Category: transportation

Reinventing the (Hubless) Wheel: ‘Transport’ Is a Trunk for Your Bike, by David Hotard, Matthew Campbell & Edwin Collier
“Transport” is a commuter bike design project sponsored by SRAM. Although panniers and saddle bags are on the market to make commuting easier, we found that many cyclists prefer to ride with a traditional backpack. This doesn’t mean that a backpack is comfortable; it’s just more practical than the panniers that clip to a rack. We discovered that many commuters didn’t want a bag that felt like a dedicated commuting bag but rather a bag that would work in any scenario. We started to look at what we do with bags when we’re traveling by car, plane, train, and other means and realized that there is almost always a compartment for them. We realized that what commuters wanted was that compartment… on their bike. Research on futuristic bike concepts inspired us to use the negative space of the much-debated hubless wheel for our trunk. The result shows that a trunk in the wheel could easily accommodate various backpacks and might well be very feasible solution.

The Martin Jetpack is the world’s first practical jetpack. It consists of a purpose-built gasoline engine driving twin ducted fans which produce sufficient thrust to lift the aircraft and a pilot in vertical takeoff and landing, and enable sustained flight. Martin Jetpack has seen the development programme focus on readying the product for use in a number of sectors including emergency response, defence and recreation, with numerous applications in each sector. It can take off from a small space, so is easy to deploy anywhere. Jetpack is easy to learn to fly, has an automated hover function, and is expected to be able to be flown in reasonable weather conditions.