Three young entrepreneurs are claiming to have a solution to a problem that cyclists could face each day by inventing the world's first "unstealable" bike.
One of the inventors had two bikes stolen from him, pushing the former students of engineering from Chile to come up with a solution to the frustrating crime.
Their ingenious solution is to create a bicycle frame that can be dismantled and then reconnected to transform into a lock, effectively making the bike its own bike lock.
Called the Yerka, the bicycle features a stylish steel frame that looks like any regular bike at first glance. However, the aluminum downtube of the Yerka can be split into two parts, which would allow the tube holding the seat to form a lock around an unmovable object such as a bike rack, a pole or a tree. The seat tube firmly connects to a component on the bike's front area to create the lock.
Thieves that are looking to steal the Yerka will have to saw through and destroy the seat tube, which would render the bike worthless and make it a bad idea to steal the bike in the first place.
While the bike will turn the tables and put the frustration on potential thieves, the transformation of the Yerka into its own lock is a simple one for the owners. According to the Yerka's creators, the transformation will only take 10 effortless seconds.
The three entrepreneurs, 22-year-old Cristóbal Cabello, 23-year-old Andrés Roi Eggers and 24-year-old Juan José Monsalve walked away from their programs in their university to focus full-time on the Yerka Project. While the trio received a $100,000 investment by a state enterprise fund, they decided to turn to crowdfunding website Indiegogo to further fund the development and eventually sell the first batch of Yerka bikes.
The first batch of 300 Yerka bikes have now been ordered, with the unstealable bikes to be out in the streets before long.
"We chose crowdfunding because it's the easiest way to make the product go worldwide," Cabello said, who is the CEO of the startup.
A total of 197 Yerka bikes were sold in the Indiegogo campaign, and about half of these will be going to customers located in the United States. The cost of shipping globally has left the founders of Yerka with no profits at all from the first batch of orders, but Cabello said that this was expected. The goal for now is for the Yerka to be known worldwide.
