maxxevv

More often than not, its easier to look at things with some objectivity if you have no direct stake in it. Emotions will cloud judgement more severely than most people admit.

If 18mths delay is acceptable to the KS backers, bless them all. They deserve a good product.

However, if these "updates" were to stand up to scrutiny, then I really do not see why they have to be kept 'private'.
Also, if the claim is industrial espionage, then that's not a valid reason either as already pointed out. An industrial spy would have jumped in as a backer to get first hand information anyway.

Unless there has been additional industrial partners plowing (a big chunk of) money into the Helix company, the money collected from KS backers and pre-orders isn't sufficient to finance what has been described here.

It will be barely sufficient for a country like China, most definitely not enough for Canada.

I may have missed out on that but has it been mentioned somewhere ? The costs of all this equipping and components ? And where all the money is rolling off from ?

Gibsonsean

Not sure I get your point(s)?

Helix is a private company in a competitive market.

Backers are owed some level of visibility on progress on account of their stake/investment.

Who is anyone else to expect inside info, especially private funding details?

Certainly I doubt Helix would have struggled to secure additional private funding if need based on the design coupled with demand/interest evidenced by KS and pre-order volumes.

As to emotion, it is the non-backers who seem to use more emotional language and opine based on less info.

maxxevv

That's exactly my point. You've just manifested it.

You've got a stake in it, and you tend to look through it with tinted lenses.

I've not come across any statements of late of any additional input of money into the company and there you go in 'good faith' that there shouldn't be problems securing any of it. Its a conjuncture from your part, or was it mentioned anywhere by Helix themselves, make that 'himself', ??

People who don't have a stake tend to look at it with a much larger dose of skepticism and to a degree cynicism. But nobody who does have a stake wants to hear "too much" of it...

Not that we as cyclists and enthusiast don't want Helix to succeed but we the skeptical have seen too many red flags along the way not to ring the bell. We all want a new product brought to market , its what make the products we have improve and improve out enjoyment of cycling too.

And competition also breeds better products in the longer term for everyone.

But lets leave it as "not to expect too much after it has dragged so long", and first delivery won't be able to make it in July either.

Gibsonsean

Taking on backer order if you still can is good value to my mind vs pre-order pricing particularly considering the upgrades, portal access aside. I was in touch with a few backers looking to offload if you want contacts, or trawl the Kickstarter comments which is what I did.

Out of interest, did the second part of the pre-order payment get taken on time?

dmnobrien

I totally get the "extra info and perks for backers" thing.

What I don't get is Peter's refusal to share at least *some* updates with the general public. There are a bunch of lurkers out there (I'm one) who are hoping this bike will succeed, but are taking a wait-and-see approach. Pretty much the only updates we get are the occasional items "leaked" here. With all the delays and almost no info made public in the last several months, how many of us have written it off in favor of other bikes?

jur

There hasn't been visibility about this point. I also pointed this out to Helix. It is a dead certainty that if money does not start coming in at some point, then they can't survive. But that doesn't mean that Helix just bought all the machinery up front. There are much smarter ways of doing it, such as leasing. Also there are government incentives that a startup can capitalise on. These measures alone would stretch the Kickstarter dollar quite a bit, enough to last until now at least. The operating cost probably has been quite modest up to recently at least - a one man show, no orders placed until design was final, paying things off, leasing machinery and so on.

Gibsonsean

As an ex-lurker, I know that feeling!

He does seem pretty flat out from my interactions with him in getting a backer account set up - yes he was doing it himself.

Maybe external comms is just one more thing he doesn't want to have to deal with given the struggle with backer comms. A bridge to be crossed when he comes to it.

jur

I agree. My own biking life has moved on to such a degree that the Helix will be redundant if and when I finally get mine. I'm constantly debating which bike will I let go and I don't have an answer.

