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Yes, it’s very cool looking. And yes, the bike’s designer, Torkel Dohmer, just won the “commuter bike for the masses” design competition over at the Bicycle Design blog.

But am I alone in thinking that you could achieve basically the same results with a Huffy banana-seat bike, an umbrella and some duct tape for approximately a quadrillion dollars less? I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade here, and I really dig the way this thing looks, but at a time when people are questioning buying a new car, how many of them are gonna shell out what would likely be a couple grand for…a bike?! That they have to pedal! Themselves!? Plus the weather protection is a bit dubious…yeah, it’s got a roof (with the seemingly now-requisite solar cells to power the LED headlamps), but last I checked, Mother Nature hadn’t agreed to only dump buckets of rain on us in perfectly vertical columns. How’s that plastic roof gonna keep the weather off of you from the side, bike boy?

Finally, if you look at how the front wheel steering would likely work, along with the height and position of the pedals, I’m guessing this baby has a turning radius approximately twice that of a stretch Hummer limo. I’m just saying.

But still, congrats to Mr. Dohmer!

Bicycle Design