SpeedX Leopard [Kickstarter Bike]

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Boscoirl

Is it compatible with strava?

godtabh

Looks sweet. I'd be interested.

What's the risk with a kickstarter? If they dont deliver do you get your money back?

Subcomandante Marcos

godtabh wrote: »

Looks sweet. I'd be interested.

What's the risk with a kickstarter? If they dont deliver do you get your money back?

I'm not sure but I do remember a case of a writer getting funding to self publish a book and there being serious problem with people getting their books because he was too lazy to post them all.

Subcomandante Marcos

As an aside, could one use Bike to work for kickstarter?

Mine available again next week....

ted1

godtabh wrote: »

Looks sweet. I'd be interested.

What's the risk with a kickstarter? If they dont deliver do you get your money back?

It could be absolutely rubbish , they've only built 12 prototypes. They have zero experience mass producing bikes. The risk of kick starters is that you get junk and have zero come back

godtabh

ted1 wrote: »

It could be absolutely rubbish , they've only built 12 prototypes. They have zero experience mass producing bikes. The risk of kick starters is that you get junk and have zero come back

They aren't mass producing bikes. They are outsourcing

g0g

godtabh wrote: »

Looks sweet. I'd be interested.

What's the risk with a kickstarter? If they dont deliver do you get your money back?

I've backed I think 4/5 projects to date and never had a problem. That said, they were low enough value ones. Previously I was about to back the "Agent Smartwatch" and by god I'm glad I didn't. The creator took in around $ 1m and last time I checked (still keep an eye on it) nothing had been delivered 18+ months later. I thought there was talk to increase buyer protection, but certainly in he past there were no guarantees.

Funnily I was just looking at this project last night and was gonna post about it. Not sure how much I like the tech being built in - I'd prefer the ability to change it over time.

Heisenberg.

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ted1

godtabh wrote: »

They aren't mass producing bikes. They are outsourcing

And they have no experience doing that either, I used to design circuits for Motorola and our our factories often made a balls with regards following the spec.
To get products mass produced you need experience dealing with mass priduction and the issues it has. Their Protos are probably hand made in house our in a local facility.

godtabh

ted1 wrote: »

And they have no experience doing that either, I used to design circuits for Motorola and our our factories often made a balls with regards following the spec.
To get products mass produced you need experience dealing with mass priduction and the issues it has. Their Protos are probably hand made in house our in a local facility.

Not sure if the two are comparable.

They are outsourcing mould to a contractor manufacture who probably makes similar bikes for other companies. Who knows

SteM

godtabh wrote: »

What's the risk with a kickstarter? If they dont deliver do you get your money back?

No, not guaranteed any of your money back. Just look for the Zano project on kickstarter to see what can happen

No way would I risk this amount of money on a ks campaign.

ted1

godtabh wrote: »

Not sure if the two are comparable.

They are outsourcing mould to a contractor manufacture who probably makes similar bikes for other companies. Who knows

To whose design and to what quality checks? Different class of products can come of the same line

Thargor

I backed a Samsung Gear VR type thing back in the early days of Google Cardboard for smartphones, the team obviously took the money and did a runner judging by the way they stopped all communications when they hit the goal and the money was released to them, Indiegogo didnt give a sh1t, practically laughed at me in my emails, got onto Mastercard and got them to do a chargeback, got all my money back about 3 months later, hopefully it came straight from Indiegogos bank account.

circular flexing

godtabh wrote: »

Looks sweet. I'd be interested.

What's the risk with a kickstarter? If they dont deliver do you get your money back?

If they don't deliver it's basically tough luck

https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter+basics#faq_41861

Dazguy2000

I honestly think its too much money to risk.

There are so many different possibilities where this could go wrong.... poor build, crap wheels, rubbish software, etc etc
While the price seems great are you willing to risk not getting anything. Shocked they were funded so quickly.

Heisenberg.

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Brian?

