This Stylish Bicycle Packs Functionality Into a Tiny Size

A lot of us want to ride our bicycles to work, but are foiled by convention: The city doesn't provide enough racks to lock them to. They're too big to fit on the elevator, or lug upstairs. Then that nag from Operations is probably going to send us an email saying that propping it up against a wall is a fire hazard.

Over the past few years we've seen plenty of collapsible solutions to our what-to-do-with-this-ginormous-bike woes. Now Kolelinia, a Tucson, Ariz.–based lab for alternative transportation and mobile architecture, has a new twist on the small-but-functional bike trend. It has come up with the Halfbike.

Don't take the name wrong: The Halfbike offers full mobility. But at 17 pounds and 40"x16"x51", it's light enough to carry up a flight of stairs and small enough to easily fit on an elevator (as well as the bus or subway, if you have a longer commute). Once you get it to work, you can stash it in a corner, in a closet, or behind your desk.

Kolelinia cofounders and architects Martin Angelov and Mihail Klenov say they share "a vision about urban mobility and how it can be applied to the contemporary city." Their three-wheeled means of transportation might remind you of those childhood afternoons you spent zipping around on your tricycle, while the upright frame looks like a much cooler version of a Segway. To ride the Halfbike, as demonstrated in the video above, you stand up and sway in an elliptical machine-meets-skateboard motion. Steering happens simply by leaning in the direction you want to go.

Feel like taking one of these for a spin? You'll have to wait and see if Kolelinia gets its Kickstarter funded to bring the manufacturing process to scale.

If things work out, an early-bird purchase of a Halfbike will cost $799. While that's pricier than a secondhand bike, or even one bought at a big box retail store, Angelov and Klenov say the Halfbike will be ethically sourced, and assembled and packaged by hand in their workshop.