Our friend Sue Knaup, executive director of One Street, has updated on the progress on the efforts to bring out the simple Bike Shift Lever. The group has been working to develop and produce easy to use, easy to repair bike components. It seems like progress is really being made.
The long hunt for a machine shop willing and happy to make our permanent casting mold for our Bike Shift Levers, has finally come to an end. They will begin machining the first mold out of steel this week at their shop in Salt Lake City, Utah. I’m thrilled that we have finally reached this next important step in the production process to create these simple, durable shift levers designed for people who rely on their bicycle every day.
This first mold will be a prototype marked as “Mold #1 2014” so that the shift levers I produce with it here in Prescott will be collector quality, sent only to supporters of our Kickstarter campaign last October. With their feedback, we will adjust the mold design so that the next mold will be ready for full production.
If all goes well, I should be using that second mold here in Prescott to produce shift levers for sale by late summer. At that point, we’ll also be ready to sign up license partners who are prepared to buy in and receive their own mold for producing these shift levers for their region of the world.
While many Americans ride bikes for pleasure, few actually rely on the bicycle as a primary means of transportation. In some parts of the world the bicycle can change the world. Sue Knaup, executive director of One Street, has worked for years to help those in the developing world get bicycles.