Last year, I regaled MNN readers with tales of an Israeli inventor’s cardboard bike that could be built with $9 of materials and sold for $20 to $60. The idea was to jump-start Third World mobility with practically free bicycles. Did it sound too good to be true? You bet, but it was an ultra-cool concept.

 

As an altruistic idea, the cardboard bike was unassailable, but now that Cardboard Technologies (CT) is getting ready to actually launch the thing, we’re seeing complications. In a recent conference call with inventor Izhar Gafni and company CEO Nimrod Elmish, the concept of the $20 to $60 bike seemed to have pedaled off into the sunset.