Rolling forward with Pi

Marcus Hays looks down the road and sees things a little differently.

And here in the Bay area, people like him tend to lead the way. Perhaps there's something about the hills overlooking the Pacific that nurtures new ideas and forward thinking. Hippies helped redefine gender roles and created an American counter culture in the 1960's through the Summer of Love. Inventors and entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley gave us new tools to access information through the Internet. As we begin to innovate our cities to accommodate people rather than vehicles, Marcus and a team of designers at Pi Mobility are hard at work.

The idea of an electric and human powered hybrid vehicle isn't necessarily new. Companies like Giant and Panasonic have been busy cranking out clunky cruisers with large battery packs attached to existing frame designs. Functional, yet not quite beautiful. Pi Mobility, Hays' company based in Sausalito, California is working from the other way around, and acknowledging that the design and aesthetic of a bicycle will have to shift as radically as the technology built into it.

This past weekend, I got to go ride their creation, the Pi Cycle and talked about how they innovated an idea that dates back to the mid-1800s. Since it’s creation, the bicycle has seen little changes in its overall design, besides more modern materials and fabrication techniques. Hays and his team have finally given the bike a breath of fresh air.

The Pi Cycle’s single unifying arc is a direct application of design sensibility and ergonomic functionality. Marcus explained to me that by arching the main tube of the frame, they streamlined their bike and transformed conventional geometry into a single ark that houses the internal battery and electronics, making for a much smoother ride.

The Pi Mobility team’s environmental intentions don’t stop in the design studio. The simplification of the frame makes it affordable to manufacture in the United States, rather than China where most of today’s bikes are built. It’s hard to look at the Pi Cycle with a gaping negative space (where an engine might be mounted), and not consider the future of transportation being free from the dogma of internal combustion.

Ranging from $2,999 to $4,999, the Pi Cycle may still be out of reach for most consumers. However, with new technology consistently bringing down manufacturing costs, I look forward to the coming years when instead of sitting in gridlock traffic during my commute, I can saddle up on a bike that makes me feel like Marty McFly, and silently cruise off into the sunset.

How does that sound?

While I was visiting, I got to test ride the PiCycle. Bike envy quickly ensued.