Cover Story: Issue 104

The Penny Drops

Will this buzzy bike, one of TIME Magazine’s 50 Best inven­tions of 2009, become a Kiwi icon? Words Michael Smythe. From ProDesign issue 104, with addi­tional images.

The Yike Bike.

It’s unlikely that a focus group ever said, “Bring back the penny farth­ing!” But it’s that flash of recog­ni­tion that puts instant smiles on turned heads when a Yike Bike whizzes past. Post-modern ref­er­en­cing of Christchurch’s bicyc­ling her­it­age was not in serial inventor and entre­pren­eur­ial engin­eer Grant Ryan’s mind when he con­ceived his new baby. He simply observed Dean Kamen’s inven­tion, the Seg­way, launched late in 2001, and con­sidered how much bet­ter it would be if it took up less space and could be car­ried onto pub­lic trans­port and into build­ings. There had to be a bet­ter (Seg)way!

Ryan was born in Otautau, where a machine in the fam­ily gar­age stamped out lamb cov­ers in rolls of plastic film – his dad, Jim Ryan, expor­ted his inven­tions all over the world. With that role model it’s unsur­pris­ing that Ryan stated ‘inventor’ as his career choice in the South­land Boys’ High School year­book. Degrees in mech­an­ical engin­eer­ing, a PhD in eco­lo­gical eco­nom­ics and a ‘real job’ with Indus­trial Research fol­lowed. Becom­ing obsessed with a search engine idea led to Ryan cre­at­ing Glob­al­Brain in 1998 and run­ning the busi­ness until April 2000 when it was sold, at the height of the dot.com boom, to NBCi. When the dot.com bust came he and oth­ers bought it back and estab­lished SLI (Searches, Learns and Improves) Sys­tems, with Ryan’s brother Shaun at the helm. It is now New Zealand’s most suc­cess­ful SaaS (Soft­ware as a Ser­vice) exporter.

Yike Bike expanded.

Yike Bike compressed.

Les­sons learned through this first start-up ven­ture, and the cash-flow it gen­er­ated, equipped Ryan to respond cre­at­ively to the Segway’s lim­it­a­tions. Going back to first prin­ciples he con­sidered the simplest pos­sible means of for­ward motion – the uni­cycle – and then added the min­imum required to cre­ate an easy ride at a max­imum speed of 20 km/h (the legal limit before regis­tra­tion is required in some coun­tries where such vehicles are allowed). Adding the small wheel for sta­bil­ity cre­ated the ‘Mini Farth­ing’ break­through that com­bines com­fort, effi­ciency and fold­ab­il­ity. Car­bon fibre com­pon­ents cre­ate strength while keep­ing the weight below 10kg.

Util­ising a small elec­tric motor and some smart elec­tron­ics in place of chains, gear­boxes, brakes, brake cables, levers and ped­als dra­mat­ic­ally sim­pli­fied the product. To those who say he has lost the plot by build­ing an exertion-free bike, Grant argues that align­ing per­sonal trans­port­a­tion devices with lycra, sweat and showers is as logical as using phys­ical exer­cise to drive domestic appli­ances and office equip­ment. If some form of pedal-power is added it will simply be a means of rechar­ging the battery.

Grant and mech­an­ical engin­eer Pete Hig­gins set up Pro­ject Gar­lic (more spicy than the Seg­way code­name: Pro­ject Ginger) and hired Caleb Smith fresh out of uni­ver­sity. Fea­tures enabled by the latest nano-lithium-phosphate bat­tery tech­no­logy – built-in lights and indic­at­ors, elec­tronic anti-skid brakes (a world-first for bikes), great accel­er­a­tion and some noise – make it much safer than a nor­mal bicycle. Every aspect of the design is strongly groun­ded in engin­eer­ing func­tion. Indus­trial design firms were con­sul­ted for some com­pon­ents with Form­works’ con­tri­bu­tion par­tic­u­larly appre­ci­ated. The clas­sic form-follows-function approach has delivered a design of delight. The Yike Bike was offi­cially launched at the Friedrich­shafen EuroBike trade show in August 2009 where at least one vis­itor enthused, “This has to go to the MoMA – it’s just so beautiful!”

Its emo­tional attrac­tion is enhanced by the exper­i­ence of nimbly nego­ti­at­ing city traffic and spend­ing no time find­ing a car park. Yike Bike has embraced Tesla Motors’ pri­cing strategy – cre­ate a really desir­able innov­a­tion and early adop­ters will accept the value. When demand jus­ti­fies high volume pro­duc­tion, with injec­tion mould­ings repla­cing the car­bon fibre com­pon­ents, the price will come down but the weight will increase. Mean­while, it is enter­ing the mar­ket as a Porsche rather than a Toyota.

But those eager to pay between €3,500 and €3,900 (NZ$7,000 – 7,800) may need to cam­paign for stand­ards and reg­u­la­tions to wake up to the elec­tronic age. In most coun­tries, New Zea­l­and included, the rules define solu­tions rather than out­comes – spe­cify­ing a 250 watt limit on elec­tric bike motors makes little sense com­pared to the safer Yike Bike solu­tion of gov­ern­ing its speed while retain­ing the capa­city to power up hills and accel­er­ate out of tight spots.

Unlike most invent­ors Grant Ryan enjoys the chal­lenges of com­mer­cial­isa­tion which he sees as another design pro­ject. Gov­ern­ment fund­ing helped and Pion­eer Cap­ital and Stephen Tindall’s K1W1 provided ven­ture cap­ital from early 2009. The first 100 Yike Bikes will be road-ready by mid-2010 and ini­tial mar­ket­ing will focus on European cites where it is street legal. With TIME Magazine pla­cing the Yike Bike at num­ber 15 on its ‘50 Best inven­tions of 2009’ list (Honda’s U3-X elec­tronic uni­cycle, with a top speed of 6 km/h, was num­ber 27) Yike Bikers could soon be cre­at­ing a global buzz.

Handle bar detail.

From product launch in Ger­many 2009.

Yike Bike tour of Europe — Septem­ber 2009

Yike Bike tour of Europe.

Yike Bike in Europe. Action shot.

Yike Bike, European tour – Septem­ber 2009.

Share/Save