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Buyers keen on Xiaomi-backed 'luxury' bike

By Henry Cooke | March 31, 2016, Thursday | Online Edition

A Xiaomi-backed bicycle has smashed past its crowdfunding goals, raising close to 4 million yuan (US$619,000) from eager buyers in just eight days.

The iRiding QiCycle R1 costs 20,000 yuan (US$3100), and comes with smart tracking features that can hook into Xiaomi smartphones, measuring a rider’s torque, revolutions per minute, and speed.

IRiding is backed by Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi, who are selling the street bike through their MiStore. In a familiar pattern for the company, Xiaomi have gauged consumer interest in the expensive bike by running a crowdfunding campaign prior actually releasing the product, aiming to net just 50 interested buyers.

That goal was surpassed in the first day of fundraising, and as of Thursday 196 bikes had been paid for, and are expected to ship in early May. iRiding CEO Huang Weixiang said that number was just the start.

“Sales volume is going to be much higher than we ever predicted,” Huang said.

“We can see more than 700 consumers tried to buy our bike over last few days."

After the crowdfunding campaign ends the bike would be available online from Xiaomi’s Mi Store and at physical stores in large Chinese cities.

The carbon fiber road bike weighs just 15.4 pounds (7 kg) and features electronic gear shifting, along with heat-resistant brakes. The tracking systems hook into a smartphone app to let riders precisely measure a variety of metrics, from speed to calories burnt to the physical force riders are putting into the bike.

Yet even with all this technology, iRiding aren’t keen to call the vehicle a “smart-bike”.

Huang said Xiaomi, an investor in his company, also helped design the bike, but most of the expertise comes from within iRiding.

Xiaomi are hard at work developing an "ecosystem” of products, manufactured by partners but bearing their “Mi” brand. They launched a smartphone-controlled rice cooker earlier this week, and announced that they had invested in 55 different partner brands.

Despite officially launching the ecosystem this week, Xiaomi have long invested in and sold devices built from other companies. The fast-growing Chinese company made a name for itself selling cheap but well made Android devices, becoming the world’s third largest smartphone manufacturer just three years after launching their first phone.

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