That’d be so cool.
The best we could come up with in the early 50s was a clothes peg clipped onto the front and or back fork holding a piece of cardboard into the spokes so we could make a clakaclakaclakaclakaclakaclaka sound.
Used to drive mum crazy.

That’s the perfect addition to my carbon-fiber wonderbike!

did

That’s pretty kewel and all, but do you have any idea just how fast you would have to go to get a half decant effect?! YOu notice they don’t show anybody ACTUALLY riding a bike, but a bike turnd upside down so thay can hand crank the pedals to get the tires spinning fast enuff.

I’ve seen people speeding down a street that just have them plain reflectors in the spokes and they didn’t spinn fast enuff to make an illusuion of a complete circle.

The idea is pretty neat, but the reality of doing that while riding a bike is not.

I wonder how many people get suckerd into that? Besides Les.

Macbros writes…

That’s pretty kewel and all, but do you have any idea just how fast you would have to go to get a half decant effect?! YOu notice they don’t show anybody ACTUALLY riding a bike, but a bike turnd upside down so thay can hand crank the pedals to get the tires spinning fast enuff.

Actually, yes, they do know how fast you have to go. From the SpokePOV website: With one spoke, total persistence at 15mph. Two spokes, 10mph. Three spokes, 7mph. (Assuming a mountain bike wheel).

The idea is pretty neat, but the reality of doing that while riding a bike is not.

I wonder how many people get suckerd into that? Besides Les.

You should really try checking out the website before making such proclamations.

LOL @ Les.
Calm down good buddy. That was just my personal observation. Besised there’s no way I’d pedal my ass off at 15mph for a pretty lightshow. I would have to spend $350.00 in POV’s just to get the effect the way I’d pedal my lazy ass. LOL :D

Now strap them on a Harley- Oh yeaaaaa!

The Pacman design is pretty cute. As an avid bicyclist, I personally would like to custom-design my bike with images of flowers on the wheels. Talk about striking visuals!

Topless biking would be much more eye catching than doing the adult equivalent of putting a baseball card in the spokes.  But at the moment my posts should be taken with a grain of saltpeter.

Besides all that, the only way one could really appreciate the effect would be, to be about 3 metres from the ‘doing it’ wheel … much like our local hoons who cruise their cars with the windows down and their rap-rap doof-doof music (?) at full volume for all the public to appreciate (?).
Over xmas in Burnie, Tassie (http://www.auinfo.com/Tasmania-Australia-Map.html) I borrowed my brother’s convertible and drove through town with Pavarotti doing his stuff at ¾ volume (a la Pretty Woman) - I thought that was pretty cool.
I’d like to think I’m an old hoon with a bit a’ style.

I’m going to go ahead and add my input to this, because I, in fact, own one. Two, actually, I mounted them both on the same tire, because I also had my reservations about riding at fifteen miles an hour. But I assure you, ten is not difficult to maintain, and the effect is just as amazing as it is portrayed in the pictures.

The entire project took about perhaps six or seven hours of soldering, but keep in mind that that includes fixing the thing when I screwed it up. The instructions are extremely clear, but there’s no substitute for natural stupidity.

What’s also interesting here is that all of the instructions and programs are posted on the internet. The project could, theoretically, be done without buying a thing. This could prove extremely difficult because the kit features a custom-made board, but there are some very clever people out there. She also offers the choice to buy just the board and none of the other components, if you’re the enterprising type who has lots of extra parts lying around.

Now before this starts to sound any more like a shameless plug by someone in the pay of Lady Ada herself, I’ll wrap up by asking if anyone has suggestions concerning weather-proofing the thing, by chance? I’m still not sure how to go about that.

Macbros: They put the bike upside-down so they could take a steady picture. It ain’t easy to hold a camera still enough for long enough for the effect to show. Shoulda had a decent rider on rollers! 15 mph is nothing - I averaged 15.1 for 105 miles last fall in the mountains outside Asheville, NC, and I weighed around 230 at the time.

Ubergeek: Send me one!!!!!! That would look so cool on an evening training ride. How much do you figure you spent on each one, not including your time?

did

My order totalled $93.55 once everything was said and done. That included two full kits, a magnet, and a dongle that attatches to your parallel port to allow you to program it. The dongle also requires assembaly. And you need it to program the picture in, as well. I also got the 4x memory chip, allowing multiple images to be installed, allowing for the animation effect.

http://www.adafruit.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=5