If the thought of riding a tricycle at 50 miles per hour sends shivers down your spine, the HyperBike is your ticket to ride. Designed to mitigate some of the limitations of riding a traditional bicycle, the HyperBike is big enough to easily be seen by automobile drivers, and fast enough to keep up with (or pass) them. The inventor describes it as “crawling at 50 mph” and compares the experience to swimming.
The wheels are 64 inches apart at the road and cant inwards to only 26 inches apart at the top of their 8-foot diameter, inspired by the stability and speed of racing wheelchairs. The prototype weighs in at about 200 pounds, as you might expect by looking at it, but engineering with carbon fiber or aircraft aluminum could help it shed a lot of pounds. Some degree of ability to collapse the bike is foreseen, a necessity if the average person wants to find a spot to store this beast, which is probably too tall even for the SUV-designed garage. And flywheels or turbines paired with the brakes are envisioned to help regulate speed and accumulate energy for that extra boost when starting uphill.
Learn more about the HyperBike.