Electric Cyclery, out of Laguna Beach, California, has come up with a great idea for a combination bike: mix an ultra-portable folding bike with a powerful hybrid electric motor.

This is what they came up with: The Biontague. It’s rather unfortunate name came from the names of the two things that were merged: the Montague Paratrooper Folding Bike and the Bionx PL350 electric conversion kit.

The result is an ultra portable bike, at 43.2 lbs, which folds to about a third of it’s size. Perfect for city commuters.

The Bionx has an average maximum speed for bike of about 20mph, however you can always peddle faster. The range is pretty impressive at 60 miles, and you’ll get a full charge in only 3 hours.

The biontague also features a nice control panel. It includes an odometer, charge guage, current power consumption/generation, and electric assistance mode indicator. Hell, with a killer sound system it’ll be just like a car!

You can get this for $2275 from Electric Cyclery, but add $100 to that if you want it shipped out to you (although shipping is only in the continental US I’m sorry to say).

via MetaEfficient

Popularity: 42% [?]

 We’ve seen a bunch of electric and hydrogen powered bikes, all assisting your normal peddling with some green energy.

Up to now however, all of these have been running on a kind of limited fuel. Batteries die, hydrogen gets used up. This limits the range of the bike.

Well “Ther-a-Products” has come up with the answer. A hybrid human/solar powered bicycle. This bike uses solar panels to charge an on-board battery, providing you with a theoretically unlimited range. As long as you’re in the sun, you’ve got unlimited green power.

The battery is a 17 amp hr. battery, allowing you to store energy for riding at night or when it’s cloudy.

The battery is a 500watt, front-mounted battery, providing a maximum speed of about 30kph. Of course, you can peddle as well providing even faster speeds.

This is a fantastic idea for green transportation, and saving big cargo loads, could replace many of your car trips. Parking is free, just like a normal bike, and you won’t be paying for gas. Gas is free!

You can get the bike straight from the manufacturer for $1295, or as a kit for $795.

via Keetsa

Popularity: 26% [?]

 One downside of riding a bike is the lack of a stereo. Sure, you’ve got your iPod, but it’s not quite the same.

There’s nothing quite like blasting some tunes in the summer with the windows open, and yes, I know that’s not the most eco-friendly thing to, but sometimes you just can’t help it!

Well now us bikers can take part too. Meet cy-fi,  the world’s first wireless bicycle iPod speaker. The system is only about 3 ounces, and broadcasts to wireless speaker (1 included) that mounts to almost any frame.

I thought it interesting that they mentioned the system supports up to 4 speakers through “multipoint broadcasting”. Could this mean surround-sound on your bike? We can only guess at this point.

This is a pretty sweet way to pump the tunes on your bike, but I’d really like to see a way to power the iPod through something like peddle power or solar. The company website reports the device only has a battery life of about 6 hours.

You can pre-order this for $149.95 from mycyfi.com.

via engadget

Popularity: 34% [?]

 There’s a lot of buzz around hydrogen fuel-cells, but until now it’s been mostly focused on cars.

Chinese company “Pearl Hydrogen” is aiming to bring fuel-cell technology to the already green realm of bicycles. Why mess with an invention that already boasts one of the greenest methods of transportation? Sometimes you need a bit of motorized help.

This fuel-cell bike has a range of up to 100km, and a top speed of around 25km. Pretty good for a bike. It’s a little expensive right now at $2600, although that’s about the same as other motorized eco-bikes we’ve reviewed. The company claims they expect to reduce this price by up to 80% however, bringing the price to just over $500. Not bad.

These motorized bikes are fantastic methods of transportation, and with hydrogen fuel-cells, are 100% green as well. Hydrogen is a bit hard to find at the moment, as there is little in the way of distribution, but Pearl Hydrogen claims they have a distributer set up to sell hydrogen to it’s customers.

If the price really does come down to around $500, we could finally see a motorized bike that could gain some mass adoption. A lot of people will not likely want to give up their cars completely, but if you can make the majority of your short and medium length trips on a bike, you’ll be saving a huge amount of money in gas, and saving tons of emissions as well.

Now I’d like to see a fuel-cell powered Shopcycle, then almost all of my trips could be green!

via Treehugger, Green Options

Popularity: 88% [?]