Goin' 'lectric Part Deux

I got stuck in traffic on Friday. On my motorcycle. I couldn't believe it. Traffic is getting so bad that even a motorcycle cannot weave through. I need something smaller. A bicycle. But there is a problem. I don't like to show up at a meeting with a sweat stained shirt. So we need an electric bicycle. But those have always looked dorky. Until now.

You see, thanks to this new invention called kickstarter, smart, driven people with a great idea can now find the means to take those great ideas and turn them into great products. The flykly is the result of a kickstarter campaign. And because I know that most of you are not going to take the trouble of clicking on that hyperlink in the previous sentence, I feel compelled to put a picture here.

What makes the flykly an amazing product is that you can convert your existing bicycle into an electric just by swapping out your rear wheel and swapping in the flykly. The entire gizmo is crammed into the hub of the rear wheel; everything; the electric motor, the lithium ion batteries, the controller, the bluetooth stuff to talk to your smartphone and the torque sensors.

The way the flykly wheel works is that the moment the torque sensor senses your pedaling, it powers up the hub motor to assist you. It also has regenerative braking to charge those batteries when you are slowing down. You can also charge it from your wall socket if you don't care to slow down very much. The motor assist will give you a top speed of 25 kmph, which is the limit in Europe for a vehicle to be classified as an electric bicycle and not a moped.

What I find most compelling about this electric bicycle argument, especially after flykly has solved the problem of not having to lug a 20 kg lead acid battery around with you, is that if you use a bicycle to get around, you are not transporting 2 tons of metal just so you can move 70 kilos.

I always knew the Dutch were great engineers, after all they have devised a system to pump out the sea from under their feet every hour of every day just so they can live below sea level and stay dry doing it; but their wisdom with using bicycles has only now hit me.

Honourable mention must also be made of the Copenhagen Wheel in this article for it is a similar product of similar design and it has been turning heads since 2009. And if they had put it into production and were able to deliver it in time to people who have paid for it, this article might even have been about it.