Originally Posted by
joey buzzard
I dunno. You made a decision to invest your money into this Kickstarter. You must've known it was a very ambitious product from the get go? That even without the pandemic and now WW3 looming on the horrizon that there'd have been challenges? By ambitious I mean that Peter not only had a very innovative design (he practically reinvented the folding bicycle) but that he also aimed to reinvent the production process and do it all himself in Canada. It was all clearly spelled out by him. The only fault I think he has is that he severely underestimated the time it would take to develop the product and scale up the production volume. It's totally undeniable that global supply chains are under severe strain at the moment. Why choose now of all moments to get litigious about your Kickstarter? He's clearly trying to keep production going, so that he can keep on trucking. Bikes are rolling off his production line. He hasn't abandoned you. True, you've already waited years and years, but it just seems to me that's what you sign up for when you invest in something that's totally never been done before. I didn't invest in this myself. If I were 10x richer than I am I might've considered it, but it looked risky and I like simple things (I'm bit of a Xootr Swift kinda guy myself).
Normally I read this thread like I'm eating popcorn in the cinema and I don't comment because I have no skin in this game for all the reasons I spelled out above. But clearly you had the money to make the investment into a complex product which at the time was more theoretical than actual. If you had simply wanted a nice bike there were plenty of other off the peg options that you could've ordered and had years ago, but you chose something else. What does a lawsuit achieve? Zilch to nada in my opinion. It'd just be a big poo that would drag on for more years and make it very difficult for this project to continue and would very probably result in the bankruptcy of one of North America's most innovative bicycle designers. As far as I can see there's now a viable product that's actually being churned out in some numbers. He just needs cashflow to keep producing, so he has to focus on retail first to meet his other obligations. Frustrating though it is to still be waiting, I reckon that now is exactly the wrong time to get impatient.
Western countries need to innovate so that there's more industrial production at home. Why kick the stool out from underneath someone who's making that happen just as they're finally getting there?
Those are my thoughts anyway.
I have also followed the project since the start of the Kickstarter campaign and I have to disagree with you on several points.
It was never said that its a very ambitious risky project and during the campaign the detail and complexity of the Helix construction were unknown.to the backers.
It was never considered during the campaign that Helix would make his own factory to build the frame, but that the frame would be built by an existing company specialized in titanium construction. Peter moved to its own manufacturing only after have tried (during years) to find a solution to have the frame built at a price compatible with the selling price of Helix (he even considered to have a frame with glued tubes instead of soldered). This search of a subcontractor to build the frame was a big part of the delay.
Then most of the claims of the Kickstarter campaign were erroneous (if not lies) aimed at attracting people with little knowledge of folding bikes: the bike weight much more that promised, the bigger wheels with relatively narrow tires aren't an advantage wrt. 20" wheels with wide tires, Helix isn't safer that any other folding bike, titanium isn't a wonder material as claimed and the whole project demonstrate that its impossible to build a titanium frame bike for announced low price as claimed.
This last point is actually the whole problem: Helix loose money on every backers bike delivered and the business model based on a low price isn't valid for a price about twice as high, at 1200-1600$ with a titanium frame, it can be sold in big quantities, at 2690$, it become a niche product..
So Helix must sell many bikes ate the current price to have money to be able to build and deliver bikes to the backers. Unfortunately, the last batch of Helix wasn't sold as fast and easily as the previous ones and the war in Ukraine increased the prices of all material and components with as consequence a margin reduction on the sold and not yet delivered Helix (if any margin remain).