotten in to the 600-700 dollar range which sucks but is still pretty far away from used car prices.
You can still get bikes for less than half that from the direct to consumer companies.
So you either really need a carbon fiber bike with all the latest and greatest technology or you have incredibly low standards in used cars.
1I had high hopes for the carboard bike but the guy seemed to be to restrictive in his ideals to get it to production. I was hoping for a bike so cheap I could lock it up with a luggage lock and light wire. something like what an av projector might have in a classroom.
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This is practically how my older cousin died, but he was on a motorcycle and comming out from behind a truck and then the wind hit him from the side, he lost control, went off the motorway crashed and died.
This is a terrible idea and totally unsafe.
19Yeah, same reason why disc wheels are only allowed in the back at time trials.
4I hate that you're right because this has the makings of a great idea. Like these things:
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So they expect to get the weight down to 15 lbs, and think it would interest long distance cyclers? I can’t imagine that going well - “hey, I understand you plan to ride 50 miles today. Do you want to carry an extra 15 lbs?”
11"It will totally help as long as all of your roads are the optimal direction to catch the wind!"
4You know what else is 15lb. and helps you ride long distances on a bike? An E-Bike Motor.
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WCGW?
Sidewind entered the chat...
91950: We'll have hoverboards in 50 years at this rate!
2023: We put a windsail on a bike!
8Read headline ... "Could"
soooo ... no information of value here ... ok then ... I'll just keep on going to the next link
7@walnutwalrus If you are contemplating one of these, Google “sailing broach”.
Because being knocked suddenly sideways on a bike and spun round by a gust of wind is going to ruin your day.
3@goatsarah @walnutwalrus I’ve been blown off my bike even without a sail!
2@ajlanes @walnutwalrus So a sail at the back like that will try to make you point into the wind. If you’re using it and the wind is behind you, a gust will impart a big turning force which will also tip you over sideways. The tipping moment will get worse as you turn into it.
My instinctive reaction to seeing this as someone who has sailed in following seas in a force 7 gusting 8 and experiencing exactly what that does to a four tonne boat with a rudder that’s larger than I am is, “deathtrap”.
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Reef early, reef often
2Lol I'll stick with the motor and battery. For an extra pound and a half of weight over this I can get home from work uphill, even if I happen to get injured enough to not be able to pedal.
2Cool idea, but only a small minority of people will adopt something like this given that electric bikes seem to be all the rage right now. I can maybe imagine touring cyclists getting into this, but that's it. This would make cycling even more complicated*(!) for most people.
*Probably three quarters of the people I see riding bikes don't even know how to set the proper height for their saddles. They also don't know which roads are appropriate to ride their bikes on, or to follow the direction of traffic, or to not ride on sidewalks. Oh, and no lights at night either. It's no wonder that the US has a high rate of cycling fatalities.
1The kickstarter failed in 2019… as this article is 4 years old.
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