Comments on: A cardboard bike

By: Editor

Editor — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 01:18:01 +0000

The original article and video explain his chemical treatments for waterproofing, etc.

By: Jim Mooney

Jim Mooney — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 01:13:22 +0000

Israel being a pretty dry place, is this rain-proof cardboard? If I am caught out in the rain at some point will I be carrying my bike home in a garbage bag?

By: Jim Mooney

Jim Mooney — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 01:09:34 +0000

Yeah, we’ll get hold of it and it will suddenly contain an iPod and sell for five hundred bucks to the effete-environmentalist crowd ;’)

By: Chrispium

Chrispium — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 00:39:52 +0000

This “It causes factories to be built everywhere instead of moving production to cheaper labor markets” means you make it yourself.

By: Editor

Editor — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:22:57 +0000

I’m waiting for Godot … to explain what the problem with the post is…. BTW, Ray is not involved in my bloated nonsense :)

By: godot

godot — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:15:32 +0000

“This is a real game changer,” said Nimrod, Gafni’s business partner. ”… It causes factories to be built everywhere instead of moving production to cheaper labor markets…”

Since the materials are cheap, the labor cost is dominant. And it is light, making it cheap to ship. So the motivation to locate production in a low labor cost area is much greater than for a regular bike. Right??? Why do we have to put up with this kind of nonsense from Kurzweil? We never used to. I subscribed because this was THE place for the best new ideas & research first. Now we get this kind of thing. The same stuff that the regular is bloat bloat bloated with. PLEASE!!! Wake up, Ray!

By: tucek

tucek — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 14:29:32 +0000

It’s creative! Great story….

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:10:37 +0000

You’re right, I’d forgotten about that. Hamas and Hezbollah won’t allow a Palestinian to accept a gift from an Israeli. Looks like you’ll have to license this idea to villagers in India.

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:08:23 +0000

Moriarty wasn’t even talking about giving the design away. He said “licensed to Palestinians,” not to give it away. There is a lot of unemployment among the Palestinians, this drives down the cost of labor. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, so give them something to do.

By: Satan

Satan — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:54:48 +0000

A full-size cardboard bicycle will weigh around 9 kg (about 20 lbs) compared to an average metal bicycle, which weight around 14 kg.

By: Satan

Satan — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:54:15 +0000

The cost of materials used are estimated at $9 per unit

By: SpiritShout

SpiritShout — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 04:53:14 +0000

I like this guy! what a great attitude, a natural Engineer and a man that can make something real by holding on to his intention. I do suspect however, that his $20 is somewhat different than my $20. :)

By: iraeise

iraeise — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 03:10:46 +0000

When Israel evacuated Gaza, the Israelis GAVE the Palestinians newly built greenhouses to grow food…. The Palestinians immediately TRASHED them.

I wonder what they would do with cardboard bicycles?? Probably burn them because they came from Israel.

By: Franz Ternaut

Franz Ternaut — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 23:55:36 +0000

So many game changers. We started out with Poker and ended up playing Ultra Ping Pong.

By: Bri

Bri — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 23:53:30 +0000

There is absolutely no way that it costs $20. In materials yes. The amount of labor in fabricating one of those bikes would be outrageous. The time to just put a finish on it would be more than $20. Just to assemble and give it to a customer, let alone sell and ship, is more than $20. If it was printed with a 3D printer, out of nanocellulose, the frame and other structural parts could be cheaper and stronger than steel by weight, but just putting the rubber on the wheels and then attaching the wheels, will require labor of some kind. It could be robotic. It’s still has to be handled to get it to a consumer. So much time , effort and materials went into the development of this. What about those costs. Next bog question. How durable is it. This story is very misleading. He’s got a lot of time and money, to monkey around with this. There are a gazillion bike inventors, that have made very practical bikes. I’d expect a 3D printed bike to beat this any day, in terms of price, performance and marketability. It’s just novel because he used card board.

By: Sing

Sing — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 23:44:52 +0000

I am curious about the weight of the bicycle.

By: Ramona

Ramona — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:36:57 +0000

Good one, Satan.

By: melajara

melajara — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:25:02 +0000

Very nice. Next question obviously is : could it be made from this process?
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663306/the-worlds-most-complex-architecture-cardboard-columns-with-16-million-facets

By: DJSNOLA

DJSNOLA — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:14:47 +0000

This is exciting , especially the pricepoint.

By: Satan

Satan — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:26:51 +0000

Why should one person’s creation be given to a bunch of other people? and to be based on their geographic location or ethnic group? Because the inventor lives in Israeli? Typical Left Wing racism.

By: GatorALLin

GatorALLin — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:11:33 +0000

…if you don’t already know about Caines Arcade….then it is worth a look. This kid may prove to be the king of cardboard…

http://cainesarcade.com/

By: Tom Moriarty

Tom Moriarty — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:27:56 +0000

I would like to see factories or have the design licensed to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.