I wish I could build one of these

Fully recyclable, the bike made out of cardboard

Sheffield A student of industrial design has made a working £15 bicycle out of industrial-strength cardboard. Phil Bridge, 21, of Sheffield Hallam University, said the bike was strong enough for a rider weighing up to 12 stones and would not go soft in the rain, although it has a life expectancy of only about six months.

The bike is made almost entirely from recyclable and recycled materials, using mechanical parts that can be reused. Mr Bridge said: “The lightweight quality of the cardboard, combined with its low cost, means it’s possible to create a bargain bike that’s also less susceptible to thieves.”

I'd like to build one out of some plywood.......Hmmmmmmthere's another idea for this summer.

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If it ain't broke, and you mess with it long enough, it will be.

Crazy beautiful!

I would opt for something that looks like the first one, but made of wood. Maybe the second bike when I am retired and have too much time to sand for days and days....

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If it ain't broke, and you mess with it long enough, it will be.

Yes, I know. I just had to.

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It would take a loooong time to sand one of those from a piece of wood.

Don't think you'd be able to replicate all those curves with cardboard.

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If it ain't broke, and you mess with it long enough, it will be.

Since the gasoline from mexico is not environmentally clean It also goes to show what the average person things of tree huggers

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visit my blog for Riding in the hood,... The home brew bike journal....http://frictiondrivebicycles.blogspot.com/ The deacon's fiction (new installment daily).... http://chinesekitmotorbike.blogspot.com/

http://freekibble.com feed the homeless dogs

Seems like you're seeing more and more of these 3 wheeler design concepts. Anyways, I don't mind paying $10.00 a gallon for gas, as long of course.....the vehicle gets atleast 200 mpg.


Laugh at High Gas Prices With a 282-MPG VW

Back in my school days there was a company called FiberFab that sold Glass Fiber kit vehicles. The one that most fascinated me was called the SCARAB.
It was a three wheeler with two wheels in the front and one in the back.



It was basically a VW Bug front suspension bolted to a small welded frame. The back of the frame had a diagonal post that mated to the front of a motorcycle with the front forks removed. There were a couple radius arms at the right and left just behind the passenger and driver that bolted to the bike to stabalize it with the three point connection.

The original plans called for a 900cc Kawasaki but smaller bikes could be used.
My Dad and I pondered getting a stripped frame from a bike junk yard along with a mag rear wheel with tubless tire for the basic set up.

Dad wanted to make something with a Deutz Air Diesel and a Lister Xmission to power the thing and I was then considering an electric golf cart to strip and build into the project platform. Dad couldn't find a tranny with a reverse in it, and I fugured the electric had the reverse. We talked about AC for it
and I was up for a small gasoline Briggs & Stratton to run a compressor and alternator with built in voltage regulator.

I figured the platform bare would weigh less than 750 lbs and the real weight would be in the motor, batteries, and AC & electric heat system. Dad thought it would be a brick to drive and I couldn't see it as worthwhile without a reverse. So, we got it out of our system with the research back then. The things had an odd gear shift arrangement as you can imagine
and the refinement of the instruments and throttle were given little consideration by FiberFab.

I've always been amazed at the things I've wanted to do where part of what
I wanted to work with was so far ahead of the technology. The Scarab had beautiful styling even though the marketing guys fell in love with the lime gold
metal flake paint job and tubeless mag wheels on bikes were just entering the market then.

Even when I started on the inter net with windows 95 what was being talked about then only became reality late into XP, unless you were in a business with servers and T1 or T3 broad band. Streaming video being one example back then.

So if I were to build a Scarab today I'd have to buy it as a 30+ year old kit
one piece at a time and fit it with the electric drive I originally imagined. Today I'd usea salsbury clutch (infinately variable ratio pulley controlled with a liner acutator) The thought has even crossed my mind of trying to adapt the runing gear of a totaled Honda Insight with a electric only drive system, where the motors are in the front wheels. (if of course I could adapt the spindels to accept the motors.

In our High school auto shop we built a electric car...We used a 1979 Honda Civic donated by a junk yard. We used a motor out of a old fork lift from the school that they said did not work anymore.

My Uncle before he retired had a machine shop (FDI Machine) and he built us a adapter to go from the motor to the stock 5 speed. Got some battery's from Pep Boy's

Don't remember all we did but it was very simple...Top speed I think was around 35mph. We entered into a electric car competition at PIR raceway.
We where competing against a few college's.We did not win and I think we place in 9th place. We got just over 92miles before it went dead.

A news channel from Tucson and Phoenix did a story about it...I have somewhere the article from the newspaper if I could find it I will scan it and post it.