Nice looking bike. Hidden cables and integrated computer seem to be the selling points. Good value though.

wanderer 22

Review on Bikeradar - http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/category/bikes/road/product/speedx-leopard-review-50723/

It's sh*te :-P

dragratchet

colm18 wrote: »

Review on Bikeradar - http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/category/bikes/road/product/speedx-leopard-review-50723/

It's sh*te :-P

surprise surprise. the odds of that thing being decent were fairly slim tbf. even if it were a nice machine who'd want to ride a bike called a speed-x? its only a step above calling it a 'mega-bike' or something equally lame.

wanderer 22

dragratchet wrote: »

surprise surprise. the odds of that thing being decent were fairly slim tbf. even if it were a nice machine who'd want to ride a bike called a speed-x? its only a step above calling it a 'mega-bike' or something equally lame.

Agreed, though I think the 1/5 rating doesn't quite correspond with the review.

Alek

I'd say that the review itself does not justify 1/5 rating at all.

After reading it I'd expect 3/5. But 1/5 is simply harsh in the tl;dr world.

ted1

I wouldn't say it deserved a 1, sounds like there are s few design issues that could be easily fixed.

Fian

godtabh wrote: »

Looks sweet. I'd be interested.

What's the risk with a kickstarter? If they dont deliver do you get your money back?

emphatically no.

You are not buying a bike you are making an investment in the venture capital phase of a start up business, with no prospect of getting any equity in the company you are funding.

Lumen

Fian wrote: »

emphatically no.

You are not buying a bike you are making an investment in the venture capital phase of a start up business, with no prospect of getting any equity in the company you are funding.

It's only an investment if there's a probability that the resale value of the item is higher than the Kickstarter price you pay.

I'd say that probability is quite low.

Subcomandante Marcos

The review seems to focus on the rims being crap, which is fair enough. But it doesn't read like a 1 star review.

koutoubia

Yeah seems like the wheels let it down but the rear light issue should be easily solved
At a guess I would say if BR have it more then one star then other 'contributors' to the site wouldn't be happy.
Bread and Butter and all that.

smacl

Seems to me that Garmin or a similar manufacture could address this market very easily by simply creating a stem with in-built 520 / 810 / 1000 or whatever, and an API for developers to write apps. Bikes are already modular enough that you don't need a whole new bike just to get the smart functionality.

godtabh

smacl wrote: »

Seems to me that Garmin or a similar manufacture could address this market very easily by simply creating a stem with in-built 520 / 810 / 1000 or whatever, and an API for developers to write apps. Bikes are already modular enough that you don't need a whole new bike just to get the smart functionality.

Why would garmin do that though? They ahve a device that easily connects to a bike to make the bike 'smart'.

Canyon have done something similar with Sony/Android. That type of thing is far more likely to happen in the future.

smacl

godtabh wrote: »

Why would garmin do that though? They ahve a device that easily connects to a bike to make the bike 'smart'.

Canyon have done something similar with Sony/Android. That type of thing is far more likely to happen in the future.

On the basis that the integrated market is there for the taking, and if they don't do it someone else will. Personally, I don't really see the point in this bike other than the aesthetics of a built in training computer, but given the response to the kick starter program the market exists.

magicbastarder

without knowing too much about the bike, what's the difference between it and one with a stem along the lines of what smacl proposed?
i.e. is it just a normal bike with a fancy stem?

TheBlaaMan

At the risk of being accused of resurrecting a zombie, but in the interest of "closing the circle" on the SpeedX story, there is a very interesting (and long...) article on CyclingTips on the crash-and-burn that was the SpeedX company. https://cyclingtips.com/2019/06/what-happened-to-speedx/

While initially it looked like the funding model was suitable for a Kickstarter, its fairly clear that the eventual direction taken by this company was playing in the seriously big league regarding investment needs and ultimately it imploded in a very short time, in a bizarre way. Some staggering numbers/stats in the Chinese market and with politics thrown in (Tiananmen Square, anyone?) its well worth a read.

wanderer 22

^^^

A great read, thanks for posting

magicbastarder

yep, have shared it with a bunch of non-cyclist friends too.