electric bikes

We've told you about bike-sharing programs before, but the Hybrid2 design by Chiyu Chen takes the idea one step further, by using the bikes to put power back in the system. The idea is to put "ultracapacitors" into the bikes that will harness and store the kinetic energy generated by pedaling and braking. Once you return the bike to its rental kiosk, the energy stored in the bike will be transferred to the city's smart grid, and used to help power hybrid buses.

Bike sharing is an urban transportation program gaining popularity worldwide, providing public bicycles at designated points around a city--find it, ride it, drop it off at a kiosk down the road when you're done.

Cykel, a concept bike sharing system by Brian Mcallister able to switch between pedal-power and electric motor, could open up the program to new demographics, increase the range of most bikers, and make cities with more difficult topographies more accessible. Not to mention making the typically pedestrian-looking shared rides a lot slicker.