The New Face of Progress

Last Tuesday I predicted we’d eventually see the end of bicycle component standards and interchangeable parts as we know them, and on Wednesday I predicted standards would be replaced with distinct “ecosystems.” After that I rode some bicycles and fell to blathering on about electric bikes.

If all that seemed to be leading up to the announcement of the insane 50mph-top-speed, more-torque-than-a-VW-Jetta, and completely proprietary Audi e-bike, I promise it was completely coincidental.

My powers of prediction are just that uncanny.

If there’s anything on this bike that’s standard or currently available, it’s those German Skyway Tuffwheels, but even the transmission and shifting seems to have been either cooked up by Audi, or developed in partnership with a much smaller company. Yes, every once in a while we see a bike like this flicker around the edges of reality without ever materializing, but one of these days it’s going to happy. Here’s why:

1. It’s never been easier to design, engineer and mass produce parts. Audi just purchased Ducati; do you think they can’t afford an $1100 MakerBot? Word is, they also know something about designing products and bringing them to market. But that’s not even the best part. These days a tiny, innovative company like Acros can partner with a company like Audi, and see some truly amazing shit get made. It’s starting to make more sense for companies like Audi to take a page from the Silicon Valley playbook, and buy or partner with smaller companies, than it does for them to keep reinforcing the big guys. And that’s because the smaller companies are able to build pretty amazing things.
2. Why the hell not? Remind me again why a company like Audi needs to spec Shimano or SRAM components to create a new type of vehicle? Audi built this bike as battery research and a PR stunt–i.e. using a fraction of their marketing budget alone.
3. Times they are a-changin’. This isn’t a mountain bike. It’s some sort of mountain commuting Red Bull wannabe trick bike/social media center (it communicates with your smartphone and Facebook). The entry point for a completely new company isn’t going to be an existing category (like Honda’s faux-entrance into DH racing); it’s going to be a completely new type of bicycle. Nobody knew they needed an iPhone until Apple showed them an iPhone. Apple, Audi–whatever–if somebody creates the bicycle version of the iPhone, consumers will buy it.
4. The old network is crumbling. Really it is. The argument that no shops would carry something like, and thus it would never get traction in the U.S. market is such a blatant example of asshattery that it’s more sad than amusing. What would it cost Audi to make these and distribute these, never mind a company like GM or Toyota building one? The economy of scale for production and services of one of the world’s top ten car manufacturers is staggering. Using a fraction of their resources, large manufacturers could create a quasi bike industry to support their “mobility vehicles”–let alone do something economical, like buy an existing distributor and simply add their own products to the mix.
5. The other old network is crumbling, too. If you really think the few truly independent bike shops left in the U.S. would turn up their noses at the idea of selling something consumers want–and they can get easily–then you haven’t tried to put a kid through college lately. For every Trek and Specialized dealer in the U.S., there’s a guy across the street who wants a shot at the title, and some of them are better shops anyway.
6. Bicycles are spilling into mainstream America like oil from a ruptured pipeline. And in an entirely new way, too. This isn’t just Lance-worship and trends. The skinny jeans crowd has sold their skinny jeans but kept their bikes. Fat people are riding bicycles while smoking–not to get in shape, but to get somewhere, and cities that don’t even want to be cool are having to install bike lanes. American consumers are finally sick of telling the neighbors we fell down the steps again, and that Big Oil really loves us.
7. That social media thing. No, seriously. How elaborate a distribution channel do you need these days, when you can leave a bag of money on Zuck’s doorstep and reach a few million qualified leads? There is no barrier to reaching consumers these days.
8. And speaking of Facebook . . . . There are companies who could do this without blinking. Google’s investing in self-driving cars, mobile phone manufacturing and wind farms. Free cash flow at Google in 2011 was just over eleven billion dollars. To offer some perspective, the last time I checked, total sales of the entire U.S. bicycle industry were right at six billion dollars.

Maybe none of this will happen. Maybe bikes will keep on just as they are. From what I can tell, though, the idea that a change is coming seems more realistic than ever.