This is exactly what I've been looking for: A way to provide a little extra boost for when you need it, without making the bike so heavy that it's no longer a viable pedal bike.
To judge from the shape and style, it looks to have been inspired by devices used to turn ordinary manual wheelchairs into powered wheelchairs with a minimum of fuss. Of course, at the present time, "minumum of fuss" translates into maximum of dollars spent (according to TerraPass blogger Adam Stein, it'll cost as much as a full-on electric bike) when Ducati starts making them this year, but I can see this being very big in Europe, if not yet in the US (though its day is coming). The Copenhagen city government is said to be interested in putting in a big order of them to see if CW-equipped bikes can be used as a replacement for government cars.
This is exactly what I've been looking for: A way to provide a little extra boost for when you need it, without making the bike so heavy that it's no longer a viable pedal bike.
ReplyDeleteTo judge from the shape and style, it looks to have been inspired by devices used to turn ordinary manual wheelchairs into powered wheelchairs with a minimum of fuss. Of course, at the present time, "minumum of fuss" translates into maximum of dollars spent (according to TerraPass blogger Adam Stein, it'll cost as much as a full-on electric bike) when Ducati starts making them this year, but I can see this being very big in Europe, if not yet in the US (though its day is coming). The Copenhagen city government is said to be interested in putting in a big order of them to see if CW-equipped bikes can be used as a replacement for government cars.