bicycles

For many urban dwellers who live close to work, commuting by bike is like eating vegetables. You know you should, but sometimes you just want the burger and fries.

Industrial designer Adam Taylor, who is working toward a master's degree in future design in England, has devised a system that he thinks will help motivate commuters to pedal to the office. The two key features are the system's self-powered smart card and the bike itself, which is a beauty.

On the blog Bicycle Design, Taylor says he envisions the bike, which he calls "Tim," and the system, which he calls "Go Fara," to be bought in bulk by major corporations that institute a "green employee of the week" rewards program. Using the smart card, the employer has access to mileage and time stats to reward the highest achievers.… Read more

"Oh my god, Becky, look at her butt. It is so bright!" That's because she has a Monocle bike safety light fashioned from her iPhone.

The Monocle from Studio KMD consists of two parts. It's a holder that slips onto your belt and an app that triggers a bright red flashing light. Hang it down over your rear and bike away with your iPhone flashing behind you.… Read more

Google Maps for Android has offered turn-by-turn directions for automotive use since 2009. It wasn't long until walking navigation was added in 2010. Finally, transit direction made the jump to turn-by-turn navigation back in June of this year. Today, with the version 6.11.1 update to the Google Maps app, cyclists can get in on the turn-by-turn fun with the addition of bicycle route navigation.

Cyclists will be able to view turn-by-turn directions on a live updating map after selecting a destination and affixing their phone onto the handle bars, or they can simply listen to the spoken … Read more

Safely riding a bike at night requires a bright headlight and reflectors at the very minimum, but Kilo, labeled as "the very first glow-in-the-dark bike," could change the game.

The concept of a glow-in-the-dark bike isn't totally new, as Zach Schau, co-founder of Kilo's parent company Pure Fix Cycles acknowledged in a phone call with Crave. Schau did suggest, however, that Kilo represents the first mass-produced glow-in-the-dark bicycle at a low price point (Puma experimented with the idea in 2008, but that version cost more than a grand). … Read more

I have a friend who still looks out for her stolen bike wherever she goes. She might not be so obsessed with the loss if the bike had been made for $9 out of recycled cardboard.

Bike enthusiast and designer Izhar Gafni built a functioning bicycle out of cardboard. The inspiration came from a another inventor's cardboard canoe project.

Gafni ran his idea by some engineers who told him to give up the dream, that it was impossible. He tried it anyway. The result is an attractive, working bike that costs as little as $9 to make. Of course, that price tag doesn't include the immense amount of R&D time Gafni put into it.… Read more

Perfect for outdoors enthusiasts, Google's My Tracks app records your path, speed, distance, and even elevation while you walk, run, bike, or do anything else that a GPS signal can follow. And for those who are a bit more serious about their training, the app even lets you hook up with a few third-party Bluetooth biometric sensors, including Zephyr HxM, Polar WearLink, and ANT+ monitors.

To get started, just open up My Tracks and hit the record button at the top of the screen. From there, so long as you have a strong GPS signal, My Tracks will plot … Read more

A clever electric bike, which won a design competition last fall for creating the best urban utility bike, is coming to market via Kickstarter today.

The Faraday, designed by the Palo Alto, Calif., design consultancy Ideo and Santa Cruz, Calif., bike-maker Rock Lobster Custom Cycles, took home top honors in the Oregon Manifest creative collaboration challenge, which CNET followed. The competition paired global design firms with small, handcrafted bike builders to create a bike for city living.

That success generated enough interest that Adam Vollmer, who led the design efforts for Ideo, left the firm to launch a company to … Read more

Forget the hoverboard. Forget the self-lacing shoes. The ultimate "Back to the Future" fan prop is a DeLorean, the stainless steel machine that zipped around through time.

When DeLoreans first went on sale in the early 1980s, they cost around $25,000. Buying a used one today will set you back about $50,000 due to their rarity and mechanical fickleness. Now you can pick up a DeLorean for just $5,500, but there is a catch. It's a bike.

The DeLorean Bicycle is a collaboration between DeLorean Motor Company and Marc Moore, a cyclist and former … Read more

When it came time to redesign the colorful bikes scattered about Google's massive Mountain View, Calif., campus, the company knew exactly who to turn to for next generation of its GBikes: Googlers themselves.

Last fall, the company launched a competition among employees to replace the 2-year-old fleet of bikes available to workers at the Googleplex to pedal from one building to another. The idea was to come up with a user-friendly, low-maintenance bike.

"We've got an entrepreneurial and innovative culture," said Brendon Harrington, Google's transportation operations manager. "We said, 'You tell us what you think is a cool design.'"

The company listed four design criteria. The bike had to be easy to produce. It needed to be affordable. The bike had to be both comfortable and secure. And, in a nod to its culture, the bike had to be Googley, using novel components, structure, and appearance.… Read more