For those of you who have been following RASOULUTION for a while, you might remember Trond Hansen, our very first managed athlete. While he’s been retired from the Freeride scene for a while now, he’s still very much a dear friend of the agency and he came to us with his latest idea; the Kidreel, a tool that allows parents to pull their child (on their bike) on the ascents and easily let go on the straightaways and before the descents. It’s a reel that easily mounts on the kids bike and automatically rewinds so that you can tow them when needed, while letting them ride freely when they can.
Here’s the Kidreel story:
It started when former Freerider Trond Hansen wanted to bring his son on MTB rides. After a couple of difficult attempts he mounted a reel from a Stiga snow racer on his sons bike.
It worked brilliantly as he could grab hold and let go easily along the way.
He contemplated if this was a product for the open market, but thought to himself that the marked might be too niche.
His friend Andreas Braaten and his brother in law Henrik Haldorsen, thought differently after trying it out for themselves.
Andreas mounted the reel on his 2 year old sons bike and called Trond right away, claiming that this solves a common problem for all parents. He also said that this helped his son learn how to ride the bike in a day, since he could focus fully on keeping his balance.
Andreas´ girlfriend said that this makes the walk in the city or the ride to the store way easier.
She used to bring the baby carriage as backup for short trips in the city, but with the reel on the bike, it didn’t matter if her son was out of energy.
Tronds brother in law, Henrik Haldorsen, is an engineer, and like Andreas, he claimed that all parents needs this after mounting the reel on both his girls bikes.
So they decided to put the idea into life, and started making prototypes for testing and setting up production fasilities.
Along the way the three founders brought on Magnus Furset, a still photographer and cinematographer that is an all round digital wizard, and they have started off focusing on making the brand come to life within the team.
Trond, Andreas, Henrik and Magnus are now running a campaign on Kickstarter these days, which you can check out by heading over to the KidReel page!