Very Exclusive Gadgets & Gizmos

If you think excess can never get in your way, this LimoBike by Wildfire Tours is an ideal choice. Known for their unique Harley Davidson transport services, Wildfire Tours have yet again come up with an outlandish machine for the special occasions in your life. Featuring room for eight people in its back, the LimoBike looks like a sensible transport solution.

The Yike Bike is a personal electric transporter based on a new design of bike called the mini-farthing. It isn’t just a funny looking electric bike however, it’s packed with tech; there’s electronic anti-lock brakes, built-in headlights, turn indicators, brake lights and it’s speed limited to to 20km/h. It even has a distinctive sound so people know that you’re coming.

The Taga Trike Baby Stroller combines the clunky utility of an urban tricycle with the darn useful convertibility of a baby buggy. So now mum can ride to the shops, get off, do a quickie conversion and push baby round the store without having to break stride. Almost.

Why burn fuel when you can burn fat? This is true if you look at Grace, “the world’s first and finest E-Motorbike.” About $8742 will get you in the game with this handmade in aluminum electric bike with euro-fighter and Formula 1 parts that power its 1300-watt motor with lithium-ion batteries. Grace, the manufacturers claim its top speed at the 40mph with one-hour battery recharge time. The unique and stylish look signals their futuristic approach to electric motorbikes and you gotta wait till January before it is out in the stores.

Though still a concept, the Eco 7 Folding Bike is an appealing idea for travelers and outdoor enthusiasts. Designed by Victor Aleman in Mexico, this bike folds up to become luggage and is easy to assemble and dissemble. All of its six expandable modules – the wheels, the frame, brakes, crank, handlebars and chain – folds up. Each contains double pivots in the joints and are collapsible and removable.

No word yet when it will hit the market, but this sounds like an ideal bike for city dwellers in small apartments or condos with minimal storage space.

Humans have always loved the idea of making things simple, and without a doubt, everybody is excited at the very mention of it. However, a somewhat paradoxical gloss is even when the “simple” is just around the corner, we would settle for the “perfect.” Today’s profusion of choice dates back to the Victorian times, when the first simple machines to be called bicycles were made, not to cocoon our dream of luxurious living but to enhance it. The YikeBike invented by Grant Ryan and engineer Peter Higgins is a bicycle but not as we know it.

It wasn’t long ago, when our dear friends at Gizmodo rightly guessed that bikes with chains are an endangered species, and it is indeed turning out to be a remarkable innovation, despite being unpalatable when it comes to its durability. While it may be a bit too early to declare it a new cycling revolution, Trek’s District Carbon Bike sans the chain but a belt drive, points to the early signs of a new generation market of pedals.

This bike is a jet power bike, called FAIYATORIKKUBOBU by the Japan company Rintendo. Wow, Cool, it is not a toy! You can ride it like a regular bike. if you want to speed up, it has 4,4 HP, and featuring one liter jet fuel for seven minutes continuous 'flying'. It is on sale for one million (about $10,000 USD!!).

This bizarre Bike-Car is Italian and totally mad. Clearly the guy who thought it up couldn’t make up his mind whether he wanted to scoot around on a motorbike or travel in car upholstered comfort and decided to build the best of both worlds.

What we’d love to see is a detachable version of this, so you could press a button and zoom off through a traffic jam leaving the fat car carcass marooned in the fast lane. Anyone know more?

This year’s Australian Design Awards have popped up some great stuff, but it’s even more impressive when the winner is a student. This Switch Commuter Bike won the student design prize and it’s easy to see why. Most folding bikes are quite complicated, with small wheels and complex folding mechanism. The Switch is a standard sized bike that folds in half in a single simple motion. Once collapsed you can push it around on its wheels making it much easier to handle on public transport. Very neat, now it just has to get to market!