crazy new bike technologies

found a cool post on treehugger a few days back that has uncovered a variety of bike technologies that i didn't know existed. as both a bike and a tech geek, it's thrilling information for me to share.

the original post: treehugger's report about a cannondale concept bicycle that twists in half, and uses a "hydraulic drive" instead of a chain. this drive idea is generating a lot of buzz and a lot of questions.

from there, the comments led me to discover that belt-drive bikes (just like those under the hood of your car) are already in production, which don't require any grease and have a much longer lifespan than the common chain drives.

then i was led to a few pages about internal-geared hubs. from the illustrations these look like a car's transmission, with all the bits enclosed inside the rear hub of the bike. (wikipedia entry)