My question. Would you even ride a folding bicycle? And if so, bike shorts or totally gangsta? There seems to be an awful lot of folding bicycle designs. But I’ve yet to see someone actually riding one or carrying one. Not in the city. Not in the park. Not anywhere. Still, they’re an intersting experiment in engineering and design. The Donut Folding Bicycle from Mechanical Engineer Arvind Gad takes a different, almost obviously more applicable, approach to cramming gears, pedals and handlebars into a compact carrier.

Donut Folding Bicycle

“The wheels on bike go round and round…” It’s because they’re circular. So, why not make the frame circular and stuff everything into it? It’s a great idea.

This Bicycle Folds into a circular Frame with no parts of the bike protruding outside the Casing. The load of person is taken by the Alluminium alloy circular frame. This bike can be easily carried, stowed and stored. Handle is provided at the top to carry the bike.

Personally, I’d prefer to look geek-core on Segway or uni-bike before zipping down the sidewalk on a fold-up bike. This is a well thought out design though. Two options I would add are larger wheels and a handlebar that extends out to accept different lengths of people. The scale makes it look like you would be riding in like a kid’s trike, so a larger diameter overall wouldn’t hurt. Could use a little co-creation support. What would you change/improve?

Cool features

  • Circular aluminum alloy welded frame (which takes the load of the rider)
  • The front and rear forks are pivoted to the circular frame
  • Front and rear disc brakes
  • Tubular pedals slide as well as rotate inside the crank bar bearing.
  • Combination of chain and gear drives ensures that the rear wheel rotates in right direction and is easy to fold.
  • A handle is provided at the top for ease of carrying.
  • A circular plastic enclosure (white) is mounted over the circular frame, which encloses the saddle, handle and pedals after folding.
  • From the handlebars to the pedals, all is safely tucked away along making it easy to tote around.

Author

Josh is founder and editor at SolidSmack.com, founder at Aimsift Inc., and co-founder of EvD Media. He is involved in engineering, design, visualization, the technology making it happen, and the content developed around it. He is a SolidWorks Certified Professional and excels at falling awkwardly.