IKEA Is Selling a New Bike Designed Just for City Life

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If you live in a big city, IKEA is great for two major reasons: all sorts of delicious cafeteria foods and, of course, delightfully inexpensive furniture you can actually afford for your tiny apartment. Now, the Swedish torture by build-it-yourself-furniture company has created yet another practical product designed for the busy, space-deprived city life: a bicycle. 

Per IKEA's famously weird nomenclature, the unisex bike is called SLADDA, and it's set to arrive at your local furniture labyrinth/meatball destination sometime next month (although it looks like you can buy one online right now). The bike boasts a lightweight and rust-free aluminum frame, an oil-free belt drive with automatic gears, and a simple "click-in" system for easily adding and removing accessories like a handlebar basket. IKEA claims these features make the SLADDA comfortable and low-maintenance. As you can see in the company's launch video (shown above), it looks pretty great for an everyday city bike.

However, the price is a bit higher than what you might expect for an IKEA product, starting at $399 for members of the IKEA Family program and $499 for everyone else. Oh, and -- surprise! -- you'll have to assemble it yourself. As for accessories, the SLADDA helmet costs $24, a lock kit costs $15, and the matching front rack (handlebar basket) will set you back another $25 bucks. If you really want to go all out, IKEA sells a SLADDA "click-in" system bicycle trailer for $130, which could be useful for hauling all the impulse purchases you make every time you go there.

Maybe riding a bike everywhere will make you feel less guilty about all those Swedish meatballs and 50-cent hot dogs. Of course, you'll have to find room in your tiny apartment to store the thing. 

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Tony Merevick is Cities News Editor at Thrillist and would love to own a bike again sometime soon. Send news tips to news@thrillist.com and follow him on Twitter @tonymerevick.