Friday, October 12, 2012

Chainless Folding Hybrid Bicycle Is The Future



If you had to come up with the perfect combination of clean energy transportation technologies, I doubt you could come up with something as green as the chainless folding hybrid bicycle from Mando. Rather than using a mechanical chain connection, the folding bicycle uses pedal power to charge a battery to drive a wheel-based electric motor. Genius!

Called the “footloose”, this chainless bicycle is being built by a collaboration of British designer Mark Sanders and e-bike expert Han Goes. By partnering with the South Korean Mando Corporation, footloose may actually become more than a cool concept.

The onboard lithium-ion battery has enough energy to get Footloose up to 18.6 miles. It can go even further if the rider invests some good old fashioned mechanical energy into the pedals. It is basically a bicycle version of a plug-in hybrid car, such as the Chevy Volt.

Oh, and I should mention that it weighs around 45 pounds, and can be folded to fit into a relatively small space. This is the ideal city get-around for nice days, and I can totally see it replacing the standard chain-powered bike…for everybody but the hipsters.



Source: designboom



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