Toyota’s concept bicycle reads rider’s brainwaves

This bike will make sure you are wearing a helmet.

Toyota recently funded the prototype of a sleek carbon bicycle using the forward-thinking approach to technology seen in its eco-friendly Prius.

The innovative Prius X Parlee bicycle (PXP) needs its rider to wear a helmet "for the cycle to read your brainwaves and learn to automatically shift gears for you," TreeHugger reports.

With some training, cyclists can learn to shift gears with their minds. A mounted smartphone, connected to both a snug helmet fitted with metal sensors and the bike's gear system, will be put to work.

"A special iPhone app monitors the rider's heart rate, pace, speed, brain waves and even habits. If a cyclist changes gears before riding up a hill, the phone will remember the location and automatically downshift next time the bike approaches the incline," Christian Science Monitor reports.

The cyclists can switch the bike to manual settings should their brainwaves get misread.

Toyota doesn't plan to start manufacturing bicycles, so the Prius X Parlee won't be available on the market.

"This was purely a prototype concept," says Patrick Miller of Deeplocal, designer of the prototype's digital portion. But, "in general, neurocontrol things will become more commonplace in the tech world."

Parlee Cycles, the bike's manufacturer, however, will use the new knowledge to build a road bike based on the prototype. It should be available in 2013 at the latest.

"It was a great opportunity to explore an [aerodynamic] road bike," Bob Parlee says. "I'm going to continue playing with designs and variations of what we already came up with."