If reinventing the wheel is supposedly a lesson in futility, there’s one ingenious YouTuber that didn’t get the memo. Known as ‘The Q’ (real name Sergii Gordieiev) he’s made a name for himself, to the tune of 14 million channel subscribers, with a host of design hacks, including a few DIY two-wheeled inventions that defy convention and, at times, logic.
His most recent offering is billed as the ‘World’s first hubless rollerblade skates’. Designed to enable off-road use, the skate is radically reworked to feature a large base fitted with two hubless wheels equipped with a voluminous knobbly tyre. The video shows the wheels having the plastic spokes removed before having a large cartridge bearing fitted. The result conjures up absoulteBlack’s striking HollowCage rear mech that features a hollow pulley wheel.
While the hubless wheel may present problems for a bicycle application, The Q has a number of radically redesigned bikes already under his industrious tool belt.
His square-wheeled bike looks as unorthodox as it sounds - two perfectly square wheels, fitted with, of course, two square tyres. In order to make square wheels roll, Gordieiev has ingeniously fitted each wheel with a conveyor belt platform that the tyre rubber sits on - not dissimilar to how a tank rolls. And the result is surprisingly smooth, although ‘The Q’ won’t be setting any speed or distance records aboard the bike anytime soon.
If a square-wheeled bike isn’t strange enough, The Q has designed an ‘airless’ bicycle tyre. To achieve the feat he constructed a rim fitted with a series of sliced PVC pipes. In his design the cut pipes essentially do the same job as air in the tyre, providing compliance and shock absorption.
Again the results are surprisingly good, with his YouTube video showing both the design process and the bike in action. It looks to be rolling smoothly - with no chance of a puncture. Gordieiev’s fertile mind is clearly systematic too; his early airless prototype used tennis balls, which like all of his designs works, but does appear less durable than the PVC pipes hack.
The Q’s dedication to re-imagining the bicycle wheel has even led him to design a bicycle with no wheels at all. In what could be argued as the ultimate destination for his journey of two-wheel discovery, the bike replaces conventional wheels with two rotating belts - again not unlike tank tracks, albeit rotating around the front and rear axles of the bike.
It’s a less practical solution than the other designs - even the squared wheel machine - but serves to highlight the creativity, engineering prowess and DIY skills of The Q.
