Creativity knows no bounds and Kickstarter seems like the place where everyone and their Labradoodle are inventing something. That said, I wandered into the bike lock section to see what people had on offer. Most weren’t bike locks (iPod mounts, bike stands at the beach and a bike cozy. Yep. Someone decided to knit a cozy for an ENTIRE bike) so the few that were, I’ve included here.
For any of you wanting to upload a Kickstarter project, I’ve got a couple of tips for you: 1. Keep your video short, sweet and packed with the who, what, when, where, why and how much; 2. Being funny helps; and 3. Edit.
So I’m going to start backwards, for dramatic effect.
3. Rider’s Lock - The maker of this lock has touted it as “an aesthetically minimalistic, yet dead sexy integrated cable bike lock that lives inside your handlebars.” The lock in the video attaches to drop handlebars where the handlebar caps should be. There’s a padlock on one end and about three feet of cable on the other, which you can thread through your frame and lock it to the other handlebar cap. It’s an interesting option for a leisure-use bike. This project did not reach its goal of $20,000 ($540).
2. InterLock - InterLock is a cable lock that is stored in the seat post. Replace your seat post and when you need to use it, you just draw out the two cables and weave it through the back wheel. It seems that the cables don’t stretch as far as the front wheel, for which you’d have to get a u-lock or another cable for. The video is pretty funny and snappy. Apparently others thought so too because the $48,000 mark was surpassed with a final funding of $51,213.
1. TiGr - This titanium lock bike has a very innovative and interesting design. It looks like a long tweezer that you strap to your bike frame when you go riding. You unstrap it from your frame and weave it through your back tire and front, clamping it with a metal piece that can be unlocked with a key. The design of the product itself is very elegant but the straps are having a time of convincing me. This project was well funded, surpassing its goal of $37,500 to bring in a whopping $108,065.