Bike Grouch Alert: So it’s come to this.
That there is Lucid Design‘s “Kit Bike," which, like an IKEA shelving unit, can be assembled and disassembled into 21 parts for ease of transport. I didn’t mind Paolo de Giusti’s asymmetrical concept bike and I can appreciate the over-the-top hipster chic of Van Hulsteijns, but this is exactly the kind of thing that the general public will eat up with nary a thought about whether it would actually work. After all, it turned up in a couple of reputable design blogs, one of which notes that:
The bike frame is made from hollow aluminum tubes that twist together and can be secured with a key. Since the frame attaches only on one side of the wheels, the bike can be assembled and disassembled while it leans against a wall. When it’s not in use, the parts and wheels can each be stowed in sections in a custom-designed bag.
Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, that’s because it is.
Don’t get me wrong—I personally would love to have a bicycle that I could snap together like a tent (a well-designed one, of course), but then again, I don’t know if I would trust the contraption to hold up on the road. I’m no engineer, but the very thought of applying torque to that rear wheel—note that the hub is connected only at a single, non-driveside dropout—makes me feel like I’m breaking something. Meanwhile, if the grossly oversimplified componentry and lack of brakes can be written off, the fact that the drivetrain is on the wrong side suggests that the Bangalore, India-based firm lacks a basic understanding of a bicycle in itself.
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