Originally Posted by
john m flores
While this bike certainly won't break the laws of thermodynamics, could it possibly make biking more enjoyable and achievable for people whose route include some challenging hills? These bikes could charge the capacitors on downhills and also a little bit on flats (situations that don't place riders at their physical limits) and then use that charge to help "flatten" those hills. It's no panacea, but I could see that being useful for certain folks and certain riding conditions.
I think that’s the idea and it might work quite well on rolling terrain as long as there is enough energy storage to boost it over the top of the climbs. So it’s not going to work in the mountains, but might help to flatten an easier ride on lumpy terrain. It would be interesting to see the power data for this bike.