Hummingbird’s goal is simple: To use better design and innovation to allow people to enjoy more freedom. They were inspired by a problem of their own that had not had an existing solution. A lightweight, beautiful, high-performance bicycle they wanted to own was not being built by anyone. Teaming up with Prodrive, Hummingbird was able to combine the key attributes of innovation, technical precision, and style to create just such a product – the Hummingbird Bike.
Hummingbird Bike’s Simplicity and Effectiveness
The result of their efforts was the lightest folding bike in the world. The bikes are made in England and are formulated from an advanced composite material called carbon fiber, which is used in aerospace and racing thanks to its stiffness, light density, and vibration dampening. Each lightweight carbon frame is hand-built and sprayed by Prodrive engineers, with the final assembly taking place at Prodrive headquarters in Banbury. The same facility also assembles race and rally cars for mega-brands like Subaru, Aston Martin, and Renault.
The wheels on the Hummingbird bike permit faster movement with significantly less effort. They are faster to accelerate, stronger, and more durable than typical wheels on a larger bicycle. These have a smaller 16-inch diameter in order to help reduce the bike’s overall length. This makes it more compact while retaining the comfort of a full-sized bike, though much easier to transport. The frame is powerful and designed to be simultaneously comfortable to ride and robust. Hummingbird’s safety pin, the hummlock, makes the bike’s folded form easily portable and keeps all of the pieces locked together
To fold the bike takes under five seconds, thanks to its expertly designed pivotal system. It requires simply releasing the wheel under the frame, clipping the handlebars under the swingarm, and dropping the seat. Simple, and yet, genius.
Hummingbird Bike Styles
The Hummingbird bikes are available in multiple varieties including the single-speed model, a multi-speed model, and an electric one.
Single Speed
The single-speed Hummingbird was the original Hummingbird Folding Bike and is the lightest folding bike available in the world. The single gear hub has a smooth, light design, with gearing being carefully balanced to assure effortless riding. It weighs in at a mere 15 pounds (6.9 kgs). It is available in Hummingbird yellow, blunt orange, freedom blue, prestige black, carbon edition, or an alternate, custom color scheme.
The single-speed model has three gearing combinations: 60-gear inches (easy turning, slower), 65 gear inches (medium turning, moderate speed), and 72 gear inches (more turning effort, faster speed).
Multi-Speed
The multi-speed Hummingbird bike offers riding freedom and is the ultimate city bike. Armed with a 4-speed Sturmey archer internal gear hub, the bike has a direct drive in 1st gear design. The twist grip shifter permits near-seamless gear switches and simple operation whether the bike is in motion or static. Like the single-speed model, it comes with a variety of color options, including a custom color design.
There are even two versions of the multi-geared bike: belt drive and chain drive. The bike weighs just 18 pounds (8.2 kgs) with the gearing broken down as 46 gear inches in the 1st gear, 59 in 2nd, 75 in 3rd, and 96 in 4th gear.
Electric
It’s not surprising then that the electric version of the bike is the lightest foldable electric bike in the world. This ultimate city-friendly electric bike will allow greater cycling distances, with faster times, and a reduced effort. The Hummingbird electric bike has a 250W motor and a built-in battery. The Bitride App helps riders monitor the battery and the speed of their bike, and allows them to customize the assist settings. As with the non-electric varieties, the bikes can be of a choice of one color or a custom combination.
The electric model is 22.7 pounds (10.3 kgs), and possesses 65 gear inches. The battery has a 158Wh capacity with a full travel range of approximately 30 Km.
Pricing And Availability
The single-speed model is available at £3495.00, the chain drive multi-speed runs £3,745.00, the belt-drive multi-speed costs £3,945.00, while the electric model will cost £4,495.00. All models with custom colors will run an additional £500. Every bike arrives fully assembled and includes a quick start guide to get you mobile and riding around at your leisure.
Startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend to become registered, startups refer to new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to be successful and influential. Some startups become unicorns; that is privately held startup companies valued at over US$1 billion.
Actions
Startups typically begin by a founder (solo-founder) or co-founders who have a way to solve a problem. The founder of a startup will begin market validation by problem interview, solution interview, and building a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. a prototype, to develop and validate their business models. The startup process can take a long period of time (by some estimates, three years or longer), and hence sustaining effort is required. Over the long term, sustaining effort is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes. Having a business plan in place outlines what to do and how to plan and achieve an idea in the future. Typically, these plans outline the first 3 to 5 years of your business strategy.
Design principles
Models behind startups presenting as ventures are usually associated with design science. Design science uses design principles considered to be a coherent set of normative ideas and propositions to design and construct the company's backbone. For example, one of the initial design principles is "affordable loss".
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