A Cycling Crossover

Bicycles are rudimentary cars. Sound too simplistic? Are you a cyclist who takes offense? Perhaps both are true but stripped down, bicycles are modes of transport based on wheels (like a car) powered by you rather than an engine. The engine, the horsepower, and the fuel that makes the whole machine run are what differentiates a bike from a car. And then, of course, the enclosure of four walls, seats, and the addition of another two wheels.

So while bikes and cars are indeed different beasts, they come from the same general family. As such it wouldn’t be strange to hear of a bicycle company either dabbling with prototype car production or even engaging in more than dabbling. A fun fact - the car company Opel, known throughout Germany and Europe, but little known in the US, was once a 19th-century bicycle company. Opel engineers became fascinated with the natural extension of bikes to cars and became so good at tinkering that they decided to simply transform for good.

GMC, Chevrolet, and Rover also went through similar transformations. They all began as cycling outfits and evolved over time. Yet, for some reason post-1900 we haven’t seen much of this experimentation. It could be because the natural advent of cars and car production required firms who were already adept at building other forms of transport to step in and develop cars. Or perhaps those same firms became so big and successful that for future bicycle manufacturers with an eye on car production, the barriers to entry were simply too high.

With this said, a new entrant has finally arrived. And ironically enough, they’re also German. Canyon Bicycles, headquartered in Koblenz, Germany, is a well-respected bike company celebrating its 23rd anniversary in 2023. For the last couple of years, they’ve been working on a cycle-based car and a winning formula has emerged. The prototype measures 83 centimeters wide, 2.5 meters long, and one meter high. That’s small, but even more impressive, the prototype weighs just 200 pounds. Some worry that the natural comparison to this new venture will be the Sinclair C5, a failure from the 80s. The C5 was plagued with balance issues and certainly lacked weather protection (no roof). Manufactured by Hoover the plan had been to sell 200,000 units, but they only managed 5,000.

We’ve written on these small, modified “cars” before. Eventual success is more likely in Europe than in the US. But it certainly doesn’t hurt to experiment, and we’re glad to see bicycle brains continuing to think outside the box.