OK, now take two minutes and watch that video. This wild new Cardigo bike concept aims to give you a full body workout while most bikes work only your legs. To do that the Cardigo uses a unique telescoping toptube that lets you push & pull the bar away from you as you pedal along. Then, that energy you use to push the bar away drives a reciprocating/ratcheting chain drive system that connects down to the primary pedal drivetrain (in a movement said to feel like doing a pushup.)
Cardigo Bike, telescoping whole body workout fitness bike
Sure moving the bars forward up to 10″ as you are riding is going to do some wacky things to how the bike handles. Plus, pushing the bar to power the secondary drive system and then pulling back against the resistance of whatever friction there is will surely make it a bit difficult to keep the bike tracking perfectly straight. (You can see a bit of wobbly riding in the video.) But it looks like the intention is to ride it like that on wider paths & roads. Then when you want to ride it like a normal bike, you can lock the toptube in place and the front end will remain fixed.
Not a lot of detail about the Cardigo is available now. But the people behind the concept have told us that this early working prototype was mostly a proof of concept model. They’ve already made significant progress on the bike itself over the last few months, and are continuing to develop and refine the idea with the goal of crowdfunding through Kickstarter around the end of next summer.
It’s a pretty wild idea, and we’ll let you know more when we can get updates on Cardigo’s progress.
