Is this good design?
I keep seeing the weirdest things on the bike rack in front of the Industrial Design building here at Auburn. I’m not sure what exactly is going on here and I caught myself immediately dismissing this as nonsense. However, upon reflection I’m willing to concede that this could be a prototype for an ergonomically improved handlebar system. What do you think?
October 28th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
A very interesting piece. I think it looks to be more of an exploration in combining functionality and experimentation with form to suggest a particular function, rather than ergonomics as I am failing to see what ergonomic improvements this would offer over traditional handle bars. Then again I could be going completely in the wrong direction.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Consider that it won’t jab you if you crash (no matter what manner of turn you were attempting) and if your wheel gets “cockeyed” with respect to its angle with the front tire, it won’t matter– just keep on pedaling! If s/he could just figure out how to make the brakes work regardless of orientation, then I’d say it was a pretty cool idea.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Thanks for the comments!
I’m going to preface my comments by reiterating that I have no idea what the intentions are of the creator of this contraption. That being said, I do believe there could be some merit here from an ergonomic standpoint. Think about the standard flat handlebar hand position. The wrists are at a very unnatural angle and forced to support the rider’s weight. Now, consider placing the hands on the 10 and 2 positions on this steering wheel and you will find that the rotation of the hands and wrists produces a more natural riding position and relieves the stress from the wrists. This is actually something I have been experimenting with on my own bicycle (minus the steering wheel, of course). Unfortunately, the control placement on this mock-up does not support my theory…
Which brings me the DaveO’s comment. It would be fairly simple to adapt a ring behind the steering wheel to provide braking from any position around the wheel. The shifters might have to move to a static position on the frame or to the center of the steering wheel “hub”. However, I’m not sure if I like the idea of having no real physical feedback to steering angle. The bicycle has a natural tendency towards forward motion but small steering inputs can create large changes in direction that I think I would want to have more control over. Testing would definitely prove this out.
October 29th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I’ll bet that bike steers poorly with this steering and the directional tire facing the wrong direction.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Leave it to Helmans to pick at the details ;-)
October 30th, 2008 at 11:41 am
You should track Zach (creator) down for Halloween. He is famous in our neighborhood for his two story candy shoot and remote control spider. I knew those shop classes were a bad idea :-)
October 31st, 2008 at 2:36 am
This is my very crude prototype for a bike steering wheel. I am also building the rocket powered bicycle mentioned earlier. Eventually this steering wheel concept will my integrated into my rocket bikes finished design. This experiment was done to try out different hand patterns searching for a better shape. I have been riding it for about 3 days now and to my surprise its very comfortable and offers equal level steering ability to the traditional handle bars. I think the next step will be converting the gear changer to a unit not connected to the brake. I also plan on either moving the brake to the pedals or some other solution. The next model will probaly loose the upper part of the wheel. I seem to be most comfortable in the lower sector just under where the hand brakes are in the picture.