Do you know the phrase ‘reinvent the wheel’? It means to try to improve something that is perfect and needs no improvement. Take the bicycle for example.
When I was a kid bikes were a simple thing – two wheels, a frame, a saddle and a steering wheel. Of course they also had brakes and sometimes even a little front light powered by dynamo. That was high-tech.
I still remember my second bike with nostalgia. My beloved uncle gave them to me for my thirteenth birthday. It was a racing bike- it had 12 gears! I was the fastest kid in the village.
Modern bikes are by far more sufisticated.
Today’s bikes are made of advanced materials, their frames are designed using CAD software, their shock absorbers come from automotive technology (and I don’t mean air in the tyres), they are designed to be aerodynamic and who knows what else.
Here is one design which is quite revolotionaty:
However, they are all still the same in essence; because they have not changed the simple wheel.
Until now.
Here are to attpempts at reinventing the wheel. Which one do you think is a more viable ‘reinvention’?
I personally find the triangular wheels beautiful, but none-sense.
What other elements of the bicycle would you reinvent? How?
