The front wheel is on backwards.....

very observant DemonDuck... I had to go back to see what you meant...

If it uses a tenth of the material, how is it only 65% lighter?

DemonDuck You do have a valid point,, ya think you will every hear a reply about it? yeah, I agree

It looks wonderful and love the white color....

Thing is, how do you get your hands on one ? And where's the brakes ? Surely brakes are a must ? Or do you brake by spinning the pedals backwards ?

It's great that these kind of innovations are happening, but why must they always be presented in such ugly, and unappealing ways?

Its very cool to "print" a bicycle, but why is the EADS doing this? I suppose it would be parallel to NASA doing it, but it certainly has nothing to do with defense. I'm sorry, there is nothing scary about a platoon of soldiers coming at you on their plastic bicycles. :-)

That said, this is a great achievement. I've been a fan of 3d printing for some years now and am thrilled at watching it develop. Makerbot units can be had for ~$1K. Its lots of fun and is becoming increasingly relevant. I imagine that some day we will have systems at home that print almost all of our stuff and we will have to pay to get the exceptional stuff only like microchips or other things that are difficult to manufacture. We would do the easy stuff at home. Modern 3d printers use ABS and PLA plastic mainly. Incidentally PLA is an agricultural product, so when you make stuff with that, you are going green too.

Very cool...Gizmag should keep watching this kind of technology. :-)

Local manufacture sure would take the air out of the Chinese econonmy.

The bike must be a fixie.

I bet that saddle's hard on the butt.

Lawrence, I could only dream that you are correct, but I feel the reality will be that it will be the Chineese that manufacture it for the masses.

Hi to you all,

Wanted to point out that at EADS Innovation Works, the point of the spokes was to mimic the contrarotating propellors on the A400M (bit of cross promotion of another of the EADS Group products).

The bike itself is purely a technology demonstrator to show what complexity can be achieved with 3D printing which we call Additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM). Furthemore, the engineers who designed this are not bicycle experts (apart from the riding a bike part), they drew something they thought was cool and hit print... It went from a scribble on a piece of paper, to a fully fledged bike in 6 weeks mainly working out of hours. It is 100% nylon plastic. The weight savings have been generated in other parts they have manufactured, specifically for aerospace (which is why we made a bike: something anyone can understand, rather than a wing bracket or an engine cowling hinge)... hope this helps clarify, but if not, The Economist and The Engineer have written extensively on ALM and have great articles on their websites...

Al

Well, if it isn't made to really sort of... work, then perhaps it's OK. It looks rather softer than steel to my eyes, after watching the BBC clip.

This is cool. I too wonder about the front wheel, and the braking. Also what about gears and what kind of wear do you get when you use the same material for the bearings and the housing?

I wonder if you could print a gun using this stuff and sneak it on an airplane? Not that I want to do that but someone may.

Has it been tested by The Bike Stig?

lots of aerospace and other military contractors spin out certain tech so that it can hit a 'critical mass' in terms of production so that the cost of 'inventing a new industry' is largely absorbed by the consumer driven products or tech used to make consumer driven products being pushed into the mainstream(i.e. the tech that prints the bikes gets cheaper because it is being used and expanded by product X and Y and Z hence the production tech (that can be used for other things)moves into a more cost effect , possibly more innovative) area). All in all it's kind of a black projects "open sourcing".

Whomever is running the show at EADS is really very clever by using the bike demo...

That seat isn't nearly as hard as you think: from the look of it it flexes just like the Festo robo/tentacle hands:

grip:

speed:

,

tentacles:

nice engineering guys, now hire an artist ;-)

re: "the front wheel is on backwards"

no..... The rear wheel is on frontwards

;)

With the shape of the fan type spokes it should exert sideways force on the wheels at high speed.

The reduction in waste is in comparison to traditional methods of manufacture. Milling steel, aluminum, etc. creates a lot of waste as you are starting from a block of material.

I'm amazed at the number of people critiquing the bike. It's a demonstration of the manufacturing process - which is the actual topic of the article. It's like judging a printer based on the picture they choose for demo/test print out.

Thanks Luddite for pointing out that the there's no contradiction in a 65% weight reduction versus a 10% material consumption.

Because it's not milled there's no swarf waste - hence the reduction in material consumed in manufacture.

Because the product is "built up", internal structures that include holes can be included, invisibly, inside the product - hence providing a reduction in weight. Not something that can be done with traditional "outside in" milling.

Mats L - there's a difference between strength and hardness.

re: "the front wheel is on backwards"

Looks to me like they have the handle bars turned 180 degrees. This would explain the "backwards" front wheel and the fact that they look to be too far from the seat.

martin: right you are, hard and strong aren't the same. A bicycle frame needs to be both, so is there a way to make it flex less? And still use the same manufacturing method, I mean.

I am sure there are many applications (not only bicycles) where this would be desirable.

So all of you that have critiqued the wheels have not heard about the fact that the A400M has counter rotating engines then.....