I posted this before looking for topics, but it kinda ended up being online support for general bicycle troubles.
Which is a good thing! Ask your questions about bicycles that are currently on your mind and we all try to help.
Pre-Emptively calling in @dallasw and @Kissmydadonthelips for their knowledge.
Can you please tell me more about the veribike optional arm powered bike? I feel like it's an engineering liability in one way with more parts to fail but at the same time seems to be the natural next step in biking technology by utilizing your entire body. It's crazy but I love it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMFP8tfzGXU
It's a terrible design. Far more cost and complexity and dramatically less safe. Handcycles are great adaptive tech, but anyone with normal leg function should just ride a standard foot pedaled diamond frame or recumbent. I cant stress how awful that design is. Everyone in the video has atrocious posture and position on the bike and would generate far more power from legs alone with a proper fit. The fork offset on that bike looks like what happens when the highschool kid assembles a bike in walmart.
Lol
It's not going to be more efficient in the end.
There's a reason that ad doesn't ever show the drive side of the whole setup. The mechanical complexity, eh whatever, it's still not exactly a complex system by any means
What it is, however, is a one person tandem bike. You can see the chain going from the handcranks to the rear cranks, they just fitted some freewheels along the lines so you don't have to engage them, I just checked another video where that's actually shown.
Imagine if they were fixed to each other however and then imagine how much power you'd really get out of your arms there that doesn't just get absolutely lost in the much, much higher power your legs put out. It's a neat idea in theory - additional watts from your arms means bike go fast, but the set up just doesn't actually work that way.
I'm not going to discount the idea entirely, maybe it's fun as hell, maybe it has benefits to coordination, upper budy strength and all but as far as biomechanical efficiency goes, it'll just make your bike heavier.
As for the future of bicycling technology, as far as sports go the UCI basically makes sure it never progresses into anything but what you see now as far as frames and drivetrains go. Mountain bikes still change a lot, though.
For everyday use, it's going to be the E-Bike I'd say. If we're taking a positive outlook, maybe Velomobiles. They're neat as hell and apparently due to them being aerodynamically optimized, you can hit 60kph on about 200 watts of power, which is what the average cyclist puts out on a ride. Plus you're protected from the rain and have a fairly large amount of stowing space. Neither price nor infrastructure is currently there to make them actually useful though.