I’m pretty miffed at BikeSnobNYC for stealing the thunder of my original Dumbest Product of the Week for this week, the titanium commuter bike called the CoMooter from Moots. He artfully muses on the the stupidity of an almost $9000 commuter bike as well as the rampant inflation plaguing the high end bike market these days. Damn you, Bike Snob!
Instead, I will have to fall back on a product that is equally dumb but in its own unique way. This week’s entry is still in the concept stage, but since anything solar powered is trendy these days, I imagine a retail version is to follow shortly.
The Cycle Sol is a solar powered electric bike marketed as a transportation solution for commuters. Why get any health benefit from cycling when the sun can provide the energy, right?
Unfortunately, the Cycle Sol appeals to our longing to be to do good for the environment while wasting more natural resources than its conventional version, much like a Prius. Only a resource devouring society such as ours would come up with a way to create a bicycle with a manufacturing footprint equal to a Fiat.
I guess my biggest worry about riding this thing is stopping as the center of gravity is so high you are almost guaranteed a face plant at an intersection.
The design actually reminds me of the circular cycle General Greivous rode in Star Wars, Episode III. And much like George Lucas with his prequels, Cycle Sol has managed to shit upon something beloved of my youth.
George Lucas' interpretation of the Cycle Sol
I will give the Cycle Sol some credit though. Even in the prototype phase, they have embraced the mindset of the bike industry: build an over designed city bike that still fails to have basic commuter necessities like lights or a rack.
Thus, we are brought full circle to the CoMooter. While these masturbatory efforts to design “the most awesome” (to quote Sarah Palin) commuter bike ever may be fun for the bike geek, the rest of us are just yawing and getting back to much more interesting diversions like catching up on the dullest blog in the world.
Enjoy your weekend, and get out and ride your bike.
Read the previous week’s Dumbest Product of the Week.
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on Jan 29th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
[...] up. Until we realize this, supposedly green products like the Biomechanical Energy Harvester or Cycle Sol will receive the ribbing they [...]