Electric bike maker FlyKly is bringing its stylish, powerful and eco-friendly bikes to San Francisco after having a blowout launch in New York earlier this summer. The company, which opened up shop on June 20th, sold out its entire stock of bikes in July at a pop-up store in Soho. Now, the bikes are being made available in San Francisco.

Calling these things “bicycles” seems odd, though – a term that conjures up streamers from from the handlebars and a wicker basket tied to the front. Instead, these “bicycles” look more like scooters. But since the bikes don’t go over 20 MPH, you don’t need a license to drive them.

The new bikes come in two designs: vintage and modern, each which sport a 100% electric lithium-ion battery. For just a $1′s worth of electricity, you’ll get 1,000 miles of riding, says FlyKly, at 40 miles per charge. (The battery reaches a full charge in just a few hours.) The battery is also removable, so you can charge it anywhere you want. And if the battery ever runs out, you can pedal manually to keep going.

Like ordinary bikes, FlyKly bikes can be parked and tied up to fenceposts, bike racks, sidewalks and parking garages offering spaces for bikes. The steering column and rear wheel are locked when parked. And just in case, the bikes also include a GPS tracking system for locating your bike if it ever starts moving when you’re not on it.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, “Kly” is a Greek word that means “constant energy or movement.”

FlyKly sells the bikes for $1,900 and shipping is free in the U.S. You can learn more about the bikes on the company’s website here: www.flykly.com.

Meet Precious. Precious will ride from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Tweeting his stats along the way and making assessments over time including comments on the weather, hilliness of the terrain, and speed. Why? Because it can.

You can follow the old boy over here and he and his riders are raising money for Livestrong. You can donate here.

Here’s how they describe it:

To gather all of the data from the bike, we developed a device to capture temperature, humidity, grade, speed, cadence (pedal rotation), direction and GPS. The device takes several readings from each sensor, then sends the average values via text message using a cellular module. We utilized the Twitter API to receive and parse the text messages, which are then analyzed by our servers. In order to preserve battery life (we get 35+ hours on a single charge), the device wakes itself up every 5 minutes to check readings and submit data. The rider can also hit a button on the handlebars to trigger the device to report the data for that exact moment.

Generally, it’s a fun test of telemetrics and Internet broadcasting and looks like it’s for a good cause. They’re probably going to hit the West Coast in a month or two, so keep your eye on them.

Volkswagen just announced their latest gadget, the Bik.e – a folding electric bicycle designed to fit in the trunk of your car, in the space currently taken up by your spare tire. With a maximum range of 12.5 miles, I question whether it would be a good spare tire replacement, but I still like it. It is interesting to see a company like Volkswagen get into the electric bicycle concept though.

Of course, it’s not available yet, no one knows when it will be, or how much it will cost. We do know that the Bik.e will charge itself up from your car so you won’t have to worry about keeping it powered up. Regardless of how much it costs, it definitely looks cool. I’m not 100% behind the fact that you can’t pedal it though, that kind of limits the functionality.

[via Gizmodo]

Party people put your hands in the air because Taga wants you to know that their stroller/bike system is rockin’ the block.

The company has been flogging their transforming bike for about a year now but it looks like they’re finally shipping in the US for $1,495 (!!!). As Treehugger notes, the video shows a sporty mom in a town with wide paths and few cars suggesting this might be good in Bruges but not so nice in Flint. My wife actually just uses this seat which sticks to her bike and instead of schlepping the whole thing inside she just locks it up and goes shopping.

Also, remember folks: kids grow up. I don’t know that spending $1,400 on a stroller bike is a great investment when junior will probably explode out of it in about two years. However, the concept is cool and it would be nice to try if the price went down over the next few years.

This is the work of french designer Nicolas Belly, who created these as a (winning) entry is a design contest for the L’ ARGUS Design Competition. Nicolas won 2nd place with his design, but I doubt we’ll ever see these in production. Made from mostly plywood, Nicolas’ vehicles look cool, and would no doubt make a cool display piece in some loft somewhere. I doubt they would be comfortable to use though, and not very durable. Maybe if they were constructed from carbon fiber.

