Crunch Bunch: Aurumania Bike, £67,000

It’s rather apt that our answer to the USA’s Silicon Valley has, as its creative epicentre, a dismal roundabout in east London. The streets around the ‘Silicon Roundabout’ (or the interchange at the junction of Old Street and City Road, as you might know it) are full of people who talk in binary, have haircuts so edgy they haven’t been invented yet and are working on technology that will change the way we ridicule strangers online forever.

If any of these people do a Zuckerberg, we’re willing to bet the first thing they’ll spunk their post-IPO winnings on will be a gold-plated fixie bike, and we’ve found just the thing. The Aurumania Gold Bike Crystal Edition has every visible surface plated with 24-carat gold, is studded with over 600 Swarovski crystals and costs £67,000.

In the future we may come to view the Aurumania as the poster bike for the end of days; the pedal-powered prophet that told us the human race was on an irresistible collision course with Armageddon.

But if you’re willing to ignore that possibility, we’re sure it’s a lovely ride. Until you leave the bike chained up outside a farmers’ market in Hackney and it’s pinched by a crack addict.

aurumania.com