We’ve been over Citi Bikes’ problems over and over again. They’re too blue, they stubbornly refuse to kill anyone, you feel like kind of dork while riding one. A problem we hadn’t considered is that they aren’t electric bikes that can reach speeds of up to 20 miles per hour, but if you thought that was a problem, there’s now a Kickstarter trying to solve it, by funding a box you attach to the bike that functions like an electric motor.
The Kickstarter is trying to raise $100,000 to ramp up their production and start selling to the general public, so that we can all turn our Citi Bikes into speeding death bikes that move as fast as cars. The ShareRoller, as the product is known as, is a tiny box that you attach to the front of a Citi Bike and becomes an electric motor once you begin pedaling. That motor will then propel you at speeds up to 18mph without even pedaling, higher speeds if you do pedal. So it…turns your bike…into a thing that’s not quite a bike.
As if to further drive home ShareRoller’s pie in the sky idea that this isn’t problematic, they bring up the idea of taking your ShareRoller-equipped bike over the Brooklyn Bridge in their Kickstarter video, which is enough of a pain in the ass when you aren’t going twenty miles per hour. We predict both a successful Kickstarter and then a rash of calamities as people start using this.