Bellcycles: A New Compact Bike

You might be thinking to yourself, "what in the hell is that?" It's a fair question and the exact thought that I had too when I first saw this thing. Well, it is a Bellcycle. It is suppose to be a complete redesign of the traditional bicycle. No more front handles, no more rear wheel drive, and not more bike racks. 

Instead, we are looking at a bike whose handlebar is connected to the seat, its pedals connected to the front wheel, and whose compact design makes it easy to carry and store away. Basically, this thing looks like what a carny would ride when first trying to learn how to unicycle. 

I honestly am not sure what is it about this thing but I hate it. With that being said I am going to review the Bellcycle with as much basis as possible because this thing is stupid.

Lets get started shall we.

Forget about functionality for the time being, we are just going to focus on how it looks and as I eluded to before it quite literally looks like a unicycle with a training wheel. If I saw someone ride up to me on a Bellcycle and they tried to have a normal conversation with me like I'd want to smack them. 

The only things I would want to hear them talk about it is slinkies and kazoos because in all honestly that is the only subject matter that I would take their word on. 

Gif pulled from their Kickstarter page

 

Up until the dunk at the end there, I see no difference in how ridiculous both of those look. 

The next thing that this ridiculous company decided to do is to make this bike self-assembly. I don't know about you but I have a hard enough time putting together IKEA furniture let alone an entire bike. 

I get that some people like to build things and put things together. 

However, I would argue that there is an even greater portion of the population that couldn't figure out how to hang up a picture frame. Bellcycles should at least have a fully assembled version you could buy. 

Getting onto the functionality aspect of the Bellcycles. A key selling feature of the bike is the handlebar placement. The handlebar is connected to the seat so your hands are placed naturally by your side. I guess that makes sense but here is my problem. 

This set up requires you to be sitting up-right at all times, that could get tiring. A traditional handlebar is nice because it is a nice resting area if you need to be on the bike for any long duration of time. 

Also, you better be really careful when hitting the breaks, because of the front wheel drive aspect of the bike the breaks are connected to the front wheel. Have you ever been on a bike with front wheel breaks? They are pointless. You pull those things too hard and you are going head over heels. 

Well those are just my personal opinions on the Bellcycles. I'll give credit to them though they blew past they target $5,000 on Kickstarter so maybe I'm just being an asshole. Either way I don't see this product gaining much traction. 

Although, there is a small part of me that wants it to be a massive success and eventually be adopted as an event in the Tour de France. That would be electric!

If you are interested in checking them out though here is the link to their Kickstarter page. Bellcycles