Joe Remi

That's a lovely story. I'm going to keep commenting on this bicycle as interest warrants, and you guys can keep complaining about repetition and posting "dead horse" emojis. I don't care.

linberl

I dont find my Bike Friday Pakit hard to carry folded at all....I have a Brompton Off Yer Bike handle on it and carry it just by that handle. Same way you would carry a Brompton, except my BF Pakit only weighs 19 lbs, lol.

Joe Remi

I knew you'd be along shortly! 🤣

I presume the poster is thinking of the traditional NWT-type design, which is indeed unwieldy..it's really more a packable bike than folding one. PakiT OTOH is a very compact and light, it's a great little folder.

linberl

Perhaps, but the NWT is a packable bike for travel, not a bike made for multi-modal use. It fits in a standard suitcase so there's no airlines fees. I do think I was very restrained in my response, however......holding back that "passionate" attitude, lol.

tds101 

Jeebus,...some of you really cry when the convo doesn't go your way.

Gibsonsean

boo hoo

Jipe

Any announcement of the shipment of a second batch of Helix ?

AvnerBen

Was supposed to be on the first week of March. That should be about now...

tds101 

ward00

After chastising some posters in the past for complaining about a now existent "non existent" bike, now its my turn to complain. The primary reason I plunked down money for the bike was the weight. For me, that what made the bike stand out over the rest. Now that advantage is gone, I'm really not sure why I needed another average weight folding bike. I ordered the bike with the single speed option. Anyone want to trade cash for my expected for delivery in July bike?

KentS

Yea I am talking about the original design; the newer ones were designed to be multi-modal friendly. I have a pocket rocket pro which is also about 19 lbs, which is great. But when I take it on the bus all the dangling parts pop out and poke people in the shins.

linberl

Yeah, but that's not what it was designed for, unfair to judge it in that regard. It would be like complaining that the Brompton doesn't float, lol. That said, I did take my NWT on the bus a few times....folding pedals and velcro straps work wonders or you can use a carry bag. Or you can just get a Pakit for multi-modal and save the NWT for travel =).

towndock

A question for those that know. How many bikes has Helix delivered so far?

AvnerBen

We know for sure about 5. The next update is supposed to come on beginning of March, which is imminent. The forecast was starting with 100 per month, eventually advancing to 250.

Joe Remi

It's anniversary day. Three years later!!!

tds101 

Jonesandrew

The backer of bike no. 6 is expecting to take delivery on the 11th of March. No indication yet on the quantity in this second batch.

AvnerBen

👍 Good news!

Jonesandrew

The current indication is that there's 5 bikes in the second batch (not confirmed by Helix). If that is confirmed, they're currently making 5 bikes a month. Looks like the ramp up in output is going to be painfully slow.

towndock

So... a hypothetical 10 bikes shipped. I recall there were over 1,000 ordered in the Kickstarter, plus perhaps some more after during an online ordering window?
What is the total order backlog?

AvnerBen

little more than 1700

linberl

Is it possible he's going slowly for a reason? My ShareRoller is ready to ship but the dev is sending a few units at a time to backers in his local area first to see if there are any issues or feedback he can incorporate before going into full shipment mode....maybe Peter is intentionally sending a few at first as well?

Jipe

Once the parts are available (frame, fork, rear frame, components...) assembling the bikes is mainly done by hand and the amount of bikes assembled per day or week or month depend of the amount of people working on the assembly. Once the bikes are assembled, testing them is also manual work, testing more assembled bikes before shipping them, requires more people.

These people are different people than the one building the frames.

To speed up assembly, Peter must set up an assembly chain (search for video of the Brompton factory to see how it s done for a factory producing about 50K bike per year), does such a chain already exist ?

The Vellobike+ KS project had the same problem and could never reach the initially announced production rate (that was smaller than what Helix would need to deliver all bikes in a reasonable amount of tine). Shipment of Vellobike+ started about one year ago and all bikes aren't shipped yet.

For the assembly, I think that Helix also requires more effort/time than a normal bike (examples: the lefty folding fork will take much more work/time to be assembled and mounted on the frame than a normal fork, the rear frame with its complex locking needs also more work/time, same for the folding stem...).

berlinonaut

As @downtube claimed he could assemble 500 Helixes per month on his own w/o an assembly chain or any assembly process - maybe Peter should employ him.

Jonesandrew

More photos of bike 5. I haven't made enough posts to include the full link. sh/ndyg0gzagmrgius/AADMPg1vhfNBbdb2_Oaeeof9a?dl=0 preceeded by dropbox dot com and a forward slash. If you're lucky enough to get your hands on one of these things, the first job will be to fix some temporary guards to keep the road debris out of the helixes (helices?) and the rear frame latch mechanism.