berlinonaut

You have been very vocal about our opinion over and over in this thread and started to sound like a broken record in an endless loop already ages ago. Possibly every single reader of this thread is aware of your opinion already. There's not much worth in repeating it endlessly w/o adding anything new. You had drawn your conclusions half a year ago - possibly those are still a good idea...

jur

Against the negatives Peter's drive and dedication stands tall. He's not perfect but he's throwing everything at the problem. The only way forward is forwards... Sounds crappy but it is probably true. I think Peter believes there is a solution.

Jipe

It is a big chance that he collected so much money, much more than the kickstarter goal.

Without this big amount of money, the Helix project would already be stopped because he wouldn't have enough money to set up a manufacturing process like he is doing now.

That said, I also think that the combination of an expensive material, a complex and expensive manufacturing, a complex bike design and a very low price, much lower than the market price for any titanium bike, is too much to be successful.

Pine Cone

I am sure he and him team are trying to solve whatever problem or problems are keeping any test frames from being completed, but I am frustrated by the reiteration of "... test bikes in two weeks..." that we have heard over and over.

There are nine updates from June to November which have made some variation of that statement. Peter has a bit of a credibility problem, and he isn't helping the problem.

Back in April 2017 Peter estimated that testing and production setup would take two months. The welding chamber arrived over six months ago and Helix has been unable to build a single test frame in that half a year.

I am still hoping to get my Helix, but they have clearly run into major problems, and are unable to talk about what is really going on. For me the lies and false optimism have taken their toll.

jur

Now that I don't fret about updates and progress, a great load has been lifted off my mind. I didn't fully realize how much impact it had on me.

Joe Remi

Hey Berlinaut, thanks for that bizarre search through everything I've ever said on the internet. I reserve the right to rejoin a thread whenever I damn well please and you can just suck it up. We clear? Good.

Pine Cone

Unfortunately for me, I really do want a Helix. The price now includes the original investment, plus more than two years of waiting, plus biweekly annoying incomplete updates.

It will be an interesting bike if they ever manage to build one.

Joe Remi

"Much lower than market price" is what I never understood about this project. If he wanted to sell it cheap, why not focus on the appeal of a compact fold with 24" wheels and make it out of steel or aluminum? He seems to have fallen in love with titanium - a not particularly popular material these days - and decided he could sell it at a steel/aluminum price. That would have been hard to do with a non-folding bike!

maxxevv

Without that big money, he wouldn't have gotten so overly ambitious as to set up his own factory but instead contract an established one to build the bikes. Which would probably have been delivered a year or more ago at least.

maxxevv

He's been posting updates, but it looks like he hasn't been posting the whole picture either.

As far as I read from the last updates here, and some random ones on the web, it will be lucky if the first deliveries make Spring '18.

( This is my own conjuncture to be clear, from what I understand of the manufacturing / delivery processes involved and timelines they entail, nobody else has mentioned anything on estimates of timeline.)

Jipe

I do not know exactly why Peter decided to set up his own factory but, seen that he first tried to find a sub-contractor and only decided to set up his factory late in the project, one very possible reason is that he couldn't find any existing titanium frame manufacturer able to produce the frame for a price low enough to fit into the bike price price paid by backers.

About the choice of titanium : I am pretty sure that this choice is a pure marketing choice, titanium bike have a kind of magic that no other material has, a big part of the communication during the kickstarter campaign was around titanium. The big amount of backers comes from this choice.

The only other choice that could attract as many people would be stainless steel like used for Moulton stainless steel bikes but the stainless steel tubes from Columbus and Reynolds are very expensive, as expensive as high end titanium tubes, and it is not possible to offer a bike at the price of Helix using this king of steel.

jur

From the last update I saw 2 weeks ago, the message was that all welding development and problem solving was now over, and they were just awaiting the CNC bits.

Pine Cone

This week there are no excuses or explanations. They have been working hard, it's coming together, and the test bikes will be shown in two weeks.

Words vary somewhat from the other 8 times Peter assured us test bikes would be done in two weeks.

