Injected molded bicycle

Design student Dror Peleg creates a bicycle of recycled plastics using injection molding manufacturing.

Frii injection molded plastic bicycle

Peleg, a student Bezalel Academy of Art & Design in Jerusalem, focused on the mass production of bicycles with limited resources. Peleg believes his design is less labor intensive then building up traditional metal framed bicycles. Bearings are inserted into the mold before injection. The solid, flat-proof tires are injected molded as well, likely resulting in a harsh ride. Different rider heights are accommodated with different saddle sizes. It appears Peleg specs a belt drive for this singlespeed bicycle.

Unlike many renderings I’ve seen on design blogs and websites, Peleg’s “Frii” bike design seems to incorporate at leat some realistic thinking about bike use. That short, beefy fork, for example, might be strong enough to withstand the rigors of urban riding, and all of those ribs in the triangle possibly give the frame a usable level of stiffness.

Injection molding equipment is very expensive and skilled labor is required to machine the molds. Once things are set up, however, you can churn out a million of these things at very low cost as long as energy and materials remain available. This design seems suited to areas with good plastics manufacturing capacity, high labor costs, and good availability of raw materials and energy.

Many more images at Design Boom: dror peleg: frii plastic bike.

3 Comments

  1. If it was stored outside, I’d be worried about UV rays breaking down the plastic.

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