Amazing Spokeless Bike

As a Mechanical Engineer, this is the coolest thing I've seen in awhile. Now imagine this story in Wired magazine on the iPad - video of the bike along with an interactive feature where you could interact with the gears and actually see how everything fits together and works.

Amazing Spokeless Bike Built as Student Project

A team of students at Yale decided to build a spokeless bike for their mechanical design class. One semester later, they had the machine you see here.

The students concentrated on the rear wheel, for reasons of both time and money. The back wheel is where all the work goes on anyway, so if it worked, then the front wheel would be easy.

The back wheel is machined in standard 26-inch size so a stock tire would fit, and inside it you see a belt drive, usually used to replace a chain.