Does Whatever a Spider Like

Spider bike, spider bike! Does whatever a spider like!

Dig that crazy shit. This frame has so little material, you can see through the spaces of its geodesic structure. It’s woven by hand for now, but they’re apparently developing a manufacturing technique (good luck, guys) that will allow mass production. Thanks, Evan, for the C|Net article that linked to this, though I’m not going to link back to it because it makes a stupid claim that this kind of frame is more aerodynamic that a smooth one. The aerodynamics of this are awful. But that’s not what mountain biking’s about anyway.

We’re going to see more and more airy engineering over the coming years, I think. In the 19th century, we discovered that using webs of steel instead of stacks of stones was an effective way to build. Carbon fiber — a fabric — is replacing steel with great frequency as a material of choice. I think that represents a general trend: using less material, configured cleverly, to satisfy our requirements.

Now, if we could just get our government to stop waging perpetual war and thereby sucking up all the carbon fiber…

14 thoughts on “Does Whatever a Spider Like”

  1. Huh.

    It’s kind of uggle, but man it must be light as hell.

    My bike still could house that thing* around the block.

    *Provided you didn’t add pedals to it.

    1. 2.75 lbs is pretty frickin’ light.

      Well, you could probably grind this bike to powder, then fit the resulting powder inside your bike, thereby “housing” it.

      Hell, it woulc probably fit in your tire tubes.

  2. 2.75 lbs. Sheesh. I’m having trouble imagining how that must feel.

    I think I’m going to put wheels on the half bag of flour in my cupboard and take it out for a spin.

  3. What a bag of nonsense.

    Their marketing copy is dire:

    “Made of superior high-grade aerospace carbon fiber that is significantly stronger than other common products.”

    “Other common products”? Well, yes, tissue paper is a common product and I’m sure it should be stronger than that, but so what? it’s a statement that means nothing. Marine plywood is fairly common and it approach carbon fibre in strength per weight.

    “… there is nothing else like it on the planet.”

    No, there are millions of things like it on the planet. They are called bike frames!

    Sorry, sorry, but bad marketing chat brings me out in a rash. I’m off to douse myself in calomine lotion and have a little rest.

    Cheers
    Malc

    1. Agreed! Marketing tripe.

      Nonetheless, the structure itself is unlike anything else in the same way that steel buildings are unlike stone buildings.

      “Other common products!”

      HA!

      Like, say, twigs. Or cats. Or pencils.

    1. The actual prototype (which I can’t find a pic of right now) wasn’t that beautiful, unfortunately, but it was more of a proof of concept.

          1. The Jano bike is interesting, upon further study. The other site, though… The frames are cool, but his bikes, oddly, are ugly. Specifically the single-speed cruiser thing. Still, very cool ideas, and I’m glad someone’s trying. Is it me or did the Jano guy cheat a little from his original. I can’t tell if he’s used steel frame pieces or if he just sheathed a steel frame with wood…

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