Remember LionTail Cycles, that inventive startup focused on custom electric-assist cargo and family bikes? Well, they’ve been hard at work and, along with a team of UW engineering and business students including wheelha.us‘s Julie Medero, have come up with a bicycle power system that does much more than simply flatten hills: It also powers bright lights, charges your phone and powers your rolling audio system.
Could this be the next big step in the Seattle family cycling revolution? Well, first they need to convince the program there’s a market for such a product.
More details from Medero via email:
When I’m not riding and talking to people about family bikes, I’m a grad student in electrical engineering at UW. In a few weeks, UW is holding the Environmental Innovation Challenge, where engineering students and business students are encouraged to team up and develop new products that could have a positive environmental impact.
This year, I’m working with Henry Kellogg (of Liontail Cycles) and a great team of engineering and business students who want to help get more people on bikes. We’ve developed a new electric assist kit that powers a hub motor, a bright light system, an optional blue-tooth speaker system, and a smartphone charger.
The kit is coming along great, and we expect to have a prototype up and running on a Madsen for the competition on April 4. In the meantime, we’re collecting data to convince the judges that bikes aren’t just a “niche market,” and that the kit is worth investing in and actually getting out to people.
So go help them out! Their online survey only takes about ten minutes.
Comments
One response to “A family e-bike with an audio system? Help UW entrepreneurs by taking survey”
Thanks, Tom!
I also wanted to mention that everyone who fills out the survey will get a chance to enter a drawing for a $50 REI gift card, to show our appreciation for your time.