Perhaps an email to Helix with your concerns will see a general update done.

berlinonaut

You certainly have a point here - those with money involved are probably a bit biased and would not let their hopes go as easily (as this would basically mean they did misjudge when backing the project).
But on the other hand backers are obviously far better informed than "normal people" via the internal backer-portal - this may lead to a better foundation for their judgment than with the "externals" that have to jude from the outside w/o information or based on a limited amount of second hand information.

Gibsonsean

Well put. Though I would suggest that the compulsion to protect the sense of having made the right call is not particularly dependent on having put money on the line and applies just as much to those who made the call against.

Joe Remi

There's a very strong backer bias in this thread, to the point where any critic without money involved is deemed unworthy of discussing this ridiculous fiasco. Well, it's a ridiculous fiasco. I'd love to be wrong and everybody gets a titanium folding bike at an insanely low price, but I don't see it happening.

jur

Actually Joe, the backers are those with inside info, with actual photographic visibility of what's happening in the factory. So apart from Helix themselves, the backers are in the best position to give comment. On the other hand you have zero visibility, all you have is disbelief it can be done plus the gullibility to believe that a joke by smallwheeler was factual. But you keep beating your drum, OK we've heard you. You may turn out to be correct in your estimation but for the wrong reasons in the end. I have previously made some back-of-the-envelope calculations about the parts cost and the Ti material cost and so on, and for the $1600 or so of the KS campaign you can EASILY buy the parts several times over, given that you buy them in 1200 quantities each at OEM pricing and have them shipped there by the containerload. However as it stands now, there is pictorial proof that lots and lots is happening on the factory floor, but as I have said 5 months ago that this is a race against the cash crunch, that is still the case. However there is no evidence that the cash crunch has arrived.

If this fails it won't be because of your predictions it can't be done because it's too cheap, but because of about a year of time spent on redesigning much of the bike details and time spent on aborted manufacturing methods. That's all in the past now, it's clear that Helix went through a huge learning process too, but it seems they are really close now. One item to arrive, the tube cutter, and production can start. In the mean time, small quantities can be considered by using an external tube cutter contractor.

So to sum up, as far as I see, all the non-frame parts are there. The automatic welder is there (being programmed at the moment I guess). I haven't seen any large quantity titanium tubing yet - that may or may not be there, I won't pretend. The auto CNC machine is there, we have had a video of it cutting a head tube. We have a video of the inventor riding an engineering sample of the final design, doing wheelies and stoppies to show off the strength of the leftie fork and frame. There are published photos of the final design bike. The patent documentation is there. If there is one thing the inventor is NOT, it is an incompetent designer. He is clearly an outstanding engineer. What is also clear is that he is not gifted in estimating realistic time scales. He is unfortunately racing against time, but this is not unique - that is true in every case. I have had a personal assurance from him he is far from broke.

tmesis

As a non-backer, I've been following this thread from a distance. You have amply demonstrated your skepticism regarding Helix by this point, as attested by dozens of posts from you expressing this viewpoint over and over again. I, too, share a bit of your skepticism and hope that everything works out for the backers. But you have reached--surpassed--a point of adding no useful information to the conversation. All that I see from you is repetitive vitriol.

Joe Remi

Yeah, well, every time I speak someone tells me I have no right to my opinion 'cause they have all the super-double-secret info and I don't know nothin'. It's insulting.

Gibsonsean

I think you are confusing challenges to the rightness of your opinion with challenges to your right to an opinion.

Joe Remi

Possibly. I'll take my leave of this thread now and await the final outcome. I'm clearly irritating people, and can't remember why I thought commenting on this topic was worth the trouble. Tootles..good luck.

shrooms

This thread is my favorite. I check on it every day. If not that much drama in this thread I would probably have gone form this forum completely.
The backers haven't gone through all the painfull stages of grief yet. You can clearly see they entered bargaining stage which will be followed by depression and only then acceptance.

Gibsonsean

Missed this.

I have a stake because I am optimistic, not the other way around. I only became a 'backer' last week and made the decision to buy someone out based largely on the information and opinions shared on this thread, for which I have been grateful.

