Recumbent - New SWB Design from Germany - Real or Hoax?

Just saw this new bicycle design and wanted to share it:
http://www.thedesignblog.org/entry/public-bike-to-boost-berlins-tourism/

Is this a real, working bike or an internet hoax? Dunno. If it's real, you gotta admit, that's a heckuva cool and distinctly original design for a compact, short wheelbase recumbent!

I would love to take that bike for a spin. Wouldn't you?

Looks like vaporware to me. Vaguely reminiscent of those monocycles they rode in the intro of the Olympics in China.

I wouldn't want to try braking in/on one of those. Above a certain braking force, the bike would basically just keep rolling, with the rider spinning too.

You'd find out very quickly who has a cardiac pacemaker or other implanted device when you started to pedal that.

Limiting braking with the magnetic drive would be pretty easy, whether it would be enough to be safe?
I suspect it would be ok for limited speed flat areas but with those limitations why no a tandem recumbent trike, safer, faster, cheaper and could easily be made space age looking.

I like it, but it'll probably be more an amusement park ride than a mode of transportation. If it ever becomes reality, I predict it will have something like training wheels fore & aft.

Just somebody's pipe dream. If you're renting out bikes, you don't want a 75-lb tippy monstrosity with oddball parts, etc. There are reasons regular bikes don't have electric transmissions, too.

"a very negligible effort on th part of the rider is required to make the bike move forward"
That sounds like the zen/perpetual motion that pulls all those fixie riders up the hills.

Just saw this new bicycle design and wanted to share it:
http://www.thedesignblog.org/entry/public-bike-to-boost-berlins-tourism/

Is this a real, working bike or an internet hoax? Dunno. If it's real, you gotta admit, that's a heckuva cool and distinctly original design for a compact, short wheelbase recumbent!
It's not original, there are designs from way back--WW II era and before. I forget the technical name, but I know I've seen really old photos of basically this same concept, online.

Vehicles where you sit inside the wheel are called "monowheels (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=monowheel&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi)", or alternately "monocycles". There are motorized and non-motorized patents going back at least as far as 1860.

Bicycles with side-by-side seating are often called sociables (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=sociable%20bicycle&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi). Sociables are a rarity today but pedal-powered vehicles with various wheel arrangements and side-by-side seating for two were fairly common from 1800 to 1900 or so.

There is also a name for bicycles that have the wheels located laterally instead of fore-aft. These usually had huge, 6-7Ft tall wheels and a center seat carriage that hung from beneath the wheels' axle point.

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If you're really interested, you might ask about it on the rec.bicycles.tech newsgroup. There's a couple people on there regularly who know a lot about antique bicycles, and could probably link to some photos of examples.
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Well, I had no idea this had been done before. Now I know what a monocycle is. Actually the German bike has two wheels. Now I know the Segway is a dicycle, not a bicycle. Okay, so it is a dicycle. I still think that's a quite original design. I'd never seen a dicyle (other than the Segway) before this.

After seeing the red and yellow monocycles here http://www.hammacher.com/publish/11102.asp
I realize the monocycle looks a lot like that German dike. ( short for dicycle? )

Youtubers with somewhat similar variants: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoLdrhnHdj0&feature=related
and what appears to be a similar machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui4kI-RHS1Q&feature=related

After seeing the red and yellow monocycles here http://www.hammacher.com/publish/11102.asp


From the Hammacher Schlemmer site:
"Not a street-legal vehicle."
Makes me wonder for thirteen grand, what's it good for? It wouldn't be allowed on trails because it's motorized. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would be popular on the private roads in a trailer park, either.

Strictly for the rich and famous!!

From the Hammacher Schlemmer site:
"Not a street-legal vehicle."
Makes me wonder for thirteen grand, what's it good for? It wouldn't be allowed on trails because it's motorized. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would be popular on the private roads in a trailer park, either.
Polo. Swinging a mallet might upset steering control, though.