Inflatable Bicycle Fairing Gives You Aerodynamics And Weather Protection

by Chris Weiss

If you were to take a look at a list of the world's fastest motorcycles, you'd notice that all the recent world-record-holders were fully faired streamliners that look nothing like actual motorcycles you see on the highway. The fairings serve to increase aerodynamics so that the powerful two-wheelers can meet speeds exceeding 350 mph.

So I suppose it reasons that if you really want to take bicycle racing to the next level, you'd want bicycle fairings. And designer Moshen Saleh has a solution: an inflatable fairing that you can use when pushing your speed limits and simply deflate and pack when you're just taking a practice run around the greater neighborhood. He calls it quite simply the Inflatable Fairing.

And if you're just an average Joe Commuter with no need for ultimate speed, the fairing also serves to protect you from weather--kind of like an integrated, aerodynamic bicycle umbrella. In fact that appears to be the designer's main intent (but with a funky bicycle like that, you have to think he was thinking aerodynamics at some point of the process). It's easy to take on and off as weather dictates and stores right on the bike.

I'm not sure that there's much of a market for this (seems like you could get similar protection from a good rain jacket with hood), but it's definitely an interesting idea.

Via Trend Hunter