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Design

Ron Arad Creates A Bike With Steel Tires--And It Works

Looks good, but can it Bunny Hop?

Ron Arad‘s been keeping busy of late. The Israeli designer has been racking up some award wins, making giant immersive LED rotundas out of silicon rods, and now he’s making steel bike tires.

Looking more like two industrial flowers than wheels, they’ll certainly turn heads as you cycle around town spitting dust in the face of convention and your fellow cyclists. Yes, these fanciful tires are actually functional. Constructed out of 18 strips of tempered steel, the plates are bolted at various points to create tension and give the tires some spring so you don’t feel like you’re riding about on a shopping trolley. And, incredibly, it only took two weeks to build them. Then again, Arad’s no stranger to tempered steel, as he’s used it previously to create other objects like the chair below.

Ron Arad, Well Tempered Chair, 1986, photography by Graeme Montgomery

So the bike looks great, but how does it ride? Well, if you’re in London you can go test it out for yourself, providing you’re staying at the W Hotel in Leicester Square. It’s available for guests to take for a spin until October 29th as part of the “WOW bikes” project, after which it’ll be auctioned off as part of a fundraiser for Elton John AIDS Foundation.

[via FastCoDesign]