FlyKly vs Copenhagen Wheel

http://www.flykly.com/ VS https://www.superpedestrian.com/

Both these wheels are amazing to me - the ability to transform ANY bicycle into an electric vehicle is a game changer. Ok, so maybe it’s electric assist and the power is limited, but still a very clean design solution for the electric bike world. I’d also like to think this will get more people biking - as a cycling enthusiast I hope so!

The Copenhagen Wheel has been on my radar for a while. But they seemed to just be kicking the idea around without much publicity since their initial announcement in 2009: copenhagen wheel project. Then this past October FlyKly seemed to pop up from out of nowhere with a viable kickstarter campaign: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flykly/flykly-smart-wheel . Suddenly the Copenhagen Wheel began to make some noise too.

From a spec sheet (and cost point of view) the FlyKly is more enticing to me. However the Copenhagen Wheel seems to have the deeper development story, and perhaps is more robust as a result. Who knows, would love to test both but need to save up for one now as it is! I’m excited to see them hit the market and hear consumer feedback.

Any thoughts?

The development of the FlyKly looks pretty advanced, on Kickstarter they have pics of the process, components and prototypes. I would like to see a short video of how it actually works, but other than that, it seems they have it pretty much figured it out. I’m more concerned about safety, but I guess that if you can track the wheel, there should be no problem. Both concepts rely on the same principle and are quite similar, but FlyKly is 20% lighter, so I’d go for it instead of the Copenhagen wheel.

Yeah - having an expensive electric wheel is definitely a need for a cable or extra U lock. The locking / tracking features are nice, but not peace-of-mind enough for me.