If you have a dynamo generator-equipped bike, $100, and a USB-powered gadget that needs charged, Dahon has a doodad called the BioLogic FreeCharge coming out in March that just might interest you. It basically grabs the power you generate while pedaling and outputs it via USB cable, allowing you to keep your phone juiced up along that 100-mile bike ride you’re always talking about doing someday.

The little weatherproof box attaches to your bike frame and provides enough power to recharge an iPhone in about three hours, so it might not be that advantageous to casual commuters. Long-haul bikers, though, may just add this to their equipment arsenal with little resistance.

[Bike Hugger via Wired]

There is absolute no way on this green earth that I would ride a bike with these LEDs on any street with the exception of maybe a deserted Montana road or in a sleepy Vermont town. Sure, the LED-powered wheels might bring a smile to some folks, but somehow I don’t think everyone is going to be smiling with you. The images come from a single LED device, dubbed the Joyrider, affixed to the spokes and controlled by microchips to correctly display the face, but the muggers aren’t going to care ’bout that when they are bashing your cheery face into the curb. 

Waldemeyer via dvice

Aimed at safety, the Speed-Vest displays how bad-ass you are on a two-wheel’d steed. The numbers are displayed via electro-luminescent wire controlled by an open-source embedded ‘puter. With a little stitching and soldering, everything is attached to the vest’s back panel. The makers claim the whole thing can run up to 6 hours on a single AA battery. Want your own, build it yourself Lance.

Forgive us. This post won’t highlight something made out of carbon fiber or have LED lights. No micro-processor or iPhone crap. Nope. Just a classic vintage-style beach cruiser. We don’t know the price, and we don’t care. Just look at the bike. Classy. Single speed. Semi-clunky. Gorgeous. Just steel, rubber, and leather make up the beach cruiser.

The James Perse Cruiser will be available in four colors, but in our opinion, matte black should be the only color. Perspective owners are suppose to vist their local James Perse boutique for more info.

Other colors after the break.

James Perse via Gearfuse via acquire

Perfect for paper boys or urban dwellers, this crafty porteur rack only looks like a 3-beer project. Really, all the rack consists of are metal shelf supports and some elbow grease. The shelve supports should provide ample support while not weighing down the front of the bike too much. Hopefully with this DIY solution, a few more bike messengers can save some coin as their jobs are quickly getting tech-sourced.

Know what’s great about owning a home? Nothing. Just ask me, I used to own one. In retrospect, I should have just bought a gigantic hole and a cheap shovel and set aside a weekend to scoop five years worth of my money in there.

Anyhoo, one of my least favorite things to do as a homeowner was mow the grass (a close second after shoveling). While this Mowercycle certainly would have eased the pain somewhat, it would have added another element to mowing the lawn; biking. And believe it or not, I don’t like riding bikes anymore. That stopped when I turned 16.

But hats off to you, inventor of the Mowercycle – whoever you are. You’ve given us all a little hope. Plus, this Mowercycle doesn’t look all that difficult to build. The front wheel of a bike doesn’t do much and those push mowers come apart at the base – you’d really just have to figure out how to connect the two together.

[via DVICE]

Naked man? Check. A bunch of crap on a table? Check. A rambling description of a project that seems a bit to complex to work? Check. Five minutes of your life that could have been more efficiently spent? Check. A fairly cool idea if it works? Check.

Last week Panasonic presented [JP] a new electric bicycle to be released on the Japanese market on August 20. The so-called Vivi RX 10-S will cost $1,400. Panasonic hasn’t said yet whether they will bring the bicycle to overseas markets as well.

The bike’s main feature is a braking system that can recharge a 10Ah Li-ion secondary battery, which weighs 2.5kg, has a rated voltage of 26 V and is located next to the rear wheel. Every time the owner brakes, a mini motor mounted on the front wheel generates power. According to Panasonic, charging the battery via this method alone proves to be almost impossible however. The recharging system fails when riding faster than 24km/h.

Panasonic says in internal experiments, the regenerative braking system extended the assisted travel range from 90km to 125km when riding in normal mode. Using the bike’s automatic mode, the maximum distance owners will be able to cover is 182km.

The so-called Vivi RX 10-S comes with an aluminum-made frame and weighs 25.7kg. The company says it aims at selling a total of 3,000 bicycles in the first year.

