not much to tell beyond the picture. Some of them are hand cranked, others include e-motors with throttle either because there’s legal modes for it or maybe you’re at a bikepark where usual public regs against that don’t apply.
Mostly niche-builds, so custom things adapted to specific customers or small scale lines
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I wonder what it’s like catching air in these things.
There’s a channel about building various iterations of these adaptive e-trikes: https://www.youtube.com/@bdcainathotmail
Loads of cool concepts like mounting a solar panel roof, full independent suspension and most of the construction is just simple tubes and stems much like an “erector set”.
Technically speaking, these aren’t bikes. They’re trikes.
These look like a blast
Accessible bikes are so neat. I’ve been obsessed with the Hase Pino recently. It’s a semi-recumbent tandem bike. They’re pretty expensive though.
This is one of those when it tries to be everything at once and that usually ends up being bad at everything instead. Would be a fun DIY project tho so you can give drunk people a lift on. And for $6k you could get a good bike and a welding machine or hard solder stuff and just build stuff like that.
Aside from price, I’m not sure it’s worse than a traditional tandem (assuming you’re comparing it to a cheap used tandem, not a new Co-Motion tandem which is about the same price). You can ride it as a single rider and use it as a cargo bike without having it look like you got a traditional tandem bike in the divorce. The stoker being in the front and recumbent means they can look at a map or read a book aloud while pedaling. It seems like an overall better design than the traditional recumbent if only for the fact that one person doesn’t have ass in their face. Theres a mechanism on this bike that’s makes it so the front cranks are adjustable depending on the stoker’s leg length, which might be difficult to figure out on my own with a welder since chain tension seems like a major issue to solve.
I do agree it’s overly expensive. Kinda par for the course though since both tandems and cargo bikes are expensive. The electric version of this bike is over $10k
Tandems are a novelty object to begin with and I don’t see the point of making it more complex, wobbly and expensive to “solve” a problem that’s avoided by just getting a ordinary bike. Getting this strange contraption just to cover a very specific use-case where you need another adult to read you a paper map (or a book for some reason) is just silly.
Also, imagine crashing in that thing carrying 2x the weight and jamming a couple of cog/peddles into your spine because some fucker was getting tangled in a comically large paper map.
Cumbersome-bike.
Well, it’s primarily an accessibility bike so a person who couldn’t otherwise ride a bike can ride a bike with assistance. They offer seat belts, calf support pedals, and everything. Just because I see it as a fun ride for bike touring with my wife (not that I’ll ever have enough money to ever consider buying it) doesn’t mean the design as an accessibility bike isn’t a good design. Traditional tandems require a lot more coordination for the stoker to use. Also, traditional tandems (even really nice ones) tend to break in half because of their length and weight when under strain, which is usually the worst possible time for them to break from a safety standpoint.
Tandems for tours make a lot of sense and there were quite a few couples on tandems when I rode across the US a decade ago. Easy communication, better efficiency with wind resistance and rolling resistance compared with two bikes, and being more novel means cars wave and smile rather than run you off the road or roll coal. The only differences with this bike from that is that the wheelbase is shorter, meaning less flex so hopefully it wouldn’t snap in half, even easier communication since one person isn’t talking into someone’s lower back, and one rider has free hands.
Maybe you should go do some bicycle touring just so you can understand how much reading improves it.
it’s primarily an accessibility bike so a person who couldn’t otherwise ride a bike can ride a bike with assistance.
That’s true. A bit insensitive of me when I read it now.
Narcolepsy and stuff is straight up dangerous if you’re on your own, especially in traffic, assuming you can manage a bike on your own.
