With CycleMAYnia all wrapped up in Santa Barbara, we thought we’d add our own bookmark to bike month by introducing a new kind of bike into the mix:YikeBike, the world’s first super light folding electric bike.
The idea for the YikeBike came from the ingenious mind of inventor and founder Grant Ryan. Grant and his team in New Zealand wanted to use smart technology to solve the problems of our increasingly congested, polluted, and stressful cities. Grant is an addicted inventor and entrepreneur. He has founded a number of companies, is on the board of Canterbury Development Corporation, and has also served on the board of the New Zealand government’s $140 million Venture Investment Fund and $430 million Foundation for Research Science and Technology. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Ecological Economics from the University of Canterbury. The YikeBike perfectly combines his love of mechanics, innovation, and the environment.
Being 100% electric, the YikeBike is as clean as the energy it is charged with. It has a range of 8.7 miles to 19.9 miles depending on the model, and is quite light and easily portable. These features should encourage the use of public transportation with YikeBike owners.
In reviewing YikeBike, I interviewed Blayne Yamamoto, founder of Turn Earth Green, a Las Vegas non-profit organization working towards a cleaner environment. His job is to fulfill their mission of educating, engaging, and empowering individuals, businesses, and different organizations in implementing green products and processes. For Blayne, the YikeBike fulfills the need for greener urban transportation, and has turned him into a promoter and advocate. He is in the process of proposing the YikeBike as part of a revitalization project for the downtown Las Vegas area.
The YikeBike perfectly coincides with LoaTree’s motto, “live for a better world,” in that it encourages society to use cleaner forms of energy and alternative means of transportation. Blayne believes the founders of YikeBike are “thinking of future generations, and realizing that we are living in an era of unprecedented ingenuity and critical thinking where conventional norms are being challenged in order to re-create society in a way that benefits people and the planet.”
The YikeBike is an unconventional invention that not only turns heads, but that tackles the critical problems facing our planet in a fun and innovative manner.
To learn more about YikeBike, visit their website here. Check out Turn Earth Green as well!
Written by Laura Ingulsrud. Laura is a LoaTree intern, assisting with content creation and communication, including researching and writing new stories for the LoaTree blog, working on social media, and researching best practices for communication strategy.
YikeBike America
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