The Saga with Rocket Electric Bike Continues
The Rocket Bike
File this article as another example of “Downs” in Crowdfunding. After receiving a promising update on my purchase of the Rocket Electric Bike in October, imagine my surprise when receiving November’s soul-crushing newsletter.
First, October’s update held the promise of a possible November shipment from overseas with the hopeful to-the-door delivery of sometime in December. I may have wanted a December delivery, but would not be surprised if it showed in January as the newsletter was filled with many hypotheticals based on bike colors and geographical regions. The U.S. would take first deliveries with early backers taking priority. This all came with the following quote:
We have remained optimistic throughout this process and we believe it will come to fruition. That is all we can do now whilst we prepare ourselves for the most important of aspect of everything, being able to satisfy our community.
Of course, nothing is set in stone and we must always expect this. Unfortunately, as has become my usual experience with crowdfunded campaigns, November’s newsletter pushed the ETA out even further. The newly estimated date has now become June 2022. If you are like me, you wonder how they arrive at these dates. We get it, they are all estimates, but you advertised a working bike.
Rocket Bike (In Action)
The cause for delay now stems from a lack of “Frame Stability”. I understand you don’t want your consumers to have an instable frame. I can just imagine the liability behind this. It just seems like this is Bike Building 101. How is it we are this close to production/delivery and we fail frame stability? Who is representing your Quality team and is he/she/they being replaced?
The Rocket Frame (Failed)
My biggest concern now will be, can this company bring a working bike to production? Was everything a ruse? The newsletter seems to have a large amount of transparency to it, but they also allude to volatile costs of goods. My experience tells me to not hold much hope in actually receiving this bike and judging by the comments, other backers are even more mad. This is very reminiscent of my earlier contribution to the PopSlate. Stay tuned for future updates.