A Better Kickstarter Bicycle Product Proposal

In two earlier posts, I looked at three other Kickstarter proposals for new bicycle products. Most recently, I looked at a proposal for a self-inflating bike tire that I thought was silly - are people that lazy that they need this produce?? (Also, they are trying to raise $250,000 - WOW.)

Before that I looked at two safety-related bicycle add-ons both based on the "biking is dangerous - let's make it safer" way of thinking about cycling.

There is also a proposal for Flipphandle, a product that simplifies bicycle storage by making it easy ("at the push of a button") to turn the handlebars 90 degrees from center so that they line up with the bike frame.



I like this idea a lot, although I have a few problems with its presentation in Kickstarter. For one thing, the video and photos always show a straight handlebar bike, which would be the kind that presumably benefits the most from this device. But what about bikes with "traditional" handlebars? It would seem that they would benefit somewhat too, but the Kickstarter come-on should either show the produce with this kind of handlebars or clarify that the product is only aimed at part of the bicycle market, those with straight handlebars. (My assumption is that the drop-handlebar crowd would not want be interested in this feature even if there was some small benefit.)

Really though I wonder about the audience for this - do they expect to sell this through bike stores and the Internet as an aftermarket product? Because I don't have a sense that most people invest like that in their bikes. What would be great is if a bike company with "urban" bikes with straight bars would add this to a bike or bikes they sell, if only as an option.

In the Flipphandle comments it says that they are looking to develop folding pedals as well. This makes a lot of sense as a tie-in with the folding handlebars if you are thinking of this more as a solution for walking a bike in tight situations and less as a solution for storage. For one thing, anyone who walks her or his bike much, particularly with standard platform pedals, has had the unpleasant experience of banging some part of a leg against a pedal, which considering the design of many such pedals can be painful. A bike with folding handlebars and folding pedals would be much easier to maneuver in a subway car as shown in the video than one with just folding handlebars.

For whatever reason, they don't seem to have much chance of raising the necessary money at the rate they are going. And I certainly don't need one - I have three bikes with drop handlebars and one mountain bike used 3-5 times a year to ride in snow.