cardboard bike

Izhar Gafni is

reinventing the two-wheeler.

The Israeli mechanical engineer wowed the opening-day audience Wednesday at Moses Znaimer’s ideacity with his 28-pound (less than 13 kilograms) cardboard bike.

Waterproof, rust-proof, made of renewable and recycled resources such as paper, plastic bottles and car tires, and able to support a rider 20 times its weight, Gafni’s invention costs about $9 to build.

“If it’s cheap, it’s affordable,” Gafni told the Star.

“The only issue is to make it have a softer ride,” he continued, adding that he expects that, along with a seat height adjustment mechanism, a shock absorber system will be in place within the year.

Gafni’s presentation at the three-day conference was part of an afternoon focussed on transportation innovation. He followed a lineup of whiz-bang speakers who showed off the-future-is-here flying cars and superfast evacuated tube travel, sold as “space travel on Earth.”

The cardboard bike is much more-down-to-earth, and accessible.

Gafni’s hope is not only to have it sold all over the world — so that, for example, children in remote areas of Africa can get to school — but also to get it manufactured where it’s sold. An assembly-line expert, he believes that local factories could be established that would provide both jobs and the means to get to them for workers.

He maintains the production process is fairly simple and has a low carbon footprint.

“There are no big ovens, not a lot of heat that will chew up a lot of energy,” he explained.

Gafni got the idea for the bike — which is not yet named — in 2008, while working on a pomegranate peeling and extraction machine, a prize-winning invention that made pomegranate juice commercially viable.

So far, it has won a 2013 Invention Award from Popular Science magazine and has been recognized by CNN, as well as a number of design companies, for its potential to revolutionize transportation.

His next move is to reinvent the wheelchair, to make a paper version so that more people can afford better mobility devices.

Moses Znaimer’s 14th annual ideacity conference continues through Friday at Koerner Hall, in the Royal Conservatory of Music complex at 273 Bloor St. W. Pass information and talks can be found at www.ideacityonline.com

Subscribe

Monitor continues to update the latest from This blog directly in your email!