Video: 3D-printed bike fails at first attempt to ride

There must be a corollary to Murphy's Law — "Whatever can go wrong, will" that says, "especially if you're at a press conference demonstrating something new and cool". These engineering students found that out the hard way when showing off their 3D-printed bike.

Second-year engineering students at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada James Nugent and Michael Mackay-MacLaren had Gabriel Wong poised to take their 3D-printed bike for a spin for the assembled press when it broke before Wong could even take a single pedal stroke.

Nugent and Mackay-MacLaren were unfazed by the failure, quickly realising that a part that should have been solid had been printed hollow, leaving insufficient material to hold it together.

Making a bike with a 3D printer is a fun challenge, but this isn't the first attempt to make — and even sell — a bike made predominantly out of plastic.

The student engineers talk about "an Ikea bike" that you'd assemble yourself, and that was exactly the premise of the Itera, launched in (where else?) Sweden in 1982.

Itera bike (Wikimedia Commons)

The product of a design exercise by Volvo, which was investigating using plastic in min-cars, the Itera was sold as a kit, with the necessary tools to assemble it in the box.

The Itera project was plagued with problems. Bikes were delivered with parts missing from the box, and if anything on the bike broke, spares were hard to get as just about every part was unique.

They were also reportedly, ahem, interesting to ride as the frames were more flexible than the standard steel frames of the era. At least they were just as pretty and stylish as Volvo's cars of the early 1980s.

1980-82 Volvo 240DL (Wikimedia Commons)

The few surviving Itera bikes are now collectors' items. If you feel you can't do without one in your life there's one for sale on eBay right now.