The Works

Start-Up Wins Funding to Electrify Your Bicycle

The Copenhagen Wheel will turn (most) bikes into e-bikes. Just don’t let the police catch you!

Credit: Superpedestrian

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Electric bicycles, otherwise known as e-bikes, straddle the line between motorcycle and bicycle, offering a lightweight frame with more motive power than your own two legs can provide, but not as much as a Harley. Their use, however, has been mostly limited to delivery men — at least in the U.S. — perhaps due to their somewhat bulky design and higher maintenance standards.

A Boston-based start-up wants to change that and bring e-bikes to the masses. The perplexingly named company “Superpedestrian” announced on Monday that it has received a $2.1 million round of funding to put the “e” in a bike near you, the New York Times reports.

Unlike most e-bikes, which are built from scratch, the Copenhagen Wheel — as the design is called, because progressive bike-related stuff always seems to allude to Copenhagen — will fit onto (most) existing bicycles. And since the idea came out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology SENSEable City Laboratory, there’s of course more techiness to it than just the electrical assist:

From the Copenhagen Wheel website:

Controlled through your smart phone, the Copenhagen Wheel becomes a natural extension of your everyday life. You can use your phone to unlock and lock your bike, change gears and select how much the motor assists you. As you cycle, the wheel’s sensing unit is also capturing your effort level and information about your surroundings, including road conditions, carbon monoxide, NOx, noise, ambient temperature and relative humidity. Access this data through your phone or the web and use it to plan healthier bike routes, to achieve your exercise goals or to meet up with friends on the go. You can also share your data with friends, or with your city — anonymously if you wish — thereby contributing to a fine-grained database of environmental information from which we can all benefit.

(Indeed, Copenhagen Wheel creators, if I do share my “effort level,” it will be anonymously.)

If you think you can just hop on an Copenhagen Wheel-itized bike, though, think again. E-bikes were banned in New York state 10 years ago, and Massachusetts law requires users to have a valid driver’s license and to wear protective gear. Then again, the red design is so unobtrusive that you probably won’t get caught anyway. So pedal (or, well, don’t) away.

The Works is made possible with the support of the Surdna Foundation.

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Stephen J. Smith is a reporter based in New York. He has written about transportation, infrastructure and real estate for a variety of publications including New York Yimby, where he is currently an editor, Next City, City Lab and the New York Observer.

Tags: infrastructurepublic transportationbostonbikingthe works

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