That optimism is based on the info available, reasoned conjecture based on my life experience and a weighing of risk/reward accordingly, all coloured by my own cautiously optimistic nature. I have explained my logic in other posts to date and have always been careful to distinguish between statements of information and of opinion in those posts.

I fundamentally disagree with your argument, if I understand it correctly, that information and opinion shared by backers must be unrealistic/unreliable because they are financially of invested.

There is no guarantee that this project will succeed and we won't know until bikes are rolling off the production line and reviews come rolling in.

In the meantime any view on the likelihood of the project's success or failure is of course conjecture. The question is how valid is the basis for that conjecture.

The arguments for being pessimistic have boiled down to:
1) There is no way a titanium framed biker can be delivered for the original backer price (lots disagree with this)
2) The project delays of 18+ months make it unlikely that it will succeed.
3) The project no way can afford the equipment investment.
4) There is no proof of progress.

The arguments for being optimistic, most best articulated by Jur, boil down to:
1) There are many positive indications of progress, albeit mostly only available to backers and not exhaustive.
2) Costs appear to have been tightly managed through the delay period. Helix have stated equipment is being leased not purchased, appear to have minimised human capital costs throughout the delay period and have provided some assurances that cash flow is not currently an issue.
3) The design appears to be outstanding and inspires significant market interest with proven marketability evidenced by KS and pre-order volumes potentially offsetting the negatives of delay and project management competence should Helix need to seek further funding.
4) It is just a bike and while more complex than many, is not an untried technology
5) The owner appears to still be fully committed to and invested in building his company

Far from definitive and everyone makes their own judgement accordingly.

tcs

That's nice. Any video/independent lab reports of the Helix' final design undergoing and passing ISO 4210, CPSC 1512, ASTM F 2273 or EN 14764 testing?

jur

Good that you ask. The designer showed details of how he designed the bike to comply, and the 1st small batch of bikes are not for backers, they are for testing against the relevant standards. That will likely happen in June/July. As for a video of that, not sure if we will see anything. It is not the usual thing for testing companies to film stuff they test. Maybe Helix would obtain a video by request and release it. It would be good for publicity. I will suggest it.

drade

I have been a fan of the helix bike since before it launched on kickstarter and have been lurking here for a few months. I understand all the worrying about whether the bike will be delivered or not. The last few days I was looking at electric skateboards and it seems most of them are start-ups and some were on kickstarter. I read a couple of threads (at least parts of them) at forums for electric skateboards and I realized that the discussions there are rather similar to this thread with people wondering whether they will actually get the product along with criticism towards the owners and their plans.

It seems these problems are relatively usual in start-ups. I think helix will probably make it, as the design seems amazing, but probably not before a lot of people's patience has run out.

jur

Bi-weekly update:

* Welding chamber is built and tested.
* Titanium material is there. A mind-boggling amount of tubing, of certified to international standards quality.
* As I posted here before as a possibility, Helix have temporarily sourced some tube cutting from the supplier of the laser cutter machine. A number of frames are now being built for compliance testing to relevant standards.

MrFlamey

Thanks for the update, Jur. Good to know that there is progress, and frames have finally gone into production, even if it is predictably quite behind schedule. I'll be very surprised if I get my bike this year, but also very happy if it happens.

DaKineDatFolds

Wow jur, you seem to be the most informed, and this is the most information about Helix I have seen since pre-ordering back in February. I have only received one email with a May update. Helix then stated that there would be an update in the middle of June. Nothing yet. What say 'they' on their current bi-weekly update? Are they still testing?

jur

I'm not sure where actual testing stands now. The idea as it has been put forward is to test frames that have been built using actual production equipment. The welding jigs each of which is also very complex, have been completed and assembled some weeks ago, so if testing was going to be done on production samples, then maybe that is either in the early stages now, or imminent.

There has been no further report that the laser cutter has been delivered, but since we get updates every 2 weeks, we don't know what has actually happened since the last update, which was about the welding jigs.