BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Robust Dutch bikes are famous for their potential for mobile trysting, with riders giving ‘backies’ to adult passengers. Want to do the same but without a Dutch bike and without a cargo-bike? Companion Bike Seats of San Francisco believes it has the answer, and is aiming to raise $20,000 on Kickstarter.
In addition to being being able to give a friend a ride, the Companion Bike Seat also features a locking, waterproof compartment beneath the seat for storage.
"Cargo bikes and utility bikes offer a similar solution, but require a significantly larger investment, usually buying a whole new bike," said company co-founder Paul O’Leary.
"Companion Bike Seats install onto a wide variety of bicycles, so you get much of the same functionality for a fraction of the cost."
Companion Bike Seat racks have been load tested at over 2 tons.
The steel-alloy frame requires installing include BMX pegs onto the rear axle.
Last year, Companion Bike Seats received Kickstarter pledges of $5,368 but didn’t reach their funding goal. This year the goal has been lowered to $20,000.
"Though we didn’t meet our goal then, we with it and were able to bootstrap the business over the last year and a half to make our first hundred bike seats," said O’Leary.
"At the time of the campaign, we had a couple quotes for manufacturing, but nothing was firm. We didn’t know what minimum-order-sizes would be, so we set our goal to $35,000, which was our best guess at the time in terms of expected cost to make a thousand bike seats.
"Now that we have a manufacturing partner, we know exactly what our costs will be to make a thousand bike seats. The $20,000 from this campaign, coupled with the money earned from our first hundred bike seats, will be enough to cover the total manufacturing costs for the next thousand Companion Bike Seats."
