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John Villarreal is right in asking: What will the bicycle of the future look like?

It’s easy to dismiss ideas and questions that might strike you as impractical or impossible to achieve. But you know, these questions really need to be asked – with just about everything in life.

Think that’s an impractical way to live?

Consider it this way: At one point, someone had to raise the idea of touching a screen, say on a powerful smart cell phone that you could hold in your hand, to fetch information and move it around.

So, when I was looking at a Web site and came across John Villarreal’s images for a futuristic bicycle – one with spokes, or a hub or a traditional derailleur, freewheel or a frame with a traditional seat post – I realized he was asking the right question and thinking not about now but about a day when we realize that what we have now might not want we want to have in the future.

His description only included two sentences with the one I like here:

Our ability to manufacture lighter frames with increasing strength of materials will allow us to make shapes that today would structurally fail.

Think this is just pie-in-the-sky stuff?

Do you realize that Honda and Toyota are both studying ways in which humans will move about in the future – say in the office on a personal mobility device or in a vehicle that resembles a motorized chair?

And people are thinking about robots and their increased use in the future. I mean, they already suck up dust in many of our homes already.

Practical questions of Villarreal’s design can be asked down the road.

I’m sure, if his design ever comes to production, there will be many: Repairs, taking the bicycle apart if needed, applying accessories such as bags and racks and securing them so the first one on the street doesn’t end up in a thief’s collection of first gets.

But you know: These questions are needed now to push the United States – as well as other countries – down the road and out of the economic slump of the last few years.

While I think a strong understanding of the economy is always needed, it is good to think outside of that framework to truly channel creativity, intelligence and energy to increase productivity and the ways in which we live.

By the way, though, having a strong grasp of the economy will help if a government official ever tells you that the “fundamentals” are strong or if you receive – without a request – federal money and strong hints to go spend it.

I’m always wondering which company or country will have the ability to produce the first commercial aircraft that can fly using electricity.

That might be impossible. But it’s certainly a question to ask because there might be a team out there with enough brainpower and financial backing to accomplish that goal.

Designers already have thought about making an exhaust-free cargo ship – and powered by solar and wind power.

Oh, yes: If you want to see some cool-looking bicycles, my friend Martin has a nice collection.

UPDATE: My friend Martin sends this link from Bike Snob NYC, a blog, with the writer questioning what people have against the hub of a bicycle wheel.