31–40 of 113 posts
I'm not sure who's seriously interested in most of these features, fun factor nonwithstanding. One of bicycles' strengths is simplicity of critical elements, notably the gear switching. How do they make sure that the electronic system doesn't die on the rider when the battery goes flat? How do they deal with increasing slack in the lines? Who really benefits from turn signals? Unless they are mounted on special stalk…
Unlike others on this thread, I love where this is headed. I'd love to have a really smart bike. However, once I have that much tech on a bike, it would be impossible to park it anywhere without the risk of being stolen.
The grumpy old man in me likes my bike to be as mechanical as possible, I don't want to remember to charge my shifters, power meter, gps, etc. Maybe that's why I still ride a 1989 Trek 1200 with down tube shifters and biopace chain rings.
One cool thing that stood out to me was that these monitors will transmit data over ANT+ or Bluetooth. As someone who already tracks all my workouts w/ a Garmin watch, I welcome the ability to track more metrics like power output. Gives you a good way to objectively track your progress over time when training for events and can help you gauge the impact of sleep, alcohol, etc on your performance.
Unlike others on this thread, I love where this is headed. I'd love to have a really smart bike. However, once I have that much tech on a bike, it would be impossible to park it anywhere without the risk of being stolen.
I just worry there will be a bit of a donut hole problem. Where at the high end you have super smart bikes with electronic everything and on the low end carbon steel big box store bike and nothing in-between.
I'm not sure who's seriously interested in most of these features, fun factor nonwithstanding. One of bicycles' strengths is simplicity of critical elements, notably the gear switching. How do they make sure that the electronic system doesn't die on the rider when the battery goes flat? How do they deal with increasing slack in the lines? Who really benefits from turn signals? Unless they are mounted on special stalk…
For a commuter / daily-driver bike without weight concern, I think a belt-driven internal planetary gearset with electronic shifting would be ideal as the bike nearly becomes a sealed unit, without any exposed grease or need for lubrication or adjustments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Turn signals can help folks that have to bike up a hill and want to indicate they are turning. :) For the rest, I agree it increases the failure likelihood, but it is probably heavily mitigated in some cases by the fact that most of the power can be generated by the biker. These are not large gears, so the shifting capabilities probably don't require plugging in. And they should "fail to on" such that if they go dead…
Turn signal would be useful. Just yesterday morning I was almost hit by a car when I was merging from bike lane to left turn lane.
Anything you strap to a bike has to be reliable. If there is one thing you can say about mechanical systems it is that we know how to design them so they last the lifetime of a bike (wear parts excluded), anything electrical or electromechanical will have a shorter life than the equivalent that uses only mechanical parts. Just look at your average bicycle light set, even after I don't know how long we still can't mak…
> Just look at your average bicycle light set, even after I don't know how long we still can't make a set that lasts more than a couple of years. You're probably right about the average bike lights. But the good folks at Light and Motion make some incredible products. USB-rechargeable, bright, easily removable, and pretty durable in my experience. http://www.lightandmotion.com/
The grumpy old man in me likes my bike to be as mechanical as possible, I don't want to remember to charge my shifters, power meter, gps, etc. Maybe that's why I still ride a 1989 Trek 1200 with down tube shifters and biopace chain rings.
Even having gears at all can be a bit annoying, with the newer groupsets having a million gears in the cassette and proprietary chains. I really love my fixed gear.