I’m going to go on record and say that this is fake. Sure, there’s a product page that appears to be selling it for $2500, Canadian, and sure, it’s got some customer reviews, but I refuse to believe it’s an actual product. It’s too dumb. Plus, watch the above video. Why can’t anyone finish a sentence without smirking and/or laughing?

Anyway have fun with your bike-mills, people. Customer Jim Cho said it best when he called the Treadmill Bike [Deluxe] the…

“Best bike ever made. You can do all sorts of stunts like run backward or even run sideways (experts only). The girls flock to you when you do a spin move. It’s like the Razor scooter on steriods!!! If you have a friend that is a fast runner too, you can do tandem run biking!!!!”

Hell yeah, Jim. Hell yeah. PS: I want a treadmill bike after all.

via Geekologie

It’s called the “Magic Wheel” and it appears to basically be a bike wheel with a smaller rotating caster wheel attached to it. The top of the bike wheel features a seat of some type that looks like it wedges right into your ass. Now that’s magic.

The thing itself costs around $250, plus almost $325 shipping from Singapore. What?! I take back what I said about seeing these things all over the place. That’s insane. Hit the jump for a video.

Well, folks, they caught him. Our own Peter Ha, aka Robert Stewart, was caught red-handed trying to have sex with a bicycle in Ayr, UK.

Gail Davidson, prosecuting, told Ayr Sheriff Court: “They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply.

“They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white t-shirt, naked from the waist down.

“The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex.”

Let this be a warning to other cycle-sexualists: always yell “Occupied” when in a hostel in Ayr and while having sex with your Huffy. Peter Ha forgot this important bit of information and now look at him: three years on probation and is prohibited from sniffing or rubbing bike seats for six months.

Bike sex man placed on probation [BBC]

The University of Portsmouth has just unveiled a $13,000 system to help protect your crappy bike. Obviously, a bike is hard enough to replace to warrant such an extravagant security measure. The system requires a special bike rack and a motion sensor on the vehicle itself. It is then engaged via a text message to the security office. Once motion is detected the system sets off a silent alarm and directs campus CCTV cameras towards the site of the crime. Security cameras never have anything interesting to capture anyway.

Of course, $15 snake lock is out of the question when it comes to bike security. Hopefully the system will migrate to things that actually need some sort of protection. You know. Like cars?

High-tech bike lock turns cameras on thieves [24dash.com]

If you’ve got that much cash lying around and want to give a little (or a lot, as it were) to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, you can try to win these puppies on eBay by looking up item #160135266040 next Thursday.

Here’s the full press release:

Oakley’s one of a kind solid 18K gold M Frame with certificate of authenticity signed by Lance Armstrong will be auctioned off July 19th-29th, coinciding with the final ten days of the 2007 Tour de France.

Hand crafted in jewelery quality 18K solid gold by prestigious jeweler Michael Dickey, this rendering features gold iridium tint lenses signed by Lance Armstrong and is one of only two in existence. The unique sculpture replicates the frame design worn by Armstrong in seven Tour de France championship victories.

As the group makes their final sprint down the Champs-Elysees on Sunday, July 29th, the auction will close at 17:26 CEST (5:26pm Paris time).

All proceeds will go directly to the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

“For nearly 20 years, Oakley has been there for me, on and off the bike,” says Armstrong. “Now, together with the company’s support and those who appreciate the performance of its eyewear technologies, we can help make a difference to millions of those who are living with cancer.”

Lance Armstrong M Frame

Now that you’re well into your 30s and feeling like an old fart, it’s time to reinvigorate yourself with something new. If you enjoyed rollerblading, cycling, or straight up tom foolery as a teenager, I’m sure you’ll enjoy Trikke. It’s a device with three wheels that works by leaning side-to-side and driving in an “S-style” motion. Like rollerblading on a three-wheeled scooter I’d imagine.

Aside from being able to cruise around at about 8 MPH, you also get a hell of a good workout. All that twisting and steering requires about 350 calories per half hour of use. Not to mention that it works out over 20 to 30 muscles in your body as well. Take some No-Xplode and you’ll be looking like Stallone in no time. A few different models are available and range in price from $370 up to $500.

Trikke [Cool Tools]

Note: John really looks like this