Perhaps the bike designers want the bike to flex for a more comfortable ride. Like a massive shock absorber.

"Any structural engineer will tell you that a round tube had a much better stiffness to weight ratio than a flat solid bar"

That's not necessarily true. Round tubes are equally good in any direction, and flat bars are great in one direction (i.e I-beams). Unfortunately for this bike all the flat bars are oriented incorrectly for the loads bikes normally see.

Design does not always have to be an object that you would use daily. Plus this is most likely a prototype, and every big car company brings out at least one prototype a year and most of them are never ever seen again.
It just looks nice and that is it. Some designer/art vases look great but I wouldn't put flowers in em.

RampantGnome: I agree with your comment and was going to say something similar. Would also be worth clarifying that I-beams are not an example of 'a flat bar' but two plates held apart by a web of thin material, Your comment still stands for the flat bar, but i-beams take the concept of maximising stiffiness in one direction a step further (by positioning as much material away from intended flexural axis as possible)

It looks like someone was bored and welded some leaf springs together in the shape of a bicycle...

I'm not sure if I like it or not... but I most likely don't like it...

Boingy, boingy, boingy...

Unless I'm much mistook, Yanko's slug-line is "form over function".

They specialise in publishing pictures (by design students or whatever) of things that will never be made. These are then echoed around the blogosphere as though they're real products.

Here's a challenge... design the stupidest thing you can think of, and put solar panels on it. I bet the greeny blogs like ecofriends.com etc pick it up, craftily mincing around the fact that it's actually just a drawing and not a real "product"

That last... what was it? Electrolux? Philips? design competition was an absolute classic. Someone actually designed a hovering iPod-like sphere that flew around outside collecting raindrops for you to drink... as a "green" alternative to like... leaving a cup out in the rain for example.

My, didn't the blogosphere love that one. I wonder how much it generated in click-through revenue. I wonder if there are actually products that generate more revenue as "concepts" pushing advertising, than as real things.

Personally, I think it's a bubble.

It makes me think of the old Brittish Morgan car withits wooden frame. Also the "top of the line NORTON Brit motorcycle. It had an "ISOLASTIC" frame the motor trans and rear wheel were rubber mounter and would flex with the road. I owned one of these M.C.'s for about 15 years and have driven the woden MORGAN. They both handle with such ease an actually we used the word 'FINESSE' alot . There is amethod to the apparent madness!