Dude, check it out! Onlookers stare slack-jawed at the awesomeness of YikeBike. Photo YikeBike
You may remember the YikeBike, the little electric Penny-Farthing that looks like it should be carrying Tom from Tom & Jerry. And if you saw the fun, foldable commuter machine being ?skillfully? ?maneuvered? around the Wired.com car park Gadget Lab editor Dylan Tweney, it is likely burned into your brain forever.
The Yike bike is fun. It is also expensive, at $3,800. Around $1,800 of this is thanks to the carbon fiber body, which is the main reason the bike weighs just 10.8kg, or 24 pounds, or the same weight as a medium-specced Brompton folding bike.
Thankfully, Yike has come up with the Fusion, a bike identical to the Yike except for the aluminum and composite used to build its body, and its price tag of $2,000. It still has the same 450-watt motor that will take you for six miles at 14mph, the same built-in LED lights and the same anti-skid regenerative brakes. The only real tradeoff is the added weight. The Fusion weighs 14kg, or 31 pounds, or around seven pounds extra.
Given the use-case for the Yike, which is for short point-to-point journeys (commuting), this probably isn?t a big deal. And you could always keep one in the trunk of the car, fully charged and ready for the day you finally flip and go on a gun-toting rampage. Think Michael Douglas in Falling Down ? only on a nerdy little clown-bike ? and you?re there.
The Yike Fusion is available now.
YikeBikes product page [YikeBike]
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Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/05/yikebike-mini-farthing-gets-cheaper-heavier-brother/
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