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Crowdfunding campaign launched for "World's Safest Bike"

System at heart of veliSo Mirage ARAS can also be retrofitted to existing bikes

A crowdfunding campaign has been launched for what is claimed to be “the World’s Safest Bike,” the veliSo Mirage ARAS, with its designers setting out a goal that no cyclist will be killed or injured while using it.

Developed by Vélo Capital Partners, based in Lyon, France, the bike employs a so-called Advanced Rider Assistance System, which can also be retrofitted to existing bikes.

In a press release, the company said:

It will provide collision warning, automatic emergency braking, automatic electronic tire pressure management and optimum braking control and stopping power with anti-lock braking.

The véliSo Mirage ARAS will be enabled by the world’s first brake by wire unit, world’s first electronic tire pressure management unit, world’s first 360° sensor array unit and world’s first central control unit (CCU).

The company, which aims to be mainly an OEM supplier to brands in the bicycle industry, is seeking $500,000 in funding through its campaign on Indiegogo, which launched today.

Rewards on offer to backers comprise:

$175 – véliSo V-AM1.2 Electronic Tire Pressure Management System

$375 – véliSo Brake by Wire Unit

$475 – veliSo Mirage ARAS V-AM2 Lite, comprising brake by wire unit, sensor array unit and central control unit

$675 – véliSo V-AM1.3 Sensor Array Unit. Includes front and rear sensor array units radar, camera and ultrasound sensors with electronic control unit for collision and blind spot warning

$775 – Full véliSo Mirage ARAS V-AM1 Retrofit Kit, including brake by wire unit, electronic tire pressure management unit, sensor array unit and central control unit

$6,775 – véliSo V-1 e-Assist Commuter Bike with Fully Integrated Mirage ARAS.

Patrick Keating, managing director of Vélo Capital Partners, said: “Since 2012 we’ve been focused on innovation in the global cycling industry.

“In 2015 we decided to form véliSo to focus on solving the problems we identified in CYCLING 4.0 with intelligent solutions.

“These problems require advanced technology with a convergence of electronics, software and telecommunications driven by advanced algorithms.”

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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46 comments

Avatar
BigTig | 6 years ago
2 likes

Siiigh

OK .. So some accidents do involve rider error .. There are the idiots who run red lights and get taken out. Not sure how this will assist them.

There are the nimrods who swerve into traffic or change lanes without a visual check of what is going to run them over. Again, how does this bike help?

In short, idiots will be idiot and will get their idiot butts run over. This bike will not change that.

On the other side, of course, we have drivers. Last time I looked, they were supposed to give cyclists 1.5 metres laterally and they are supposed to be able to stop, at all times, in half the visible distance ahead of them. 

Correspondingly, if they hit anything (including cyclists), it is not the cyclist's fault. (Oh .. and the super bike will not save them anyway).

Lastly, I would have thought that the bike man in Lyon might have known about French law regarding culpability. In France, the driver is ALWAYS at fault. No 'ifs', no 'buts' no 'maybes'.

In the 20 years after that law was introduced, France experienced a 60% drop in fatalities.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2015/mar/27/hold-drive...

No evidence of rider error being the primary driver there and no superbike required.

Funny that!

Avatar
Barraob1 | 6 years ago
2 likes

Raleigh will be pissed when they realise he's rebadged the vektar

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RoubaixCube replied to Barraob1 | 6 years ago
0 likes

Barraob1 wrote:

Raleigh will be pissed when they realise he's rebadged the vektar

 

Oh god, i remember these bikes when i was a kid back in the 80s. I never had one myself but i remember some other kid that i went to school with did. Talk about an 80s throwback :p

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BehindTheBikesheds | 6 years ago
4 likes

If only this Loon had spent the same amount of time devising a system for motors and their operators from crashing into shit, he'd be fucking rich beyond his wildest dreams.

The response is the scribbling of an absolute crackpot, a dangerous crackpot at that given his refusal to see how fucking wrong he is in his interpretation and ridiculously flawed idea/s

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FluffyKittenofT... | 6 years ago
1 like

Is _everything_ 'crowd-funded' on a par with Harry and Paul's Dragon's Den pitch (the Kitten-Stomper, derailed only by their failure to realise that "people like kittens")?

 

  Or is it just cycling-related stuff that is always completely ridiculous?

 

Watching the parade of absurdities that come along with that 'crowd funding' label attached makes me wonder how capitalism ever managed to defeat the commies.

 

Seriously, my suspicion is that the role of 'entrepreneurial innovation' in capitalism is massively over-stressed.  Most decent developments are incremental, minor, unexciting, improvements from big, long-established corporations.  Most "entrepreneurial" ideas are completely stupid and a waste of everyone's time and energy.

