Cycling will take centre stage in tomorrow’s episode of BBC1’s The Apprentice as contestants in the reality show hope to avoid being fired by crowdfunding a product aimed at bike riders and bring it to market.
Show supremo Lord Sugar, as you may know, is a keen cyclist. Well, keen enough to fly one of his fleet of Pinarello bikes around with him on his private yet so he can jump on it for a ride at his destination, but not so much as to support safe infrastructure in London.
Nevertheless, tomorrow’s programme, which airs at 9pm, is called Cycling Crowdfunding, and will see him set “the candidates the task of helping two entrepreneurs launch their new cycling product and getting the public to invest through crowdfunding.
“The teams must organise a PR stunt, create a campaign video and then pitch to a group of cycling retailers to try to secure orders.”
A couple of preview clips have been released. The approach taken to the PR stunt on this one doesn’t exactly fill us with confidence – mime artists staging a road traffic collision at Waterloo Station, then bursting into song?
Contestant Samuel Boateng, who came up with the idea, said: "We've got to create a story that’s going to draw people in and get them interacting with our product.”
From the look on their faces, it didn’t seem that team mates Trishna Thakrar or Grainne shared his enthusiasm.
Mind you, Karen Brady doesn’t seem too enthused either at the angle the other team are taking as they film their video in Hackney.
We’ll be tuning in to have a look. Well, a peep through the fingers covering our eyes, most likely.