PFB - Portable Folding Bicycle
A personal project exploring the possibility to design a bicycle which could be folded as small as possible.
Bicycle is a kind of transportation which most of us need to use in our daily life. It takes less space than vehicle and is freer to move and park. However, even though bicycle is really convenient to use especially when the destination is not very faraway from the user, there’s still a problem that the user needs to worry about paying effort to take it with him/her when the situation doesn’t allow him/her to ride it.
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What’s more, since bicycle is much weaker than vehicle, it could be stolen or broken easier, so there is a need for users to take care of their bikes at any time any where. The best way to solve this problem is to design a really portable folding bicycle to make it small and light enough to be brought freely.
In the market, most of folding bicycles are designed with foldable frame, seat, handle and pedal. However, few of existing products focus on folding wheels.
I did some research about airless tires. And finally, I came up with the idea that, I am going to design a portable bike, and my main challenge is: How to fold the wheel？
Sketches & Mock-ups
The mock-up model was built with metal. The folding structure combined with quick release button, allowing users to simply push the button then fold the spokes. The more the spokes are, the smaller the wheel will be (after being folded).
