It’s about time for a new bike design, and a group of students from Purdue University have done just that. They call it SHIFT, and it will be featured in an upcoming issue of TIME magazine.
Scott Shim, Ryan Lightbody and Matt Grossman worked together on putting the design together for a competition, the 9th International Bicycle Design Competition in Taiwan.
The premise of the design is that the bike is for toddlers that are just teaching themselves to ride their bikes. Normal bikes with training wheels just keep the bike from tipping over, they don’t really provide much feedback in increasing your riding ability.
The SHIFT has two wheels in the back that shift together as the bike’s speed and momentum increases. As anyone that has ridden a bike knows, once you’re going it’s much easier to maintain balance on just two wheels. As my son will confirm, starting and stopping by himself are still the challenges. This bike design should alleviate that problem.
Super cool idea in my opinion and I love the aesthetics of the design as well.
Purdue Bicycle Design Named a Top Invention of 2005