Spring!

Trees et al. budding: check.
Heating no longer necessary: check.

Must be spring: Time to revive the bicycle from hibernation.
Reading the velosophie.at bicycle magazine I found an interesting design study: the Copenhagen Wheel designed by MIT. Basically it’s a hub containing a motor, batteries, GPRS and a sensor kit to measure environmental data like noise, temperature and NO. Enery derived from cycling and braking is stored and can be used when going uphill. The designers envision it to serve as mobile sensor for comprehensive on-line environmental data monitoring and suggest smart-phone “fitness trainer” applications to motivate cyclists.

Some random thoughts:

  • I understood the hub can be retrofitted to ordinary bikes which caters to sustainability – very good.
  • GPRS sensors can’t be omitted in order for the whole mobile sensor approach, but please: protect bikers’ personal rights, thank you. Apart from that concern, I like the idea of creating a bicycle-based sensor network.
  • The final version of the hub better featured excellent theft prevention since it contains quite a bit of expensive technology. Another approach to the theft problem: better bicycle garages</wishful thinking>
  • Some people complain that this approach contains batteries. Yes, batteries are not playing nice, environmentally and socially (production in poor countries …). Sorry, I don’t know about feasible alternatives, but IANAP (I am not a physicist). – Other people argue that they need supported cycling because otherwise they’d sweat too much and had to stop commuting by bicycle.
    I suppose there is no simple answer to that one.

In any case: looking forward to hear of the progress of this idea.

Morscheck und Burgmann – Ja! (Spring)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.