Peer,

The kickstarter failed in 2019… as this article is 4 years old.

Grass,

Lol I’ll stick with the motor and battery. For an extra pound and a half of weight over this I can get home from work uphill, even if I happen to get injured enough to not be able to pedal.

xapr,

Cool idea, but only a small minority of people will adopt something like this given that electric bikes seem to be all the rage right now. I can maybe imagine touring cyclists getting into this, but that’s it. This would make cycling even more complicated*(!) for most people.

*Probably three quarters of the people I see riding bikes don’t even know how to set the proper height for their saddles. They also don’t know which roads are appropriate to ride their bikes on, or to follow the direction of traffic, or to not ride on sidewalks. Oh, and no lights at night either. It’s no wonder that the US has a high rate of cycling fatalities.

doppelgangmember,

1950: We’ll have hoverboards in 50 years at this rate!

2023: We put a windsail on a bike!

mountainCalledMonkey,

Reef early, reef often

EpicFailGuy,
@EpicFailGuy@kbin.social avatar

@walnutwalrus

Read headline ... "Could"

soooo ... no information of value here ... ok then ... I'll just keep on going to the next link

Valmond,

WCGW?

Sidewind entered the chat…

vic,
@vic@howcyborgs.chat avatar

@walnutwalrus

Perfect if you ride your bike along a 100% straight salt flat speed-record-attempt course with a predictable steady breeze from the right direction. Dreadful for real people riding real bikes on real roads in real weather, with real distractions.

The power-up I wish to see for bicycles is the one that makes them affordable enough to cost less than a used car, again. Wish I was kidding.

insomniac,
@insomniac@sh.itjust.works avatar

Where are bikes more expensive than a used car? I literally just bought a pretty sweet used touring bike for 200 bucks. I guess you could find a cheaper used car but it isn’t going to run.

Decent commuter bikes from the major brands have gotten in to the 600-700 dollar range which sucks but is still pretty far away from used car prices.

You can still get bikes for less than half that from the direct to consumer companies.

So you either really need a carbon fiber bike with all the latest and greatest technology or you have incredibly low standards in used cars.

HubertManne,
@HubertManne@kbin.social avatar

I took it he meant new bike vs used car. Of course new bike will be cheaper than used care and used bike will be cheaper than used car.

_haha_oh_wow_,
@_haha_oh_wow_@kbin.social avatar

IDK, there are bikes out there that definitely cost more than a new entry level car, definitely outliers but they exist.

HubertManne,
@HubertManne@kbin.social avatar

well similarly there are cars are out there that cost more than yachts. They are outliers to. Im not OP Im just saying I took it to mean he would like to be able to get a nice new bike and not have it cost as much as a used car. I mean yeah I can get a used bike or a walmart bike or worse yet a used walmart bike. Honestly im not sure if bikes nowadays is any worse expense wise than anything else in the last few years

insomniac,
@insomniac@sh.itjust.works avatar

Read the rest of the comment

HubertManne,
@HubertManne@kbin.social avatar

I had high hopes for the carboard bike but the guy seemed to be to restrictive in his ideals to get it to production. I was hoping for a bike so cheap I could lock it up with a luggage lock and light wire. something like what an av projector might have in a classroom.

harry315,

I bought my last bike used for 10 €. That’s less than a pizza.

Sure, I needed to tighten the brakes, buy new batteries for the light, and the gearshifting only works on 7 of 21 gears. But come on, what do you expect from a pizza?

AA5B,

So they expect to get the weight down to 15 lbs, and think it would interest long distance cyclers? I can’t imagine that going well - “hey, I understand you plan to ride 50 miles today. Do you want to carry an extra 15 lbs?”

snooggums,
@snooggums@kbin.social avatar

"It will totally help as long as all of your roads are the optimal direction to catch the wind!"

bob_lemon,
@bob_lemon@feddit.de avatar

You know what else is 15lb. and helps you ride long distances on a bike? An E-Bike Motor.

goatsarah,

deleted_by_author

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  • ajlanes,

    @goatsarah @walnutwalrus I’ve been blown off my bike even without a sail!

    goatsarah,

    deleted_by_author

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  • penwing,

    @goatsarah @ajlanes @walnutwalrus thankfully the Kickstarter* was a failure (14 backers still raise £2k+ of a £58k goal). Sadly (thankfully?) we do not get to see any (hilarious) videos of unexpected gybeing

    • I looked to see whether either of them might have had any experience of sailing... they have a diagram at east...
    ajlanes,

    @penwing …or indeed of cycling…

    jeena,
    @jeena@jemmy.jeena.net avatar

    This is practically how my older cousin died, but he was on a motorcycle and comming out from behind a truck and then the wind hit him from the side, he lost control, went off the motorway crashed and died.

    This is a terrible idea and totally unsafe.

    ehrenschwan,

    Yeah, same reason why disc wheels are only allowed in the back at time trials.

    luthis,
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