Copying cycles

Bicycle rider in front of Oslo Opera House

I am pretty old now and embarrassingly I don't know to ride a two wheeler, three wheeler or a four wheeler. Its something that my mother never forgets. She asks me very often "When are you planning to get your license?". I will answer that another day.

Nevertheless my inability to ride a bicycle has not impacted on my fascination for them nor seeing opportunities around them. (at least I feel so)

I have this strong feeling that utilising commoditisation of 3D printing, someone will be able to make a strong impact on the large cycle market in the Northern Sri Lanka. Potentially if it could also add some more color and variety to the existing largely dull bicycles, it might and could go viral.

First question, is it doable?

Few years back I stumbled on the video below. It clearly shows that it was done a few years back. So definitely 'do-able'.  Technically I don't see a blocker in printing one of it with a dedicated team.

Can a business be made out of it?

My gut says yes, at the moment its not supported by any analysis or facts. I feel the way to do it, is to go through a phase of discovery. Lets form a team, pocket in some of our funds, buy 3D printer/s, material and work with a target day in mind. This exercise could help us establish whats the value addition or differentiation we could bring in. I believe in an affordable, personalisation trend with some super cool fibre mountain bikes hitting the roads with 3D printing.

So what next?

I had been trying to cajole the YIT team to buy in to this concept to run as the next project. Hasn't entirely sold it to the team, but at least have a few like Preethi, who seems to be open to explore. So I thought lets open up a wider discussion on this.

What do you think? Would you like to join this initiative? If needed, we can make this an open design? Eagerly looking forward to hear from the community.