BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
German designer Andrea Mocellin is seeking investors to commercialise his patented folding wheel technology. His Revolve cycle wheel is a full-size 26-inch spoked wheel shod with segmented airless tyres that can be folded to a third its usual size.
Mocellin has a masters degree in vehicle design from London’s Royal College of Art and believes his wheel could be used for a new generation of folding bikes, as well as the same technology being used for wheelchairs and even drones.
For cycle manufacturers there are obvious design hurdles to overcome – such as how a rear wheel, with its cassette and chain, could also be folded – but it’s fair to say that Mocellin has, if not reinvented the wheel, then certainly massively modified it. (Another consideration, of course, would be trusting the rigidity of the unfolded wheel.)
Many other designers have previously sought to create folding wheels, including, as BikeBiz reported in 2004, Sir Clive Sinclair.
