Schweeb inventor Geoff Barnett has come up with quite a unique way of commuting by using a self powered monorail. The concept for Geoff’s idea came to him while living in Tokyo; I came up with the idea of a bicycle monorail network while teaching a class in which the topic for discussion was transport solutions. The idea of riding above the traffic jams on multi-level rails seemed to me the only possible way that Tokyo’s millions of residents could move around the city quickly and safely. It had the added advantages of being environmentally friendly and offering an aerobic workout. To me this was a project that I could, if I put my mind to it, make happen.” The average person can achieve a sustained speed of 30 to 40 mph, not too shabby considering your providing the power through peddling. The monorail also sports an escalator system to help while riding along on an incline. The Scweeb system has a life span ranging from 50 to 100 years, and when it reaches that date it can be torn down and recycled. But what about getting behind a slow moving rider? No problem, when 2 ‘pods’ come together the dynamics change and you actually increase speed by joining the vehicle. Kind of how a two seater bike moves faster single seat. The pods also come equipped with a bumper system that’s designed to lessen the jolt of joining together with another pod traveling at a 19mph difference. A two seat version is in the works for disabled passengers. Now if it could only be complimented by a mag-lev system so we could commute at 200mph. That’s a commute!
Eavesdropper