Giant Mountain Bike with Handlebar and Seat that have Built-in Absorbers

Last Saturday, I was sitting in a coffee shop in Sri Petaling together with my daughter sheltering from the rain (while waiting for my sons to finish their mental Arimetic classes for the day). I was going to twitter about being caught in the rain when I noticed a Giant mountain bike parked outside the coffee shop as I took a photo of my daughter.

The geometry of the bike was interesting to me as I was considering getting a cross-country mountain bike, which I hoped to be able to configure as an urban trial bike.


The Giant mountain bike in the photo behind by daughter.

When I checked out the bike, I noticed the strange looking handlebar stem and seat post. The first thing that came to mind was that, "Hey, cool!. The handlebar stem and seat post were quickly adjustable by the rider to suit riding uphill or downhill (e.g. stem higher and lower seat for downhill and vice versa)."

Later that night while on the drive down to Singapore together with Syarul to watch the BikeTrial competition, I showed the photos I took of the Giant bike. He told me that those modifications were not meant to adjust the stem nor the seat, but were the actual suspension system of the whole bike... and that this was old technology... LOL.

When I got over laughing at myself, I was actually quite impressed with this new found discovery... LOL. It never crossed my mind that the handlebar and seat post could play a big part in a bike's suspension system design. Now that I have this "revealed" to me, I must say that it made perfect sense... doesn't it? LOL... It is not even thinking ouside-the-box... Hahaha...


The Giant mountain bike without any front or rear suspension, or so I thought.


The handlebar stem with a built-in suspension.


The seat post with a built-in suspension.

After getting back from Singapore, I went and did some research on the net. I found out that there were many patents related to this kind of suspension system for bicycles... :-)

• Bicycle handlebar shock absorber (1991)
  
• Suspension for bicycle seat and handlebar support (2004)
  
• Spring-Post for bicycle seats or handle-bars (1901)
• Saddle-support for bicycles (1897)
• And many more.
  
  

The Doggy Air Conditioner

I was watching last season's American Inventors on YouTube and came across this 14 year old kid, Kyle Myhra from Colorado, who invented an air-conditioner that is placed on the car window, which will suck in fresh air to keep the car cool (when the engine is turned off). I think it is a great idea and with USD 50k, it can definitely be developed and refined further (well not just for dogs but for human as well).



People living in Malaysia or any hot and humid climatic region will need something like this. Heck... not just for the dogs but for humans as well. Imagine when your car breakdown on the highway. So while you are waiting for help to arrive, you sit in the car with the air-conditioner turned on.

Kudos to Kyle!! Keep going man!!!

The Kampung Xprize?

I am sure you all have heard of Charles Lindbergh, the man who made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic.

What you may not know is that he won the $25000 Orteig_Prize for doing it. The prize was offered by a New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig to the first aviator to fly an aircraft directly across the Atlantic between New York and Paris. The aftermath of this flight was the "Lindbergh Boom" in aviation: aircraft industry stocks rose in value and interest in flying skyrocketed.

Ever heard of the Xprize Foundation. Well one of its first prize offered by the foundation was the Ansari Xprize, which was a race to promote personal spaceflight. The USD 10 million prize was won by SpaceShipOne - "Burt Rutan and financier Paul Allen led the first private team to build and launch a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to 100 kilometers above the earth's surface, twice within two weeks"

There are other competition such as the DARPA Grand Challenge, which is a prize competition for driverless cars sponsored by the US Department of Defense. DARPA is offering $2M for the fastest qualifying vehicle, and $1M and $500,000 for second and third place.

There are many more competitions similar to the above. One thing I find in common with all of them is that they all aim to break old barriers and promote innovations. Some of these barriers are psychological barriers, such as, "It can't be done! Man cannot fly. Etc."

I think Malaysia or other developing nations should have their own "Xprize" competition to spur, encourage and develop a "garage tinkerers and backyard inventors" mentality among the people. Call it "The Kampung Xprize" if you will... :-)

The objective of "The Kampung Xprize" should be to generate and cultivate a culture of home or village inventors (or innovators). I do believe that it is this "inventive" culture on the grassroots level that will form the basis for countries to grow and progress; and maybe one day to produce an Edison of their own.

In Malaysia, there are the millions of dollars allocated by the Government to fund research and development in the form of grants to spur technological growth and progress. But these grants are just too complicated and out of reach for almost all common Malaysians.

The Kampung Xprize is exactly what is needed. Maybe I will come up with a sample of how the Kampung Xprize' mechanics could be in my next post. See got mood or not... LOL.