Spacebike

What the **** is this now

Bikes are kind of ubiquitous in the Netherlands. They're not just nice things to look at, they are also surprisingly practical in daily life. Combining these two ideas, it seems like a nice idea to make a bicycle that can be used by any member of Revspace for daily errands, and that also acts as advertising for the hackerspace.

Project requirements

The bicycle should:

• Be immediately usable by anyone. No weird model, no modifications that make it hard to use, no recumbents.
• Be convenient and inviting to use. No weird procedures to turn it on, not much the user can do wrong, easy to lock. It probably helps to make it electric.
• Showcase all major competences of the hackerspace in an obvious and explicit way. When looking at it, it should be obvious you're looking at an ad for an awesome place for nerds. Non-technical people should be intrigued and not immediately appalled.
• Be aesthetically/technically coherent
• Be low-maintenance
• Be reasonably cheap

Concept

This entire paragraph is subject to sweeping change

The concept I (mux) have for this bike, is to take a bike with the following properties:

• A cheap, second hand but decent quality (ideally one of the big 4 brands) electric bike as a basis
• For males (i.e. main frame triangle) so we can fit batteries and TFT displays in the triangle
• Low seat height with toolless adjustable long (350mm?) seat post so anybody can ride it
• Internal gear hub, closed chainguard/box and Rollerbrakes (so we don't have any maintenance on those)
• Ideally an aluminum frame and exposed parts, so we don't have issues keeping it outside in the rain
• Fixed, by default EMPTY (no electronics inside them) pannier bags.

And then of course the features:

• As big as possible TFT screens and a raspberry pi (equivalent) showing random shit on those screens when it's parked and on (i.e. standing somewhere near stores)
• Lots of LED strips. Note: These are not allowed to be on when riding.
• Lots of sensors. Power, pedal power, air quality, speed, GPS, whatever
• Ideally some kind of internet connection, or maybe a possibility to hitchhike on users' phone plans? This may be acceptably cheap for revspace to pay out of an advertising budget.