The Bike Stoppa is billed as a safety device to enable parents to apply brakes to their children's bicycle. All I can see are some wonderful practical joke applications, but that's just me. It's Monday, so I'll avoid ranting about the ridiculous safety concerns about this device and let you have at it instead.
Hat's off to Carlton, who said he would mention it on today's edition of The Spokesmen Cycling podcast. Carlton will also mention the 20th birthday of Mountain Biking UK this month. Carlton has written for Mountain Biking UK since issue #2. In the fat anniversary issue there's a big Hall of Fame article where luminaries such Gary Fisher, Mike Sinyard, John Tomac, and a load of Brits -- including Carlton -- are mentioned. A big congrats to Carlton!
You can see a boyish Carlton as he was in 1994 in this video demonstrating leg waxing.
Back to those bike brakes: What do you think of them? Useful? A lawsuit waiting to happen? A product only for overly protective parents? Or a fantastic practical joke?
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Hey, Fritz. Thanks for the mentions. Shame you couldn't be on today's show It was a lively one: from Contador to Tim Jackson's hair growth.
ReplyDeleteI'm torn by the Bike Stoppa device. It could be useful in a small number of cases but as a normal learning-to-cycle aid? I doubt it.
Ingenious though, and possibly good for some other application, and not just joke ones.
Practical joke all the way. Before you even mentioned it, I thought of it.
ReplyDeleteJust think of the hilarity of hooking one up on a front tire of someone's road bike...get up to 20 MPH and slam it...BAM!
Wouldn't you notice it's on your bike before you had a chance to be the butt-end of a practical joke?
ReplyDeleteI can see it for kids with training wheels and parents without their own driveways, but otherwise it looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Just wait for some aspiring stunt devil to peel off as fast as possible, only to hit that 30-meter range...
...see...thats why i ride so slow some days...it's my mom, up in heaven, activating a celestial "bike stoppa" to keep me safe from just riding out into intersections (hey, i've never been hit, 'knock on wood')...
ReplyDelete...i could only wish she wouldn't activate it on the hills so frequently...
...w/ apologies to fritz, mom (in heaven) & "bike stoppa"...
Tell your roadie victim that you just bought him a new wireless computer. That will explain the black box attached to his bike.
ReplyDeleteI can see way too many complications using this regularly with kids, but I was raised when we were "free range animals." As soon as we could wobble away on our own we cruised as far as our little legs would take us. And we crashed. Lord how we crashed. Yep. hasnhasnhasnhasn't hurt me none.
It is cool.
ReplyDelete