This article is a bit unquestioningly gushing - although I love the creativity and concept. For starters, I can't see how it has any lateral grip. Nor is it explained how it negates the need for a hub or bearings. I assume disk brakes are used, but that's left to the imagination.
How I wish there was a news source which got down with the technicals. Thinking about it, that's the space that HN comments fill.
> For starters, I can't see how it has any lateral grip.
I thought that too. He rides the bike in the video but notice that he only goes straight and makes no turns, doesn't accelerate or decelerate very fast. There's no way there's any traction there. Now if it were covered with rubber it might work nicely.
Even covered in rubber you'd have basically no traction when turning. Bicycle wheels are rounded so they still have a decent contact patch when turning.
Another big question is going to be its tendency to injure people whose extremities get caught in it or are scraped by it. Bicycle wheels are relatively benign compared to this design which looks like a grater or cookie cutter. Sure, you could round things, choose less nasty materials, etc., but the price is going to go way up.
Lateral grip could be created by coating the outer surface of the wheel with some sort of rubber. Rather than replacing rubber tires, you could just re-spray the wheels. Just a rough idea.
This looks like a variation of the Tweel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweel It's drawbacks are noise and heat, this one looks like it at least has the noise problem. At high speeds it probably has the heat problem as well.
I'm no engineer, but I imagine there would be substantial energy loss through the movement within the wheel. Not to mention lack of traction with the road.
Looks like another solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Bicycle wheels are light, cheap and can be adjusted easily by changing the air pressure.
A better title: Industrial Designer Ron Arad Reinvents The Wheel For an Interesting look
If you want a really smooth ride, get a fat tired 29er, put smooth but fat commuting tires on it and pump them up to as low an air pressure as possible.
It'll still have less rolling resistance than this, be quieter and smoother. It'll be horrible for any real purpose (like, say, riding...), but it will absorb road bumps well.
I wonder if the metallic sounds during the ride were added after, or if they're the result of reducing other sounds from the video. If they're from just turning the volume down, I can't imagine these would be very widely used. Given the street sounds in the beginning of the ride, I'm thinking they might actually be that much louder than a car.
Did anyone else see those and think of the smartwheels that YT's board had in Snow Crash? Granted, the wheels pictured aren't actually "smart", in that they don't dynamically alter their rigidity to compensate for detected imperfections, but they're a damn good start towards a mechanism for building smartwheels.
It goes to show how elegant and simple the humble bicycle is. I enjoy cycling because it's fast, efficient and peaceful. I'm not sure that this design meets that criteria at all. It might look pretty when viewed at certain angles but on the whole (particularly after hearing the sound it makes) I think its ugly.
Yet the traditional bicycle wheel with spokes works surprisingly well. It's light weight, rigid and overall quite simple. I'm averaging about one broken spoke a year at the moment but it's not too difficult to replace.
Though certainly there are incremental improvements that are useful, such as making frames/components lighter while maintaining the same strength through the use of various alloys. But I don't think I'll be changing to these new wheels anytime soon.
A mesmerizing design, but yea, doesn't seem practical when you think about traction. Still with some modifications, it's nice to know that we could still have bikes if rubber suddenly disappears!
It might look interesting for when you're riding at <10 mph to your local coffee shop, but I would not want to make a tight turn at 20 mph or rely on the lower coefficient of friction when making an emergency stop.
Maybe he doesn't live in the USA -- other countries (like china) seem to have less percentage of bike injuries compared to here in the USA. People are blind to anything but cars here.
How I wish there was a news source which got down with the technicals. Thinking about it, that's the space that HN comments fill.