This is one of those ideas that leaves us pondering why nobody thought of it a century ago. When packaging is an issue, like on a bike or wheelchair, who not put the suspension components inside the wheel, so that the rim can move with some Independence from the hub, thus absorbing bumps before they get to the rider.
The SoftWheel is just that. It's designed for wheelchairs and bicycles, and features three evenly spaced shock absorbers that make up the structure between the hub and rim. The inventor, an Israeli farmer named Gilad Wolf, created it so that he could get out into his fields after breaking his pelvis and being confined to a wheelchair. He hopes his creation will spread to all sorts of wheeled vehicles in the future, but given the R&D required for more complicated machines, he's happy making them for his existing markets at the moment.
We want to see how the SoftWheel stacks up when compared to the Loopwheel.
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[via Wired]
