The “Yerka,” a prototype designed by three young Chilean engineering students, is the latest entry in a recent trend of bikes that can be locked using some of their own parts. They include Brooklyn-based “Seatylock,” which uses its saddle seat as a lock, and Seattle-based “Denny,” which is locked with its detachable handlebars.
But the inventors of the Yerka have made a twist in that approach. The bike’s lower frame opens up into two arms that are then connected to the seat post and locked to a post, so thieves would have to destroy a Yerka to get it unlocked, leaving it valueless.
“That’s why our motto is ‘a bike that gets stolen is no longer a bike.’ What we have here is truly an unstealable bike,” said Cristobal Cabello, who came up with the design during a college engineering class with childhood friends Andres Roi Eggers and Juan Jose Monsalve.
