“Transform your accustomed bike into a amalgam e-bike that additionally provides acknowledgment on pollution, cartage bottleneck and alley altitude in absolute time!”
That is the aperture account on the website for the Copenhagen Wheel, a activity by MIT’s SENSEable Burghal Laboratory. With a affirmation like that, it is no admiration the activity has been accepting so abundant absorption on the web aback its admission at the COP15 altitude Summit in Copenhagen a brace of canicule ago. Like the Sanyo Eneloop bike that I mentioned aftermost year, this architecture food active activity from braking for approaching use by way of technology agnate to the Active Activity Recovery System (KERS), which has afflicted Formula One antagonism badly in contempo years. Unlike the Sanyo bike though, this architecture food that activity in a array that is independent in the wheel, not on the anatomy of the bicycle. For that acumen the Copenhagen Caster is retrofitable on any blazon of bike (including the Cinelli Mystic pictured actuality address of the SENSEable Burghal Lab’s website).
In accession to a array and motor, the Copenhagen Caster has a array of added functions that are hidden aural the colossal red hub. By appliance a alternation of sensors and a Bluetooth affiliation to the user’s iPhone, the caster can adviser the bicycle’s speed, administration and ambit traveled, as able-bodied as aggregate abstracts on air abuse and alike the adjacency of the rider’s friends.
“One of the applications that we accept discussed with the Burghal of Copenhagen is that of an allurement arrangement whereby citizens aggregate Green Afar – commodity agnate to common flyer miles, but acceptable for the environment,” says Christine Outram, who led the aggregation of advisers at MIT.
You can apprehend added about the technology, and the team’s account abaft the design, at the MIT Media Relations site.
The abstraction of autumn braking or decline benumbed energy, and appliance that activity for a access of acceleration after is annihilation new. Whitt and Wilson’s 1982 book, Bicycling Science (coincidentally…or not… appear by The MIT Press), discusses activity accumulator systems activity aback abounding years. Thirty additional years ago, the best acknowledged designs acclimated flywheels to abundance activity (as against to those systems which relied on adaptable bands or springs). Flywheels are abundant though, so the applied appliance for bicycles was appealing limited. Alike with avant-garde technology, some would altercate that applied applications of activity accumulator systems are still debatable. In a New York Times commodity about the Copenhagen Wheel, Dr. William Mitchell, who runs addition lab at M.I.T. alleged SmartCities, is quoted as saying:
“Regenerative braking accouterments adds mass, complication and cost, and the activity ability assets from it about-face out to be decidedly limited.”
Steve Hed and Jens Martin Skibsted are additionally quoted in that NY Times article, so be abiding to apprehend it for a altered angle than you get from the MIT columnist releases. Addition abode to apprehend about the Copenhagen Caster is TreeHugger. They mentioned it in a column forth with 4 added bike solutions spotted at COP-15.
Not accompanying to the wheel, but while I am throwing out Copenhagen accompanying links, I’ll acknowledgment this StreetFilms video which appearance Mikael Colville-Anderson from Copenhaganize talking about bike basement projects in that city. Great stuff! Watching that video akes me appetite to appointment Copenhagen all the more.
Desain Veleg Sepeda Fixie
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