From a childhood passion to a prototype – Łukasz Bereś’s revolutionary gantry bicycle

From a childhood passion to a prototype – Łukasz Bereś’s revolutionary gantry drive bicycle

Inspiration drawn from everyday life

The creator of the vehicle – our doctoral student, Łukasz Bereś – has been interested in vehicles, tinkering and machines in general since childhood. The idea to build a gantry drive vehicle came straight from real life.

“That strong need to create a lightweight, enclosed vehicle appeared in 2013, when I was struggling financially during my studies at the Rzeszów University of Technology. I had to decide whether to rent a room in Rzeszów or commute from a town about 34 kilometres away. Public transport was a nightmare, so the alternative was a car, but that was quite expensive. I thought then that if an enclosed, four wheeled moped existed, powered by a small combustion engine from, for example, a Simson two wheeler, commuting would be the cheapest option for me,” recalls Łukasz Bereś, doctoral student at the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering at the Warsaw University of Technology.

From a childhood passion to a prototype – Łukasz Bereś’s revolutionary gantry drive bicycle

The idea continued to develop, and at a certain point the vehicle was redefined as a lightweight electric quadricycle in the L6e category – this version reached the prototype stage. Later, faced with the high costs of homologating such a vehicle, the creator shifted direction towards a bicycle, and that was when he came up with the gantry drive system. The next step was a second prototype – a three wheeled bicycle equipped with the gantry drive.

“I was simultaneously pursuing a doctorate on the gantry drive system in order to demonstrate its advantages over a traditional crankset. We carried out two research projects on this topic. Then came the third prototype, a four wheeled ‘gantry drive bicycle’, developed in close cooperation with the Warsaw University of Technology – it was the third project completed at the University. Thirteen years passed from the first conceptual idea to this stage. Building each subsequent prototype always took around one month (20 working days), but the design and preparation phases lasted for years,” Łukasz adds.

From a childhood passion to a prototype – Łukasz Bereś’s revolutionary gantry drive bicycle

In principle, the entire prototype vehicle is built from scratch. It is a long process. “I ask myself hundreds of questions about how to improve the design and I analyse in my head whether these new development directions make sense. If they do, I move forward. When a difficult question arises, I run experiments to confirm or refute my assumptions, and then I continue. The turning points come when I create the final design and build the whole vehicle. During testing, I can see how the entire system behaves – that is when I take extensive notes on what can be improved, and the process repeats. At this point, I am at a stage where I can see every possible development scenario for this type of vehicle. It is an ideal situation, because I am no longer burdened by searching through this complex solution space. I can see all the variants that could be built using different technologies, which has freed up my mental resources. Now I can focus more on implementation issues, conversations with potential clients and adapting the vehicles to individual user needs,” Łukasz emphasises.

From a childhood passion to a prototype – Łukasz Bereś’s revolutionary gantry drive bicycle

From a childhood passion to a prototype – Łukasz Bereś’s revolutionary gantry drive bicycle

Each new prototype represents years of work and analysis. A great deal of time is also spent sourcing components – once you have a list of suppliers, things move quickly. With the experience gained so far, every subsequent project can be developed increasingly fast, thanks to the synthesis of knowledge accumulated over the years. Once the design and parts are ready, only the assembly remains, and that stage is already straightforward and quick. To an outside observer, it may seem as if nothing exists one day and, after 20 working days, a fully functional vehicle suddenly appears. With more effort invested in production technology, the assembly time could be reduced significantly.

From a childhood passion to a prototype – Łukasz Bereś’s revolutionary gantry drive bicycle

“When it comes to the design work specifically, I have essentially always worked alone – the process involves an enormous number of individual decisions. I am not particularly fond of having additional people involved in the design phase, because the number of decisions to be made is huge, and every conversation prolongs the time needed for the next decisions, which can make the whole process last indefinitely. The process is very demanding, it consumes a lot of mental resources, and you have to keep many threads in mind. If someone interrupts with a conversation in the middle of this mental operation, the thought falls apart into tiny pieces, like a house of cards. In this process, I prefer absolute silence. Nevertheless, when I create something that is ready to be shown, I often test people’s reactions to see how they perceive the new creation. I frequently write down their comments, and they serve as valuable guidance for me,” says our doctoral student.

“Since 2013, I have been testing this vehicle concept on different people I happen to meet in everyday life. For many years, someone would always contribute a new idea or perspective, but today this happens less and less – I can see that the conceptual and thought structures tend to repeat. During the work on the latest prototype, there were many conversations with colleagues and staff at the Warsaw University of Technology who were involved in the gantry drive bicycle project – that was a major developmental leap. Through this work at WUT, I was able to speak with a very large number of people and gather extensive feedback,” notes Łukasz.

The first two prototypes were financed independently by our doctoral student through his own business activity. As he explains, at the beginning it was purely his personal idea – something he simply wanted to bring to life. When the gantry drive mechanism was invented, the need arose to study this system in comparison with a traditional crankset. That was when Łukasz Bereś began his doctorate and research at our university. To date, three research projects have been completed: two focused on the gantry drive system itself, and one on the gantry drive bicycle.