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Crippledbiker replied to FluffyKittenofTindalos | 6 years ago
1 like
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Is _everything_ 'crowd-funded' on a par with Harry and Paul's Dragon's Den pitch (the Kitten-Stomper, derailed only by their failure to realise that "people like kittens")?

 

  Or is it just cycling-related stuff that is always completely ridiculous?

Oh, I dunno - the Lumos helmet has worked pretty nicely for me (albeit not using the braking lights), as has the Livall stem (with the built in battery and phone holder/charger).

The Livall helmets not so much - the automatic SOS texting concept is really good, as are the integrated rear lights -but the software isn't that great, and the indicators were kinda shit.

Oh, and the Loopwheels, which are fucking amazing bits of kit, absolutely worth the expense and hassle of getting the right axle pins and bushings ( that is to say, the longest possible to allow for travel).

The RA straplights, though horrendously overdue, also work spectacularly well for my usecase.

I've also had great success with boardgames and a few bits of tech.

Just... Never back 3D printers or drones.

Sturgeons Law in action, ultimately.

Avatar
alansmurphy | 6 years ago
2 likes

The Advance Rider Assistance System is merely the prototype, the Advance Rider System Extreme will soon launch followed by the Stop Hitting Inanimate Things, and Cycle Unimpeded Neo Transmodifier...

Avatar
RoubaixCube | 6 years ago
1 like

Sad thing is he already has two backers which pushes him to $676. Maybe he got his wife and a friend to pledge money to his crusade.

 

I predict he wont get anywhere near his asking amount. As good as his intentions are, its just a stupid idea and a complete waste of money and resources. 

Avatar
ricardito replied to RoubaixCube | 6 years ago
1 like

RoubaixCube wrote:

Sad thing is he already has two backers which pushes him to $676. Maybe he got his wife and a friend to pledge money to his crusade.

I predict he wont get anywhere near his asking amount. As good as his intentions are, its just a stupid idea and a complete waste of money and resources. 

Hmm, one backer for $1 (which kind of feels like someone testing the system) and then one for $675, um, ten days ago... let's say a maximum of one "real" backer... so not exactly racing towards their $500k target.

I don't think there's too much danger of this becoming a commercial reality (even assuming they have the technical capability to make it all work). Fortunately.

Avatar
Helmut D. Bate replied to RoubaixCube | 6 years ago
2 likes
RoubaixCube wrote:

As good as his intentions are

His intentions are to make a load of money via snake oil.

Along the way he's peddling inaccuracies like cyclists cause 90% of their collisions, exactly the type of nonsense that Joe Public latches on to and makes anti-cyclist bigotry more entrenched.

So it's snake oil lashed with fake news. This is not harmless fun.

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LastBoyScout replied to Helmut D. Bate | 6 years ago
1 like

Helmut D. Bate wrote:
RoubaixCube wrote:

As good as his intentions are

His intentions are to make a load of money via snake oil. Along the way he's peddling inaccuracies like cyclists cause 90% of their collisions, exactly the type of nonsense that Joe Public latches on to and makes anti-cyclist bigotry more entrenched. So it's snake oil lashed with fake news. This is not harmless fun.

Yes - can't wait for the gutter press (MSM) to get hold of this: "5 year study concludes cyclist is responsible in 90% of accidents"

This guy is a well-intentioned but ultimately dangerous loony.

Just got to hope Jesse Norman doesn't get hold of his working...

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hawkinspeter | 6 years ago
5 likes

He's not getting any money from me until he starts producing something like this:

 

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brooksby | 6 years ago
3 likes

As far as I can see, his response indicates that nothing he does / no special smart bike will be good enough: he appears to believe that cyclists are mainly at fault because they exist 

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davel | 6 years ago
4 likes

I clicked on the first link in that response and it attributes more single contributory factors to motorists, not cyclists (where contributory factors can be categorised in that manner).

If he has used that report as evidence for him arriving at a 90% cyclist cause, he has either misunderstood it, or is wilfully misrepresenting it.

Eiher way, he needs to stop this shit.

Avatar
alansmurphy | 6 years ago
1 like

Wow, if that's the limit of his 'clever' then the technology on this bike is going to be awesome!

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RoubaixCube | 6 years ago
1 like

it sounds like stockholm syndrome or something in that field... He does everything right whilst out  cycling but a twat in a car still hits him so he instantly blames himself and other cyclists for accidents caused between cyclists and other road vehicles...

Heres the CEO's response.

