Gyula Tiszai’s Tringa
(images via: Design WOO)
Folding bicycles are old hat by now, folding tricycles are anything but… but Italian designer Gyula Tiszai‘s Tringa makes that third wheel disappear faster than an unwanted chaperone on prom night. Tiszai makes up for the added weight by engineering a chainless alternating swinging level drive that works with a lightweight rope transmission. It’s light, tight and quickly out of sight… well, almost.
Andy Grigor’s Bam Bam Baby Trike
(images via: Yanko Design)
Most of the Bam Bam Baby tricycle’s frame components are made from flat sheets of sustainably harvested bamboo to facilitate space-saving flat packing. The wheel treads may be thin but no worries – they’re adapted from off-the-shelf rubber o-rings. Even the pedals are environmentally friendly, being made from recycled aluminum.
Mariano Ayastuy’s Triciclo Kamikaze
(images via: TrendHunter, Coroflot and DesignBuzz)
When toddlers go to war, they’ll ride into battle on Triciclo Kamikaze tricycles. Seriously, this is one serious trike and never mind the fact that it’s engineless and non-polluting. This bad boy was built with a structural pipe box section, aluminum circular 2-inch team Shimano Alivio derailleur gears and mechanical disc brakes. Add a manually-operated bell at your own risk.
Zvezdan Nedeljković’s ParaMoto Trike
(images via: Gajitz)
While those long-promised flying cars remain a fixture of a future yet to come, motorcycle enthusiast and ultralight airplane buff Zvezdan Nedeljković has come up with something almost as good: a paragliding tricycle! Powered by a rear-mounted pusher propeller, the fiberglass-bodied ParaMoto trike is just the thing to get you rolling – first off of a cliff, later down the highway towards home.
IDEO’s Aquaduct
(images via: BeSportier and Dezeen)
Pedaling a tricycle over rough roads in the third world is thirsty business so it’s a good thing you’re pedaling the unusual Aquaduct water-purifying tricycle. According to IDEO co-founder Bill Moggridge, “The Aquaduct was developed to help people in third-world countries who have to make long journeys to collect water, which is often unsafe to drink.” As the rider pedals, collected water from a large tank mounted over the rear axles sends water through a filter to a smaller removable water tank set between the front handlebars. These heavy tricycles are making me thirsty!
(image via: The Unexplored Land of Adulthood)
Advanced and futuristic though they may be, all of these tricycle concepts share a common ancestor: the humble, reliable, bare-bones-basic three-wheeler we cut our cycling teeth on. Since tricycles are rarely saved with other early childhood toys, they live on in our memories infused with a warm and golden glow of emotion; they look better now than they ever did then. Will these cool concept trikes enjoy the same fate?

