If you were alive in the year 2000 and old enough to remember what was going on back then,

chances are you recall at least a little bit,

the out-of-now-where popularity of a toy scooter called the Razor.

The device itself was a relatively simple and post-hawk, at least,

seemingly obvious upgrade to an existing technology.

A Swiss man named Vim

Obiter, a former Swiss banker who quit because he claims the work was boring, and who has said

that he had this revelatory moment in which he decided to build what became the razor

because he was lazy and wanted a sausage from a place located not that far away,

but just far enough to be tedious to get there by walking. He invented the razor then to help

him cover these unfortunate in-between spaces, these micro distances that are not far enough

to justify the hassle of using a car or even a bike,

but a little bit too far to casually walk.

When he was younger, Obiter's family would putter around on motorbike-style scooters.

Think Vespas, the kind that you sit down on and can ride on roads.

And they would also build their own little wooden scooters

using a plank and a pole and some wheels attached to the bottom. As an adult, though, wanting to

solve the problem of covering those weird in-between distances without having to worry about

parking something, the size of a bike or a Vespa or a plank

with some wheels on it, he developed a plastic and aluminum scooter that was the right

proportions for an adult to ride, that had additions to make it more comfortable, like soft

grips on the handles, and importantly, one which could be folded up. So when you arrived at a bar to get a

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