Quote:

Sorry you feel this way. I apologize for the 90% rider error explanation as it was incomplete. We regret saying it that way now as it has offended many riders. What we meant by it is that after studying cycling accidents and nearly every study done over the past five years is that what we found was that the rider was directly or indirectly responsible for the accident in 90% of the situations. Directly, he or she made a mistake and caused it. Indirectly, he or she was in the wrong position on the road resulting in the driver running into him or her. Of course, there are the 10% where the driver just hit the rider because he or she just didn't see the rider or was impaired for some other reason. . Unfortunately, the governments around the world along with the cycling industry have done little to study this problem compared to the automotive sector where they have spent millions on it. While there are dozens of studies here are the links to two of the most definitive studies done in the world on cycling accidents...

http://www.worthingrevolutions.org.uk/sites/worthingrevolutions.org.uk/f... https://ntl.bts.gov/lib/25000/25400/25439/DOT-HS-803-315.pdf https://www.ems.gov/pdf/HS810793.pdf

I personally was hit by a car in 2011 as I was just leaving a round about I road through hundreds of times. I saw the car coming from the right 50-100 meters, but thought it would slow and stop for me as I clearly had the right-away. When I realize he wasn't going to stop it was too late to do anything about it and he hit me broadside. Fortunately, it was a unique car and I was spared any serious injury due to the type of impact profile on the front of it. If I would have been able to calculate the speed and distance of the car from me, I would have realized it was going to be impossible for him to stop before he hit me.

Only advanced technology could have done that for me. That is why we decided to look at what has been done in the automotive and motorcycle sectors and apply the same technology to cycling. If you do your homework, you will see this technology has reduced accidents from 45 - 75% in cars where the automatic braking comes on and stops the accident? Why? Because you only have 2-3 seconds in most accident situations to do everything to minimize or prevent an accident from happening. The first several steps must be done in less than half a second in order to slow or stop before hitting the object or other vehicle.

 

If everyone who has responded below spent 3-5 years and did their homework to study cycling accidents, the ways we could prevent these besides being more alert on the road you would have come up with the same solution. This is now what companies like Continental are bringing to the motorcycle market after years of R&D by them.

https://www.continental-automotive.com/en-gl/Two-Wheeler/Safe-Mobility/A...

 

Garmin has entered this market in 2015 with the acquisition of Backtracker to try to do the same too.

 

http://newsroom.garmin.com/press-release/fitness/garmin-acquires-assets-...

 

In summary, I don't mind your comments or the rest of the comments by Cyclopath, RoseofHizaki, John Brown and Bazk including the tone, accusations name calling. After 35 years of working with early and expansion stage technology companies these types of responses are par for the course. As CEO it's my job to respond in a professional manner and try to address everyone's issues.

 

Cycling fatalities and injuries are growing especially with the rise of e-bikes due to higher speeds. What we are doing may be laughed at and ridiculed by many people. But, in the end, it's an imperfect world where everyone makes mistakes and without assistance from advanced technology, we won't be able to correct these mistakes in time to reduce injuries or fatalities. Yes, you can go out and continue to ride and think you will never have an accident. But, if you are riding in any urban area with heavy traffic the odds are you will have 4-6 accidents in your cycling lifetime.

Avatar
Edgeley replied to RoubaixCube | 6 years ago
4 likes

[and other road vehicles...

Heres the CEO's response.

Quote:

Sorry you feel this way. I apologize for the 90% rider error explanation as it was incomplete. We regret saying it that way now as it has offended many riders. What we meant by it is that after studying cycling accidents and nearly every study done over the past five years is that what we found was that the rider was directly or indirectly responsible for the accident in 90% of the situations. Directly, he or she made a mistake and caused it. Indirectly, he or she was in the wrong position on the road resulting in the driver running into him or her. Of course, there are the 10% where the driver just hit the rider because he or she just didn't see the rider or was impaired for some other reason. . Unfortunately, the governments around the world along with the cycling industry have done little to study this problem compared to the automotive sector where they have spent millions on it. While there are dozens of studies here are the links to two of the most definitive studies done in the world on cycling accidents...

http://www.worthingrevolutions.org.uk/sites/worthingrevolutions.org.uk/f... https://ntl.bts.gov/lib/25000/25400/25439/DOT-HS-803-315.pdf https://www.ems.gov/pdf/HS810793.pdf

I

 

Bloody hell.  That just makes it worse.  If you get hit by a truck and you are on a road, then it is partly your fault because you were on a road.    If a driver hits you and claims he didn't see you, it is your fault for being unseen.  I am surprised that there are many "accidents" that he wouldn't claim are the fault, in part or whole, of the cyclist.

 

His silly device still won't stop us being hit by motor vehicles.

 

 

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Kendalred | 6 years ago
0 likes

Took me a while to realise there's actually a bike underneath all that lot!

