Turbospoke Review

Did you ever use clothes pins to attach playing cards to your fork or chain/seat stays so that they stuck into the spokes? It made a lovely clicking noise as you zoomed down the street. It might be an age thing, since I grew up in the 60's, but I sure loved doing it when I was a kid? I put them on my lovely banana seat Sting Ray as I recall?

by permission http://www.flickr.com/photos/bike/

The other day I was poking around somewhere in Cyber world, and I came upon a product that was a tricked out version of the same thing. It is known as the Turbospoke!



The Turbo Spoke is basically just a small plastic holder that clamps to your chain stay, and you insert these industrial strength cards (in place of playing cards) into the holder and out into the spokes, and then there is a fake plastic exhaust pipe that amplifies the sound. The cards are known as 'Motocards', and they come in 3 shapes to give you a slightly different tone, or maybe noise is the better word? You can also adjust their  insertion point into the spokes for more sound adjustability. The cards are named the T100, T250 and T500, and the varying shapes give rise to "different engine sounds", well at least that what they call it? It certainly doesn't thump like my Aprilia V Twin or my old Ducati 916? However, they are just playing cards hooked up to a fake plastic exhaust pipe!



The exhaust pipe does sort of look like my Aprilia Tuono, and it even has a big bore coming out the pipe to mimic a motorbike. The kit does come with a slew of stickers (flames, etc.) so you can accentuate your exhaust pipe if you wanted, but I liked it just plain. Now if my daughter got a hold of the stickers, it would be blinged to the max!

So what does it sound like? The video sort of gives you an idea into the unique sound of the unit, and it does have a sort of motorbike sound to it, especially coming out of the exhaust pipe.


Turbospoke Overview from Brian Mullin on Vimeo.

Ok, I doubt it will stay on my bike for very long, but it was kind of fun breezing around the neighborhood with it on my bike, and I am sure more than a few people thought I was slightly deranged. It should morph its way onto my kid's bikes very shortly, right where it belongs! 

Conclusion
It's cheap, fun and sort of silly, but it was a total hoot. The Turbospoke brought back vivid memories of hooking playing cards onto my bike. I think any kid or a silly adult will get a kick out of this unit!

It certainly makes a unobtainium bike look trick?

MSRP $24.98

http://www.turbospoke.com/