Joe Remi

Since Boutakis seems to have time to scold backers about posting negative comments here, maybe he could post himself with a real explanation of what is going on with this bike, and how he sees this ending. This game of sending the same "in two weeks" update every two weeks is ridiculous.

maxxevv

That is not totally correct.

Reynolds 931 and equivalent stainless tubes from Taiwan are not that expensive. Close to Titanium prices but way less finicky to fabricate comparatively and there are factories in Taiwan that can build them very well.

It was more than just a simple "factory-cannot-build-to-a-price" issue. Because if it was, then his initial KS costs estimates were plucked out of the sky for starters. Also, there was a Ti fabrication factory based in BC, Canada, which was mentioned originally.

To the best of my knowledge, that would be Everti. Which seemed to have dropped off the map a few years ago. I really don't know of any other Ti bike factories based in that part of the world. Brodie doesn't build their own stuff, or at least not everything.

Unless of course he knows less about the bike industry than I do. Which is unlikely if he was to spend that kind of effort to build a factory.

That sounds improbable. Weren't the CNC machines supposed to have come in a few months ago? Typical CNC machine set up will take between 2~5 days max. Except maybe for super complex automated feeding 6-axis machines, which is unlikely was it would have cost in the 6 (to sometimes 7 )-figure $$$ range.

If its the 3-phase power supplies needed, then its unlikely either as he wouldn't have solved his welding issues otherwise. As that's needed for TIG / MIG welding equipment too.

jur

No, it was the CNC frame parts such as the rear swing arm lock and the dropouts that I meant. The CNC machine was online months ago, but for some specific parts a subcontractor is used, and that's where the delay apparently is. I don't know if that is still the reason for the delay now.

maxxevv

I see. Thanks for clarifying.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing fingers at the information you posted. But it is getting ludicrous to the point of infuriating even as a bystander.

Jipe

The problem with helix (and other folding bike) is that it is not about building a classical road or mountain bike frame but a special frame with many specific parts. Cost estimation and manufacturing of something not standard is much more difficult. Much less companies are willing to do it, it is much more expensive and sub-contractors are taking much bigger risk margins.

There is another kickstarter project which is about a folding bike, Vello Bike+. The people who launched this project already made and sell a folding bike but less sophisticated, the new design needs more specific parts. The bike has an aluminum frame (there is also a titanium version but few backer choose it) and it is manufactured in Taiwan, so not as ambitious as Helix, nevertheless, this project is now also delayed without a clear delivery date.

DaKineDatFolds

TWO WEEKS is a mantra that ends up with someone's head exploding.

DaKineDatFolds

Looks like a quick update was posted for the test bike. It's to be shown in the next update. I'd like to see something at the end of the month. Or is this code for TWO WEEKS?

jur

You mean there was an update inside the regular 2 week schedule? That would be a 1st I think. That surely means the bike or at least the frame is ready.

maxxevv

As with how its been so far, "I'll believe it when I actually see it".

DaKineDatFolds

The heading in bold was, Just a quick update

So yeah, I'm hoping this the update before the update.

Pine Cone

It was a regular 2 week update


A brief chronology of Helix bicycle test bike schedule estimates…

February 17, 2017
Timeline shows testing is about to start and will be complete by April 1, 2017

March 31, 2017
Timeline shows testing starting in 3rd week in April, finishing in mid-June

May 31, 2017 Helix Update
“Production test bike builds are underway”

July 22, 2017
“…expect to have production level welding completed this week”

August 5, 2017
“I am expecting to send out the test bike in 2-3 weeks”

October 1, 2017
“In parallel, we are completing the test bike and we are confident that it will be sent out in the next 2-3 weeks.“

October 15, 2017
“The test bike is almost ready”

October 29, 2017
“Unfortunately we need a little more time”

November 11, 2017
“Another week has gone by without a completed test bike”. Actually it was two weeks…


November 24, 2017
“…I have full confidence that we will be able to show you the test bike in the next update”

Winter is about to begin here in the northern hemisphere. Perhaps after hell freezes over a test bike might be completed in just 2-3 more weeks.

maxxevv

Next update will say that "the winter weather and the holiday season has befallen the factory" and all work has stopped till the New Year comes and gets around... ... ??