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Comment by alan_cx | Hacker News Reader

KERS for a bicycle. Cool.

Given that old Lotus bike, Im surprised one for the F1 teams hasn't rustled something up. I'd have a chat with one of them and see if they would like to partner up. Especially as they are trying to be all green these days.

Can you harvest from the front wheel too?

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If you slow the bike from either the front wheel or the back wheel, energy is removed from the whole bike. There's little to no benefit from harvesting from both wheels.

All the resistance is from only the rear wheel. So its like rear wheel breaking, and potential lock ups in the wet. Surely its better to spread the load. Also means twice the surface contact. Wouldn't that be better, perhaps safer, to ride? Especially in the wet.

But the extra cost and complexity, even weirder look, extra wires. For emergency braking, keep the regular front brake. For minor speed adjustments the rear brake will get the job done.

Is it doing kinetic energy recovery? My reading was it was 'only' a rechargeable assist motor.

EDIT:

dangooer found the relevant part of the page. It does KER. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6563287

I have this on my BionX system. I think regen braking is fairly a no brainer these days.

That's why I was surprised that I didn't see it on the kickstarter page. I skimmed it twice, but missed it. I would have expected it to me a bigger callout feature.

They already are for the FlyKly Smart Light! :-p

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