This Space for Rent

Now that’s a peculiar-looking christmas bonus

the 2010 ikea christmas bonus

It’s a christmas bonus for Ikea employees, so it’s probably uncharitable to comment on it, but that’s the weirdest-looking (non-tallbike) frame I think I’ve ever seen. It’s like the younger brother of a Trek Y-Foil, if said younger brother had been used as an office chair by a race of giants, then patched up by a surgical team that thought it was a full-suspension mountain bike.

And it looks like it’s got an Ashtabula crankset.

I wonder if any of the other components are any good? It loses some utility (at least for the Portland area) by not coming with fenders, and the brake cable routing makes my teeth ache, but if the wheels aren’t steel and the derailers work it could be a useful bike, either as is or modified to suit with a better saddle, mustache and/or drop handlebars, and a nice front rack. True, it wouldn’t have the classically odd looks of the Murray Baja Experience!, but I’d think it might make a good commute/parcels bike if the frame didn’t messily self-destruct the first time you rode down a potholed road.