Something stupid this way cometh

Did you think that Chanel bike with the quilted leather accessories we blogged about last week was the most stupid thing you've ever seen? Well, friends, prepare to have your illusions shattered into countless tiny, sparkling pieces. We present to you... the Aurumania Gold Crystal Edition.

"Hey," you may be thinking, just as we did when we first saw this bicycle, "that's not a bad lookin' bike." From a distance, that's definitely the first impression - it looks like rather a classically pretty, no-nonsense, practical single-speeder. So you go in for a closer look. That's when the horror happens.

"What's that stuff round the head tube?" you think. "Surely it can't be...?" But it is. Them's Swarovski crystals, them is, and there's more than 600 of them encrusting various parts of the bike.

According to their website, Aurumania are a company devoted to the production and supply of products that "are designed and hand-crafted as the very best for the very few. That's why they all are sold as limited edition series. Numbered and intensely exclusive." Now, we don't speak dickhead, but Google Translate says that means "Over-priced crap for rich wankers." The website also says that "In the periodic table that lists all the pure elements found in nature, gold has the atomic number 79. We use this distinctive number - normally only familar to the cognoscenti - for a unique, swirling AURUMANIA tag symbol in gold." That'd be a cognoscenti including millions of chemists and just about any school pupil, then. And if it's normally only familiar to the cognoscenti, who are Aurmania making it familiar to with this bike? Tasteless morons who need to emphasise their wealth, perhaps? We'd have read more, but we were feeling sick by this point.

As you've probably guessed by now, it's not gold paint. Almost the entire bike is plated in 24 carat gold - even the rear sprocket, where it'll flake off after half a mile. However, that shouldn't be a problem because nobody who buys this bike is going to ride it. They even have a picture on the website of the bike displayed on the wall of some shitty baroque-style room with modern touches probably described as ironic, like a purple sofa, and you can also buy a matching gold-plated, crystal-encrusted bracket for precisely this purpose.

Want one? Then this blog isn't for you. However, you can purchase one of the fifty produced for a mere 80,000 Euros - which is £71,300.37 if you prefer British money, or $115,200 in the USA. That's some undoubtedly expensive shit, but it's definitely shit and a hell of a lot of money to pay for a Brooks saddle, which is the only part of this bike worth having.

Got one? E-mail us with photographic proof that you actually ride it and we'll print out this article and eat it.

Got a huge amount of Daddy's money to spend on a bike?

...then the Karl Lagerfeld-designed Chanel bike might be just what you need for nipping down to Sloane Square when you can't take the Range Rover because the leather seats don't match your Manolo Blahniks. Or hey, why not just buy another Range Rover with seats that do match, dahling?

Wondering how a completely normal bike with a bit of leather stuck on it can sell for six thousand quid? Because a lot of people are very rich, very shallow and very stupid, that's how.

Do not assume this is all about style over substance, however. The bike, of which just 50 have been made so that stinking-rich owners can use exclusivity as a substitute for the individuality that the rest of us have instead, comes fully equipped with such vital and useful features as quilted leather handlebar grips, matching panniers in the same material designed to harmonise with the company's handbags and - most useful of all - a jewelry roll located beneath the saddle where we mere mortals keep a Ginster's pastie and a bit of flapjack. We'll bet that more than one owner has been stupid enough to actually use it and then forgotten to remove it when leaving the bike blocking the pavement outside Harvey Nicks - and we'll bet that everyone this happened to was named either Jemima or Fiona, too. Even the supplied pump comes covered in dead cow, but the chances of owners ever using it are probably less than zero.

Launched as part of Chanel's spring/summer 2008 collection, the bikes retailed at £6,200 when new but second hand models are being bought by collectors for as much as £17,300. Which just goes to show how stupid some people are. You can read an online discussion about the bike here, but it'll make you despair for the human race.