Thinking of getting rid of those boring old rubber wheels on your ride? You bet. And what better way to do it than pinning strips of sheet steel together, for an ever so subtle springy wheel effect. Ron Arad is a product designer and architect with just the approach to make that happen and the results of his first go at it are quite impressive.
The Ron Arad W Bike
The bike design by Ron Arad was part of a collaborative fundraising event put on by W Hotels and the Elton John AIDS foundation. Ron and five others designers took on the transformation of the ‘Boris Bike’ used throughout London bicycle share program, with the result to be used by guest of the hotel and finally auctioned off.
“The wheel uses 18 individual strips of steel that are pinned at various tension points to act together as one single unit. “We’ve actually done very little with the material,” Hearst tells Co.Design. “When you bend that steel, the way you pin it, you create natural curves. It’s almost like a flower.” The adjacent “spokes” create an additional shape that your eye naturally wants to fill in.” – Fast.Co
Images via FastCo Design
