This is a project by San Jose State University students and while they may have borrowed some inspiration from Hollywood (the Audi RSQ from I, Robot is prime example), this omnidirectional bike is very real and offers a world of possibilities. Consider what kind of maneuvers you can do when your have spheres for wheels. It’s not just about forward and back, since you can literally travel in any direction. Go sideways. Move around in a 360-degree circle while facing in the same direction.

Done right, it means that this ballsy bike can move from side to side without having to turn. This is fantastic for parallel parking,  but you can see how this kind of motion would be easily adapted for other applications too, like the military. I’m looking forward to what the extreme motocross people can do with this one.

At this point, the students from SJSU have tested some scale models and they’ve secured the parts they need for the full-sized version. The bike’s frame is complete and they have a couple of rubber-coated carbon fiber and fiberglass balls. The first (low speed) tests on the larger prototype are scheduled for later this year.

[Source]

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Sometimes, you just can’t decide. Do you want a smooth and comfortable ride for cruising around the city doing errands? Or do you want a more aggressive bike so you can rip through the mountain pass and around the track? The idea with the Shavit electric motorcycle is that you can have both.

This concept by Eyal Melnik is being dubbed a “morphing” e-bike. The handlebars, footpads, and seat height are all independently adjustable. You can angle the seat upwards, nudge the footpads a little further back and push the handlebars down, giving you that race stance around the track. When you’re in town, you move those back and you’re sitting upright again.

It’s an interesting idea, to be sure. Considering that all cars have some level of adjustability, particularly for the seat and the steering wheel, I can’t see why motorcycles should be all that different. The Shavit just takes it a little further. You’ll also notice the lack of a conventional gas tank. This is an e-bike, after all, so I’m not so sure that it’d be a really fast sports bike as much as it would be a fun sporty bike. Check out how it would morph in the video.

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Think about what it means to be a green vehicle. These days, it’s typical to think of a biodiesel, a hybrid, or an electric car. Maybe you’re thinking of hydrogen fuel cells. However, none of those are likely as green as a bike that runs on, get this, compressed air.

I’d imagine there’s more to it than those canisters of compressed air that you use to dust your precious electronic components, but that sounds like the fundamental idea. Of course, just blowing air out the back isn’t going to provide much in propulsion, so the compressed air is being sent through two tanks to push the two-wheeler along.

This comes from a group of French designers: Charles-Edouard Berche, Ugo Spagnolo , Adrien Fuinesl, Frédéric Dobbelstein and Jean-Philippe Paries. The bike itself is kept like through mostly carbon fiber and, well, it looks pretty bad ass too. It’s a shame that we’re looking at just a rendering and the so-called Saline Bird motorcycle is little more than a concept.

The other green source of energy, I suppose, is manpower… but this looks like a lot more fun that pedaling away on a bicycle, don’t you think?

[Yanko Design]

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As its name implies, this beast on two wheels actually gets its power from a V10 Viper engine. Yes, as in Dodge Viper. Yes, as in a full eight litres of displacement and an impressive 500 horsepower of raw muscle. That’s a whole stable of ponies for an otherwise standard bike.

Created by Allen Millyard, the Millyard Viper V10 motorcycle isn’t just a proof of concept either, because they’ve worked to make it “fully road legal.” It even “passed 2009 construction and use regulations to gain a MSVA certificate and a 09 plate.” That’s right. It’s street legal.

Check out the video below and prepare to drop your jaw for one massive engine in one lightweight motorcycle.

Source: TechEBlog

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