From the mind of Zsombor Kiss, a Hungarian graphic artist and industrial designer, comes the KZS Cycle concept bike, an organic redesign of the traditional diamond frame. Although, ostensibly more of a design experiment than a fully fleshed-out bike design, the designer has developed the idea into a high quality prototype with some interesting features…
The swooping flat plate-shaped (hopefully hollow tubing?) frame makes for an eye-catching look. Without a seattube (or any provision for brakes) the bike would probably provide a good bit of vertical flex to eat up the bumps and rely on coaster brakes or a fixed gear set up.
And don’t expect that integrated fork to be in your neighborhood bike shop anytime soon. Even though it has a pretty cool solution to its dropouts and handlebar mount with the curling thru-axle fork tips and integrated stem, making that tiny external steerer stiff enough to stand up to the abuse of city riding would probably be a challenge.
Last but not least is that interesting looking saddle. The wooden seatpost from their partner Woodi seems like a sketchy idea (even though the tiny wood bars look nice). The loops of the cantilevered saddle remind me of pre-war springer saddles with a nice modern touch. Again, cantilevering may be hard to implement, but the overall shape could work well on many new bikes.
Practicality was thrown out the window on this design exercise, but the end result has some cool bits to it worth developing further.
