Bicycles are great solutions to get you where you need to go, with the benefits of being environmentally friendly and faster than walking. However, there’s one major drawback – pedaling a bicycle can be hard work, especially for long distances or routes with lots of hills (basically anywhere in western Pennsylvania!). So that’s where the Copenhagen Wheel comes in.
The Copenhagen Wheel was developed by a team of robotics engineers and designers from MIT specifically for Copenhagen, Denmark – a city known for its bicycle culture. This innovative team wanted to take some of the work out of bicycling by turning a regular bike into a smart electric hybrid. Many of the team members have had previous experience with popular startup tech companies. Add this experience to a visionary marketing team and some venture capital investors, and you get the startup Superpedestrian.
The Copenhagen Wheel works by replacing the back wheel of your bike with the Copenhagen Wheel, which is then connected to an app on your smartphone. A small servo motor and control system is hidden in the wheel’s sleek red casing. This system captures your energy as you brake or go down the hill and then lets you use this energy pedal with 3-10 times the normal power of a bike! This allows you to go up hills easier and go further, faster. Even cooler is the fact that the Copenhagen Wheel learns how you pedal and can keep track of your fitness, while riding just like a normal bike. If you don’t believe me, check out this video to learn more about the Copenhagen Wheel.
Clearly the old wheel has met its match! Superpedestrian is busy getting the Copenhagen Wheel ready for market and it should be widely available within the next year.
This is a great find! I have never heard of a product such as this. It reminds me of the classic moped bicycles that were part human powered and part gas or electric. This product could be a great hit in cities and other parts of the world as consumers seek to save money where they can. Great post!
What a great spin on an old product. I believe this product could become very successful in the coming years especially with more and more people choosing to “go green” and try to live healthier lifestyles.
Through personal experience I think there could also be a market for older people too. I know my grandparents love to bike ride. As they get older and still want to partake in biking I think this would be a great solution to make biking easier on them while still enjoying all of the benefits of it.
This reinvents the way that people have been using a classic product! The bike is used as a mode of transportation on college campuses, small towns, and other countries. This will impact and change the way a lot of people look at the use of bikes as everyday transportation!
This innovation is a really good example of using a sleepy market to get a product. They do a great job of taking energy that is already there through the breaks going downhill, and turning that into easier peddling for later.