It doesn’t take much to understand just how innovative and usefully this one-off bike could be for so many people. It was created by a 24-year old who wanted a bike that could pack up into a small package but could find one to buy. So he made the Contortionist and it might net him £10,000 in the James Dyson Award for Innovation.

There is absolute no way on this green earth that I would ride a bike with these LEDs on any street with the exception of maybe a deserted Montana road or in a sleepy Vermont town. Sure, the LED-powered wheels might bring a smile to some folks, but somehow I don’t think everyone is going to be smiling with you. The images come from a single LED device, dubbed the Joyrider, affixed to the spokes and controlled by microchips to correctly display the face, but the muggers aren’t going to care ’bout that when they are bashing your cheery face into the curb. 

Waldemeyer via dvice

Aimed at safety, the Speed-Vest displays how bad-ass you are on a two-wheel’d steed. The numbers are displayed via electro-luminescent wire controlled by an open-source embedded ‘puter. With a little stitching and soldering, everything is attached to the vest’s back panel. The makers claim the whole thing can run up to 6 hours on a single AA battery. Want your own, build it yourself Lance.

Forgive us. This post won’t highlight something made out of carbon fiber or have LED lights. No micro-processor or iPhone crap. Nope. Just a classic vintage-style beach cruiser. We don’t know the price, and we don’t care. Just look at the bike. Classy. Single speed. Semi-clunky. Gorgeous. Just steel, rubber, and leather make up the beach cruiser.

The James Perse Cruiser will be available in four colors, but in our opinion, matte black should be the only color. Perspective owners are suppose to vist their local James Perse boutique for more info.

Other colors after the break.

James Perse via Gearfuse via acquire

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Perfect for paper boys or urban dwellers, this crafty porteur rack only looks like a 3-beer project. Really, all the rack consists of are metal shelf supports and some elbow grease. The shelve supports should provide ample support while not weighing down the front of the bike too much. Hopefully with this DIY solution, a few more bike messengers can save some coin as their jobs are quickly getting tech-sourced.

Know what’s great about owning a home? Nothing. Just ask me, I used to own one. In retrospect, I should have just bought a gigantic hole and a cheap shovel and set aside a weekend to scoop five years worth of my money in there.

Anyhoo, one of my least favorite things to do as a homeowner was mow the grass (a close second after shoveling). While this Mowercycle certainly would have eased the pain somewhat, it would have added another element to mowing the lawn; biking. And believe it or not, I don’t like riding bikes anymore. That stopped when I turned 16.

But hats off to you, inventor of the Mowercycle – whoever you are. You’ve given us all a little hope. Plus, this Mowercycle doesn’t look all that difficult to build. The front wheel of a bike doesn’t do much and those push mowers come apart at the base – you’d really just have to figure out how to connect the two together.

[via DVICE]

Naked man? Check. A bunch of crap on a table? Check. A rambling description of a project that seems a bit to complex to work? Check. Five minutes of your life that could have been more efficiently spent? Check. A fairly cool idea if it works? Check.

Last week Panasonic presented [JP] a new electric bicycle to be released on the Japanese market on August 20. The so-called Vivi RX 10-S will cost $1,400. Panasonic hasn’t said yet whether they will bring the bicycle to overseas markets as well.

The bike’s main feature is a braking system that can recharge a 10Ah Li-ion secondary battery, which weighs 2.5kg, has a rated voltage of 26 V and is located next to the rear wheel. Every time the owner brakes, a mini motor mounted on the front wheel generates power. According to Panasonic, charging the battery via this method alone proves to be almost impossible however. The recharging system fails when riding faster than 24km/h.

Panasonic says in internal experiments, the regenerative braking system extended the assisted travel range from 90km to 125km when riding in normal mode. Using the bike’s automatic mode, the maximum distance owners will be able to cover is 182km.

The so-called Vivi RX 10-S comes with an aluminum-made frame and weighs 25.7kg. The company says it aims at selling a total of 3,000 bicycles in the first year.

I’m going to go on record and say that this is fake. Sure, there’s a product page that appears to be selling it for $2500, Canadian, and sure, it’s got some customer reviews, but I refuse to believe it’s an actual product. It’s too dumb. Plus, watch the above video. Why can’t anyone finish a sentence without smirking and/or laughing?

Anyway have fun with your bike-mills, people. Customer Jim Cho said it best when he called the Treadmill Bike [Deluxe] the…

“Best bike ever made. You can do all sorts of stunts like run backward or even run sideways (experts only). The girls flock to you when you do a spin move. It’s like the Razor scooter on steriods!!! If you have a friend that is a fast runner too, you can do tandem run biking!!!!”

Hell yeah, Jim. Hell yeah. PS: I want a treadmill bike after all.

via Geekologie

I…don’t get it. That doesn’t matter, though, because I bet we’ll start seeing these things all over the place.

It’s called the “Magic Wheel” and it appears to basically be a bike wheel with a smaller rotating caster wheel attached to it. The top of the bike wheel features a seat of some type that looks like it wedges right into your ass. Now that’s magic.

The thing itself costs around $250, plus almost $325 shipping from Singapore. What?! I take back what I said about seeing these things all over the place. That’s insane. Hit the jump for a video.

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Well, folks, they caught him. Our own Peter Ha, aka Robert Stewart, was caught red-handed trying to have sex with a bicycle in Ayr, UK.

Gail Davidson, prosecuting, told Ayr Sheriff Court: “They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply.

“They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white t-shirt, naked from the waist down.

“The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex.”

Let this be a warning to other cycle-sexualists: always yell “Occupied” when in a hostel in Ayr and while having sex with your Huffy. Peter Ha forgot this important bit of information and now look at him: three years on probation and is prohibited from sniffing or rubbing bike seats for six months.

Bike sex man placed on probation [BBC]

The University of Portsmouth has just unveiled a $13,000 system to help protect your crappy bike. Obviously, a bike is hard enough to replace to warrant such an extravagant security measure. The system requires a special bike rack and a motion sensor on the vehicle itself. It is then engaged via a text message to the security office. Once motion is detected the system sets off a silent alarm and directs campus CCTV cameras towards the site of the crime. Security cameras never have anything interesting to capture anyway.

Of course, $15 snake lock is out of the question when it comes to bike security. Hopefully the system will migrate to things that actually need some sort of protection. You know. Like cars?

High-tech bike lock turns cameras on thieves [24dash.com]

Oakley will be auctioning of a pair off solid-gold shades signed by Lance Armstrong. Bidding will begin at $9,999.99 on July 19 and run for 10 days.

If you’ve got that much cash lying around and want to give a little (or a lot, as it were) to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, you can try to win these puppies on eBay by looking up item #160135266040 next Thursday.

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Now that you’re well into your 30s and feeling like an old fart, it’s time to reinvigorate yourself with something new. If you enjoyed rollerblading, cycling, or straight up tom foolery as a teenager, I’m sure you’ll enjoy Trikke. It’s a device with three wheels that works by leaning side-to-side and driving in an “S-style” motion. Like rollerblading on a three-wheeled scooter I’d imagine.

Aside from being able to cruise around at about 8 MPH, you also get a hell of a good workout. All that twisting and steering requires about 350 calories per half hour of use. Not to mention that it works out over 20 to 30 muscles in your body as well. Take some No-Xplode and you’ll be looking like Stallone in no time. A few different models are available and range in price from $370 up to $500.

Trikke [Cool Tools]

Note: John really looks like this

Treadmill Bike [via Gizmodo]