Inventors and entrepreneurs are the best thing since sliced bread. Which wouldn't have happened if Otto Frederick Rohwedder hadn't been so darn entrepreneurial, but anyway. Inventors and entrepreneurs have lead to some pretty exciting creations throughout the whole of history, which you can read up on at a library because I don't have time to go into it.
Anyway, one of my favourite inventions of recent years has been the 'crowd funding platforms', your Kickstarters, Kiva's and Indiegogo's, which get a group of like minded people with a little bit of cash, to fund a great idea that needs a lot of cash. Brilliant.
My friend Cara had her award winning film paid for with the help of crowd funding. Amanda Palmer funded a cracking album and talks passionately about asking others for help for TED. In fact Kickstarter and the like have brought a shed load of interesting stuff into life, and in turn stuck it to the corporate man by saying heck, we don't need you. That can only be a good thing.
But what isn't a good thing, is the frequency with which crappy bike ideas come up on Kickstarter.
Take this morning, I'm busy eating Weetibix and flicking through the Twitter feed. A few clicks and I'm led to this - a crowd funded glow-in-the-dark bike.
Don't bother watching past the first 25secs, as the hipster with the check shirt is lying to you. Apparently he's flogging you something new and innovative, which means you'll look like you ride around on a glowstick.
It's not new, it's not clever, it's just a bike that's been painted with luminous paint, which was invented in the early 20th Century. I guess that's why he's calling it "retro". Whatever.
He's not the only idiot on Kickstarter, trying to "invent" something you don't need. There is the guy who "invented" the bike bell, because he couldn't possibly shout when someone walked in front of him and he had to brake AT THE SAME TIME...
Or this Greg who wants to sell you something to hold your sunglasses, but in multiply positions (of which I count two)...
Or this iPhone case/tool kit, that doesn't even contain tyre levers - because, you know, punctures never happen on a bike... (I particularly like the first 20secs of random opening shots in the video, in case you're such a doosh that you can't slide it apart)...
That's just a cross section of what's available to fund today. And that's what makes me mad. Last time I checked you could use a regular bell, put your glasses on your head or in a pocket, and carry a tool kit. If you can't, then maybe you shouldn't be allowed to ride a bike.
Cycling doesn't need gadgets. It's a lie proliferated by the bike industry that's now fed into crowd-funding. You don't need expensive gadgets or solutions for problems that don't even exist, or reinventions of products that have never gone mainstream because they are, well, shit. You need a bike, and the desire to go places with it. That's it.
Kickstarter and other crowd-funding platforms can be pretty awesome, but let's be honest, not for reinventing your wheels.
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