“The vehicle, together with the drive system itself, is strongly protected by patents. I developed several key ideas and patents privately, long before I began working at the Warsaw University of Technology. I financed the first joint research projects with my own funds and carried them out largely using my own resources. When we began studying the vehicle and the drive system as part of my doctoral work at WUT, we developed several patents in this area. The core concept of the vehicle is protected, ensuring its high level of compactness. The method of transferring power from the gantry mechanism to the wheel of a road vehicle – as well as to a turbine in a watercraft – is protected in multiple ways. Various solutions that enhance the performance of the gantry drive system are also patented,” explains Łukasz Bereś.

Challenges?

Over the years, there have been many problems, taking various forms, but step by step the creator has been working to solve them, and each new vehicle looks increasingly refined. The design process is highly complex, involving numerous decisions – continuous learning is essential to keep things moving forward. Designing and creating is essentially what mathematicians call optimisation in multidimensional spaces. “The greatest challenge for me was understanding how to navigate these complex structures. The human brain can only analyse a limited number of variables at once, so you need to use specific mental mathematical tricks if you want to move in the right direction. Everyone knows we want a vehicle that is attractive, lightweight, energy efficient and inexpensive – that is the kind of goal we aim for, but often we do not fully know what it looks like or whether we have already reached its final form. The problem is that there are hundreds of thousands of possible paths to this not fully defined goal. There are many technologies to choose from, and at the same time we face time and financial constraints – finding those paths is the real challenge,” explains our student.

The complex and demanding project has also brought Łukasz a great deal of joy. “I have always enjoyed logical and mathematical puzzles, so this process of optimisation in multidimensional spaces gives me a lot of satisfaction. Besides, I like drawing, and working on vehicles gives me the chance to use that skill. I also find it very rewarding to think that I am working on something unknown. Since childhood, I have loved tinkering and creating things, and with these vehicles I can really spread my wings – the latest designs look better and better, and that brings me a lot of happiness. What satisfies me most, I think, is the idea that if mass production were to happen and we managed to reduce the price as much as possible, these vehicles could save people around the world a great deal of time and energy. That could unlock enormous potential for new possibilities.”

Will the vehicle reach the market?

According to its creator, he is currently raising funds for the next phase of the project – a pilot implementation. The next step will be to sell licences or vehicles to confirm that there is genuine market interest in these solutions. “If what we have now does not succeed, I will be cautious about further spending. It is likely that two companies will be established: ‘Company 1’, a technology entity holding all the IP and patents, functioning as a knowledge bank, and ‘Company 2’, an operational entity responsible for production, drawing on the know how from Company 1 under licence. The operational risk for Company 2 is high, so I am considering this structure for safety reasons,” Łukasz predicts.

“The project is only just beginning. Gantry drive bicycles and lightweight L6e category quadricycles – in general, the concept of small, enclosed, essentially single person vehicles – are the future. In my view, the gantry drive bicycle marks the start of a new era in short distance personal transport. I believe this idea will evolve in many directions, just as cars have: delivery vans, estate cars, off road vehicles; or as two wheeled bicycles have: mountain, city, folding, downhill. I have many visualisations on my computer showing the possible development paths for this vehicle. In my opinion, it will work well in cities – why use a 1.5 tonne vehicle to transport a person weighing around 75 kilograms, moving slowly because of traffic jams and speed limits? It is highly inefficient. These vehicles would also work in small towns – why buy a car or walk to a bus stop and wait, when you can simply set off from your doorstep? Of course, someone who has a bus stop right outside their home may challenge this vision, but not every house has one, and not every next bus arrives in a minute. The point is to illustrate the general concepts of where such vehicles could genuinely change everyday life. The time savings when travelling from point A to point B, as well as the reduction in energy consumption for short distance transport, would be enormous – all while offering comfort comparable to that of common passenger cars,” predicts Łukasz Bereś.

“I believe that sooner or later this type of vehicle will become as easily accessible as a two wheeled bicycle, and literally any ‘ordinary citizen’ will be able to afford one. For me, success would mean that such a vehicle could be purchased for the equivalent of one or two national minimum wages. Of course, achieving this requires scale, but in principle I think we will reach that point. Functionally, there is not much more that can be improved in this vehicle. The interior layout is very good. At the same time, as a hobby, I am working on reducing the weight of the gantry drive bicycle. The aluminium frame will be pushed to the limits of its strength, and I am considering creating a gantry drive bicycle using composite technology – with an ultra light frame and beautiful, aerodynamic shapes,” Łukasz adds.

The creator values every opinion and perspective, as together they build a complete picture of the project. “If I were to list by name the people with the greatest contribution to this project, the list would be as follows: Barbara Bereś, Prof. Paweł Pyrzanowski, Marcin Obszański and Jacek Marcinowski. I also think it is worth mentioning Sebastian Gaś, Andrzej Kochański and Hanna Sadłowska. I greatly appreciate my numerous interactions with the CINN PW team. I have many names in mind – people who contributed a great deal and offered help – but it is impossible to list them all here. I think around a hundred people could easily be included on this list,” summarises Łukasz Bereś.