No no no… this isn’t a “Road to NAHBS” builder highlight, but I bet this frame builder would be fascinating to talk to. I’m even willing to bet there might be a few of those artisan builders (that are in Sacramento as we speak polishing up their life’s work) that think this thing is completely amazing in a very esoteric kinda way. But it without a doubt has a good bit of cray going for it to.
Come take a peak into this mad engineering project, and see it in action below the fold…
Though pretty high on the WTF scale, when you look past the ridiculous of it as a whole and into some of the details, someone with with a lot of knowledge, experience… and time, built this. I know some pretty talented engineers, and I bet the guy behind this is pretty far beyond them in the design/creativity department. To start, it’s got a sort of home garage-made rear spring damping alignment assembly I assume is there to keep the bike from being “floppy”, and that’s just the beginning…
So it leans A LOT! The second… and maybe third thing that hit me was that it has a “rack” steering assembly and “lefty” & “righty” like forks. Then it gets way better! (red arrow)
This thing has a sideways mounted U-joint drive shaft with a reversed rear derailleur! That allows the bike to lean while being driven err… pedaled. Though pretty rough around the edges on this functional prototype, a “finished” version of this might be worth a scoot.
The mad scientist engineer behind the DuoBike is Luigi Celani, a mechanical designer and planner specializing in structures, installations, and equipment for yachts, sailboats, and motorboats (the direction from where his ideas are coming starts to make sense). A lot of what he came up with and why is unknown, but I suspect he could fix or create just about anything you ask him to.
Not one thing on the DuoBike is conventional, including how you come about getting one. They have put together an Indiegogo crowdfunder to… uh, well… It’s not primarily to get it into production. Nope. The main purpose for the crowdfunding is to have the thing patented! Money raised will go towards some of the initial production costs, but it sounds like protecting the design is first and foremost the goal. In fact, the two higher contribution levels still don’t even get you one of the bikes. A $500 contribution gets you a 25% discount coupon off of retail, and a $1,000 get’s you a 40% one. The final retail cost will actually be somewhere in the 2000-3000€ range, and I bet this prototype weighs in between 100 & 150lbs.
Though I’m not sure we’ll be seeing many of these around town, it is always inspiring to see the results of someone’s inventive talent.
