Kickstarter

We want to encourage people to ride bicycles in their everyday lives, so we invented Contrail.

Contrail turns your bicycle into a paintbrush leaving a temporary mark of your bicycle's path.

You attach it to your bike and as you ride, it leaves a colorful line behind you. When many people ride with Contrail, the result is a colorful path which illustrates where bicycles are riding. We envision artists, non-profits and community organizations using our product to create art, promote their events and celebrate shared spaces.

Contrail uses washable, non-toxic chalking fluid made from eco-friendly pigments. Like a jet's contrail, the lines on the road will fade with time and rain.

We need to raise $10,000 to make Contrail a reality.

We've put a large amount of time and money into developing the Contrail device. And now, each fully functioning prototype costs about $1000. However, we can sell them for as little as $29 if we can build tooling and order parts in large enough quantities. We would like to start by building 2,000 pieces and we need your help.

Here's where the money will go:

$5,700 A down payment on the tooling to make the housing and the gears.

$2,800 To pay for the first 2000 pieces, half of which will be donated to non-profits.

$1,000 To visit the factory in order to ensure that everything is built to our standards.

$1,500 To help coordinate and promote our first non-profit partnership event.

We will give Contrail to non-profits

Help non-profits and community organizations promote their causes while simultaneously promoting bicycle use and safety. Here are a few of the projects we want to fund with money from this Kickstarter:

Project 1: Community Rides

Working with an organization like TimesUp! we want to create community rides which will help people explore their neighborhoods and recognize safe zones to ride in. Contrails will be used to help lead these rides and celebrate the growing bicycle community.

Project 2: Fundraising Rides and Races

We would like to help raise money for causes by donating Contrails and marking fluid to organizations like Ride for the Cure. This would allow these highly visible fund raising rides to leave a lasting impression and message in the spaces they pass through.

Project 3: Safe Route to School

Working with the Biddeford Maine Community Bicycle Center, the City of Biddeford, Maine and local businesses, we want to develop a system of safe routes for young adults to bicycle to school. Local businesses will help fund signage and extra crossing guards to ensure that these routes are as safe as can be. To celebrate and illustrate the new paths, over a designated week students will ride from school to their neighborhoods and back using donated Contrails. The result will be a path of lines that converge and grow brighter as they approach the school.

Our goal is to use Contrail in many creative ways to get more people on bicycles and to create safer shared spaces in communities around the world.

Please help us out! The sooner we can raise these funds, the sooner we can get Contrail onto our streets. Thank you!