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Permalink Reply by Skip Montanaro 0mi on November 11, 2013 at 9:08am

I saw an electric wheelchair a few days ago on my way to work that looked like it had hub motors like these. Same/similar technology?

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Permalink Reply by Jay Sebastian on November 11, 2013 at 11:31am

There's something that just feels fishy about this.  Good looking Slovenian guy with a few bike buzzwords and almost $400K and a video that doesn't really show the product working.  Call me skeptical. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flykly/flykly-smart-wheel

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Permalink Reply by prof.gfr on November 12, 2013 at 8:03am

While it's cool that it seems easy to retrofit a bike, it only retrofits a fixed gear or singlespeed. That is my biggest skepticism -- that something this simple, without gears (it can ONLY accommodate a single speed chain) could actually climb a decent hill with any kind of load.  

My second biggest skepticism is that it is tied to a smartphone app, which irks me because then it is reliant on someone maintaining that app over the long haul of this device's life. What happens when iOS 8 or 9 comes out and the guys in charge don't update the app because they've moved onto the next silly bike improvement on kickstarter?

Simple, old school, mechanical bikes have the advantage of relatively little built-in obsolescence.  It doesn't take a lot to learn bike maintenance and a well-maintained bike can last decades.  This is not the solution to increasing bike ridership in the city (as the designers claim).  It's yet another expensive device to go in the landfill by 2016 (and it's got e-waste inside so it is much harder to recycle than an old steel bike).    

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Mulcky on November 12, 2013 at 8:32am

Electric motors have gobs of tourque. No need for a transmission or gears with a limited top speed like that. I suppose you could add a Schlumpf crankset if you wanted a a few gear choices. 

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Permalink Reply by BruceBikes on December 3, 2013 at 8:20am

Looks like there's some news on the smart wheel scene:

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2013/12/03/superpedestrian-starts-sel...

It seems MIT and the Superpedestrian company hold the patents to an electric wheel kit very similar to the FlyKly design.  I wonder if the $700k FlyKly raised will be for naught,... or maybe for legal fees.

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Permalink Reply by Tricolor on December 3, 2013 at 9:54am

This is the first time I've heard anything remotely negative about Slovenes.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin C Dormant on December 3, 2013 at 10:08am

No possibility of confusion in the marketplace. None whatsoever. Nope...

That visit to MIT six months prior to launching our kickstarter campaign? Pure coincidence. These are completely different products and completely different designs. You see, ours is "lumpier."

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