Fast Forward electric pedals could make your bike power itself
By Tim Stevens 
posted June 25th 2010 10:10AM
posted June 25th 2010 10:10AM
Every electric bike we've seen, and we've seen quite a few, relies on motors that are either attached to the wheels or somehow integrated in to the chain drive. Efficient, perhaps, but not exactly trivial to retrofit onto an existing cycle. Stephen Britt's Fast Forward pedals take a rather more ingenious and, honestly, simple approach: put the motors in the pedals. When your feet are resting on the pedals and their motors start a spinning the result is a bike that basically powers itself. We're a bit doubtful that this kind of tech could actually push a bike up a hill without some effort from the dude or dudette in the saddle, and we suspect that the motors having to lift your legs up and down doesn't help their efficiency, but it is an interesting solution that should work on nearly any bike. You can see it in motion at the source link and, while you're there, take a moment to give Mr. Britt your vote. If he wins he'll get £50,000 to make these a reality -- and to give your lazy butt a little assistance on the ride home.
As long as you don't have double your effort when you're pedaling...
@Sainted
Why nit maybe that's how you could charge the motor? Js
Not*
@Sainted
isn't this kind of counter productive? I mean i thought most people ride bikes for exercise
@elijahblake Not necessarily. My girlfriend started riding her bike to work to buy less gas, and use less oil (we live on the Gulf Coast). This type of thing would be good for this area (Florida) because there are no hills.
@groberts1980
yeah, but it'd be more benneficial to you if she pedaled.. make that booty firm, lol..
@elijahblake A large part of the world can't afford cars so use bicycles as a means of transportation.
@elijahblake
Maybe in the US. The rest of the world? Mostly for transportation.
@wanderer9 "Can't afford cars"? That's insulting to those who cycle for transportation by choice.
There are lots of reasons to bike for transportation -- saving time (combine the commute with the workout rather than going to the gym!), saving your life (average lifespan increase of +9 years for an otherwise-sedentary individual even after accounting for accident risk), saving the economy (there are numerous American and other first-world bicycle and component manufacturers), and yes, saving money (insurance, car payments, vehicle registration, gas, repair and maintenance, medical expenses associated with sedentary lifestyles, etc) -- just because you *can* afford a car doesn't mean you wouldn't be happier spending that same money on other things.
These same things apply to electric-assist bicycles -- particularly mid-drive designs (which this literally pedal-assist design is) where the motor feeds through the gears; these designs are particularly amenable to the user pedaling along with whatever power the bike provides. Remember -- it's fun to go fast, and pedaling along with the motor on an e-bike makes it faster, so there's built-in incentive to get your exercise.
With this specific system, where there's very very little space for battery storage, pedaling is going to be an absolute necessity simply because the pedals don't have room for batteries capable of propelling the bike any significant distance on their own (and I don't see there being enough space for heat dissipation to have any significant amount of power in the motor, either).
I got to try this at MIT's Media Lab for a press junket:
http://senseable.mit.edu/copenhagenwheel/
Worked astoundingly well. And they're going to be improving the design further before launch (which SHOULD be soon). I wonder if this pedal could be coupled to it.
@jrm125
That's nice, I wonder what the price is going to be? Probly at least $999.99
@Gavin M
Well I know the GreenWheel attachment (the consumer version) is actually set for around $1000.
I'm trying to figure out how this works. I guess if the rotor is held firm, and you foot is on the pedals it might help, but the pedals don't rotate 360 when riding.
I don't know, there is something missing. There are already electric conversion solutions that don't cost too much if you need that.
@rcappo Pedals do rotate 360 degrees for each turn of the crank.
@rcappo
The pedals do rotate 360 when riding. Unless you operate some strange push-me-pull-you method of pedalling.
@CityZen
I guess they do now that I think about it. And for someone who rides to work everyday...
The next issue that can be overcome, but will take some work is hooking up enough power to these since wires don't like getting twisted. Or did they put the batteries in the pedals?
@rcappo yes. the pedals do rotate 360...
@CityZen
man i can see someone suing this company for getting some busted up legs because they took their feet off the pedal. And you know they'll win.. Anybody remember back in the days of bmx'ing and accidentally making the pedals fly around backwards and take one to the shin? Damn that shit hurt!!!! I can remember that pain to this day!!! Little chunk of skin missing, ouch...
@elijahblake
They would have to have a safety connection so power would only be applied when your foot was touching the pedal.
@rcappo The batteries are on the pedals, and there is a switch as well that's activated by your foot pressure (visible in the picture). They're self-contained, so only a mechanical connection to the crank is needed.
The only work required from the biker is to prevent the pedals from spinning by keeping his feet on them. Doing that makes the motors turn the crank, making the bike go forward.
I would love some sort of pedal assist adapter for your bike that can convert say your legitimate 16mph of energy and make you actually go 20mph. That would be a great blend of electric and manual power because it allows you to still put forth effort but gets you to your destination a little bit faster, and allows you to use your OWN bike, not some 50lb. electric cruiser. These are the types of stats we need for these hybrid electric devices. If you put X amount of effort, you get Y amount of extra speed.
@Bhima the bicycle is one of the most efficient machines ever invented - you can't 'create' more output by converting human power into electrical energy > then chemical energy in batteries > then back into electrical energy and finally converting it back as mechanical energy in the motor - there are losses in all conversions usually as heat. Most electric bikes rely on a charged battery pack adding assistance to the riders effort and work as you describe - they're heavy because they have heavy weight motors and substantial battery packs.
Regenerative braking is the exception - where you extract energy normally lost as heat in the brakes and store it in batteries to reintroduce later - but you only get back a portion of the energy you originally pedalled in.
Outside city commuting with multiple sprint/stops between lights or very hilly areas a competent cyclist rarely uses the brakes to stop enough to offset the additional weight of the battery pack, motor and drive train modifications - then there are the problems of increased cost and complexity.
IMHO the best way to make a bike go faster is to make the rider a little lighter by adding a bit more effort and losing so fat. Once the rider is 'optimised' then a lighter bike with longer gears makes an incremental improvement in speed.
It's very, very hard to improve on the bicycle which is why they look broadly the same as the Safety Bicycle introduced in 1880
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_bicycle
@AMcUK
Sorry, I actually didn't mean to say converts the bikers energy into extra speed, but that a small, modular electric motor could give you the extra oomph to go from 16mph to 20 mph on ANY bike.
If you want something a little more discrete you could always try what the professionals use...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nd13ARuvVE&feature=player_embedded#!
@aganack Wow, that's pretty insane. Are officials not inspecting bikes for this kind of tech?
@TimStevens The Tour de France will be scanning bikes for this type of tampering
http://road.cc/node/18932
@aganack That's good to hear.
If these work as hill assist pedals, it could be a great idea.
I like the thinking on this, but I doubt you can store enough energy in the space of the pedals to make much of a difference. In other words, the small batteries in the pedals will run out in 5 to 10 minutes, even if it is just an assist.
The motor hidden in the vertical tube of the frame (under the seat-post) actually seems like the most elegant design. Then you can put a bigger battery in your bottle holders or rear rack.
Call me when they're miniaturized and SPD compatible. These could charge lights, GPS gizmos, loads of stuff.
Nice idea, but I doubt the "use your phone to change gears" idea is such a smart move. The obvious safety issues with this are exactly why using a phone while bicycling is illegal in some countries.