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RoubaixCube | 6 years ago
0 likes

Let me put it this way... If it doesn't come with belt fed mounted machine guns and an RPG or TOW launcher. It is definitely not the safest bike in the world you'll still be killed cycling through south afrika on this bike by people with machetes, AK's and RPGs.

 

 

Not to mention the local wildlife that will probably jump out and leave with you with a nasty scratch

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steviewevie | 6 years ago
1 like

Lol. That is all.

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NPlus1Bikelights | 6 years ago
3 likes

 

The out of touch CEO does respond to the 90% claim in the  youtube comments but TL;DR, I'm not wasting more time on this crap.

Simon, please improve the content, I'm becoming less and less likely to come back to the site based on most recent content, too many near miss videos, weak content& more commercial postings. 

Avatar
Yorkshire wallet | 6 years ago
4 likes

Just put 'world's safest bike' into google images and this is it boys. Get saving for the disc version.

//cnet3.cbsistatic.com/img/rjbYUKSla88qNumcNRNDPQwaj2o=/fit-in/970x0/2015/04/14/8be20136-c321-490d-8ec2-1267148e2384/babelbike.jpg)

Avatar
Crippledbiker replied to Yorkshire wallet | 6 years ago
1 like
Yorkshire wallet wrote:

Just put 'world's safest bike' into google images and this is it boys. Get saving for the disc version.

//cnet3.cbsistatic.com/img/rjbYUKSla88qNumcNRNDPQwaj2o=/fit-in/970x0/2015/04/14/8be20136-c321-490d-8ec2-1267148e2384/babelbike.jpg)

Oh wow. I bet I can predict a failure mode on that.

See, handcycles with forks that are raked like that have this nasty habit of having the steerer tube snap just below the quill - you end up with a stress riser about half way up.

Now, that appears to have a more modern clamping stem - but again, with raked forks above a certain level, you create stress riser, halfway up, roughly. On that, I'd say just below the lights.

It's... Not fun when they snap on s three-wheeler, but at least we stay upright. On that thing? Yeah sure have fun.

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exilegareth | 6 years ago
2 likes

I love the idea of brake by wire, so that when your battery's gone, you're gone.....

Of course,the cable that connects my brake levers to my brakes is, technically a wire, but let's not be pedants.

Crowdsourcing is either a very good thing or a very hi-tech way of separating fools from their money. In this case....

Avatar
Crippledbiker | 6 years ago
3 likes

The brake by wire might be useful for handcycles, as it can reduce the amount of bloody inners and outers we go through from it being on our cranks - not sure if I'd wanna trust it, though...

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CygnusX1 replied to Crippledbiker | 6 years ago
1 like

Crippledbiker wrote:

The brake by wire might be useful for handcycles, as it can reduce the amount of bloody inners and outers we go through from it being on our cranks - not sure if I'd wanna trust it, though...

Might also be useful for a friend of mine who has lost the use of his right arm after a stroke too - he's looking at ways of getting back on his bike again.

Avatar
BehindTheBikesheds | 6 years ago
2 likes

April 1st is a while off, did he suffer a head injury whilst wearing a plastic hat and think do you know what, im gonna build a bike that will deflect a 42ton HGV from its path, it'll work just like my hat did to save my life.
Retarded shit and I hope it goes tits up!

Avatar
alansmurphy | 6 years ago
1 like

I've never cycled in Lee Own, France before.

What intrigues me is the 3 things we need to do to avoid an accident.

1. Understand what's going on around us?

I have a pretty good idea; speeding, using a mobile, defending 'their' space, aggression, entitlement. Not sure how understanding this will help. To narrow it down though, I think video man wants me to think that having a radar will be useful. Given the metres per second a car travels at and the fact that the radar won't anticipate contact til it's too late then that ain't much use.

2. What to do and when

Well, if a car is approaching at high speed from behind and hits me, the usual approach is to fly into the air with my ligaments and tendons attempting to keep the bones together. Left hooked by a lorry, try and defy the laws of physics. Oh, the nice man thinks braking might help, pretty sure they have these on cars, it's the other pedal causing most of the problems.

3. Which controls to actuate

You're making that sound complicated, like applying the brakes or steering to avoid something isn't second nature. Unless he means the control to hover or become a non solid form temporarily, that button would be fucking cool!

There should have been a number 4:

4. Buying this bike will stop all future cycling accidents, cause there's no way you'd be seen dead on it... I mean be seen on it. Ride it.

Avatar
alansmurphy | 6 years ago
9 likes

Shite that beer must have been good, I missed Christmas, January, February and March...

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Hirsute | 6 years ago
0 likes

Is the music stand there to take your 2 front teeth out?

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