The "folding bike", or as I lilke to call it, the "dematerialized bike" problem, is more serious than most people think. For instance, the bike that we still see around should appear, if one pays attention to the average contemporary product in every field, as strange as a 1940's car. That strange metallic contraptions with 28" wheels, produced in no-brand shops who knows where. Does anybody realize that, given our ultra-sophisticated knowledge of the material sciences, the strange news is NOT having a super-hightech, nine-pound supersleek "i-Bike"?
Instead unfortunately, as a product designer I often have to play down the fact that I am investigating the subject, testing my own set of technical assumptions. Because dealing with this theme exposes you to funny looks. Oddily I get more respect -and some winks- for having been able to line up in the project the EU and a German-American multinational, but always with a tinge of "wow, you must have friends in high places to get money for that project" (http://www.ticona.com/index/news/newslette...htweightbicycle.htm).
The theme is very serious because it involves the evolution of a known product towards its integration with a larger system (the urban-suburban transport net). It involves the empowerment of the individual for a "micro-mobility" that could help solve many "macro" problems. It involves adding a "product approach" layer to other "infrastructural" and "policy" approaches to the urban mobility. And also because it poses the many conflicting problems of miniaturization, ergonomics, economics, robotics, aestethics, all of which must be addressed, none excluded. I believe that my research has provided a robust "platform" (in the sense used in the car industry) of technologies out of which a real product could be realized. But I still wonder why this field should still be the territory of "mad inventors", craftsmen and small industries with no synergic, integrated view of the scope of a research field like this one.
Ciao folks....