I passed this car yesterday and it reminded me of this bike.

P.S. I like the bike much more

They're both cheesy, overpriced, and impractical?

(I agree.)

Please don't tell me that's gold plating on the Colnago... it's just paint, right?

I gotta admit............I like that bike even though I generally cringe at gold components. Maybe cuz he described it as "Pimp Leprauchan", which I thought was funny. Also, being from Wisconsin, it's rather annoying to see that color combo and automatically think "Green Bay packers".

i used to drive a stock stick 88 mazda rx-7. it still shows up in my dreams sometimes. god i loved that car.

rx-7's are sweet. i had a less cool mx-3, but it was still an awesome little car. stick shift, deep set bucket seats, low to the ground, fantastic handling. anyway, what were we talking about...

I always wanted a 5-speed Miata (MX-5).

Instead, I had an automatic Ford Festiva (121).

Sometimes life isn't fair. Though the tiny boxed in rollerskate was pretty cute.

i think we were talking about low slung mazdas...i took one of the storage boxes of mine and fiberglassed it and made it a speaker box...did i say i loved that car? my effin landlord had it towed away cause i wasn't driving it anymore. insurance and tags were both expired. i was somewhat upset, you could say...esp as i was the best tenant the crappy landlord had ever had. punk.

edit: oh, yeah this is a bike forum. i haven't progressed much...now i have a volvo that just sits. at least the tags are current. fxxxer has almost three hundred thousand miles on it. it's tired. see, bikes are simple and they work, and fixies are even simpler... gotta love them.

i've often thought that the 2005 priuses (priii, pronounced pree'-eye?) look a lot like those crazy racing bikes with the full shell around them. unfortunately, i don't have images of either...

...but that kind of fits my theory that, in general, the prius is a lot like a fixed gear. sure, the fixed gear relies on neither gas or electricity, but have you ever driven a prius? we have a 2002, and there's this deal on them called B-mode, brake, presumably, but instead of braking, you sort of downshift and slow down. someone explained it to me as a sort of reverse thrust, which seems very similar to slowing down on a fixed gear. i notice that i often approach intersections the same way on both, although, to be fair, i don't shift on the IRO.

i've thought about having a sticker made that says "my other car is a hybrid," but somehow i'm not sure even i am comfortable being quite that nerdy.

i've seen that bike all over the internet lately!

grr

I have a fear of being run down by one of those due to their extreme quietness.

The braking system uses a technique called 'regenerative braking' to suck kinetic energy out of the vehicle and turn it into electricity. Imagine this.. If you take a battery, and an electric motor, and hook them up, then electrical energy will leave the battery, and cause the motor to turn. But if you grab the motor and turn it backwards, it will force electrical energy back into the battery. In fact, with a full battery, you'll have to turn the motor awfully hard, because you are pushing electrical energy up a very steep hill, trying to cram more into the battery.

So when you are driving the Prius, you are adding motion to the car by subtracting electricity from the battery. When you hit the brakes, it doesn't just engage traditional brakes (which the prius still has, of course), it allows you to pull kinetic energy out of the car, and turn it back into electricity. That is actually the only reason hybrids work, converting gasoline power to electrical power to motion is actually LESS efficient than converting gasoline power directly to motion, but if you set the car up to use electricity, then you make up that inefficiency by saving all this kinetic energy that would normally be wasted in a conventional automobile.

Rock on, regenerative braking!

When room-temperature superconductors are perfected, one of the first inventions I'm going to make is a mechanical/magnetic regenerative brake for a bicycle. Imagine this, as you pull the brake lever, it doesn't just start applying conventional brakes immediately, but instead moves a rotating magnet attached to the wheel (like a disk rotor) closer to a superconducting flywheel (that could be fully enclosed) This would start spinning the flywheel, and would suck the energy from the rest of the bike, slowing it down and eventually stopping it. When stopped at a light, you'd have this flywheel spinning incredibly fast attached to your bike. Then, when you want to go again, you'd twist a little 'throttle' that would do the opposite of the brake, and begin to magnetically activate the wheel by pulling energy from the flywheel. You'd lurch forward and, without pedalling, be at the same speed you were going before you had approached the light, minus a few percent due to mechanical loss. It would add a few pounds to a bike, but for a city commuter in stop and go traffic, think how cool that would be!

peace,
sam

Pedestrians feel the same way about our fixies. :) I snuck up on a couple making out in the park last night. I was 5 feet from them before they noticed I was riding past.

peace,
sam

Um, I like fixed gears...

oh, how i love nerdy conversations.
sam, make me one of those regenerative bikes when you're done with your next tallbike.
namaste,
ben

I'm thinking regenerative tall-bike with the option of directing the flywheel energy into an electromagnetic pulse for disabling mobile phones and computerized cars.

so since you've thought about this, wouldn't the proximity of the magnet during regular cycling cause drag? or does the fact that it's an electromagnet mean that the attraction would only by triggered by the activation of the brake lever?

overpriced? impractical...yes.....but cheesy...come on cheesy not giving mikorp any credit...stop hating
:D

oh, the conversations my roommate and I have had about EMP's, and gauss rifles, and all sorts of crazy things

you know, that flywheel you're talking about sam would have some wicked gyroscopic force if it is spinning that fast, thus making it quite easy to trackstand. It'd be like balancing on the bike while your moving, but you wouldn't be. Of course, that kind of takes the fun and challenge out of learning to trackstand i guess...

sam, to completely hijack the thread...i was reading about your bag/pack making adventures. do you think a sturdy/light bag could be made of tyvek? have you worked with it?

I'll take one too.

I've thought a lot (only thought, i'm no engineer) about using regenerative power generated by the bike to store for use later. is this sensible? could you set it up to receive released energy from the fixed gear's "dynamic brake" or would it need a hand brake?

now i think of it, something like this would work best on our christiania...two disk brakes and a coaster, slowing down a 75lb cargo trike, would generate a lot of power.

sounds like engine braking/compression braking/'jake brake'... the motor resist the turn of the crankshaft and slows down the car... almost like letting your legs go "dead" on a fix

if cars were bicycles...they wouldn't be so ugly, loud, poisonous and in my way. and the world would be a better place.

http://www.bta4bikes.org/act/gearart/poster.jpg