About this time two years ago we were inspired by a photograph on Twitter of a barbecue attached to the front rack of someone’s bike. It sparked a whole new yearning for a new kind of bike, a cargo bike. That dream was never realised although it did set us on the path to buying some touring bikes that opened up a whole new world for us.
You can imagine our delight then, when we heard about the knister grill, a barbecue that can be easily attached to the handlebars of just about any regular bike. Here were our two favourite pastimes combined!
Knister was the brainchild of a couple of bright young things from Germany who hope to set the world alight with their portable grill. Carolin Kunert met Justus Rudolf when studying for their degrees in Denmark. He was taken by a design she’d made for a bike mountable barbecue a couple of years earlier but, “it was mounted to the back of the bike and was too solid and inflexible.”
Justus explains that, “ because we both love biking, lived in a huge city, but liked getting into nature with our friends, we decided to make her idea a reality and developed it further.” They eventually won a startup competition and began planning a kickstarter campaign which they’ve just released this summer.
They’ve succeeded in producing something which is really pretty cool. It hooks onto your handlebars without any extra fittings in a few seconds and you don’t need any tools to attach it. They claim that it will fit any kind of bike – mountain, city or racing bike, although it may be an idea to remove your tri-bars!
They do advise not to grill while riding your bike which could be dangerous. But once you’ve unhooked it, it has a rather neat little stand and will feed up to 10 people. In the completely extended version the grill size is up to 49x29 cm big. It also has two zones which are optimized for meat and small food so that your cherry tomatoes will never fall through the grill again. You can store your charcoal and uncooked food inside it, while you pedal off to your favourite spot.
Carolin and Justus are pretty proud of their nifty little invention and believe that it’s the perfect product for people who live in big cities and don’t have the space for conventional barbecues and “for people who like taking their bike wherever they go.” Hmmm, sounds like us. “We think that socializing with friends over a good steak or some amazing grilled veggies and a cold beer has never been easier or more accessible.” Couldn’t agree more.
