Crudely Beautiful: Homemade Cuban Motorbike
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 8:35 am
from WIRED: Gadget Lab
Crudely Beautiful: Homemade Cuban Motorbike
At first glance, this modified Cuban bike is just a regular pushbike with an engine bolted on. Look closer, though, and all sorts of neat details appear. From the beefed-up front forks, through the front chainwheel with the pedals removed – and now driven by a belt from the engine (an ingenious way to get the power to the back wheel by using the existing drive mechanism), to the motorbike-style suspension on the seat (itself a bunjeed-on cushion).
The whole thing is so gloriously crude, yet shows the elegant simplicity born of need. Form is certainly following function here, and it' wonderful. Walter Gropius would be proud.
Crudely Beautiful: Homemade Cuban Motorbike
At first glance, this modified Cuban bike is just a regular pushbike with an engine bolted on. Look closer, though, and all sorts of neat details appear. From the beefed-up front forks, through the front chainwheel with the pedals removed – and now driven by a belt from the engine (an ingenious way to get the power to the back wheel by using the existing drive mechanism), to the motorbike-style suspension on the seat (itself a bunjeed-on cushion).
The whole thing is so gloriously crude, yet shows the elegant simplicity born of need. Form is certainly following function here, and it' wonderful. Walter Gropius would be proud.
