Slightly tongue in cheek but it’s actually fascinating.
We asked ourselves, why couldn’t handlebars function like a car’s cockpit?
Isn’t this just a cycle computer? I have a cycle computer that clicks into place on my bars. It navigates and connects to sensors like pedal cadence sensors, power meters, heart rate monitors, it displays speed. All while being removable so I can easily charge it or just not bring it when I don’t need those functions.
It’s literally a cycle computer that also puts a finite lifespan on your fucking handlebars.
You can get the same effect cheaper by JB Welding an Elemnt Roam to your handlebars.
Honestly with the way the cycling industry has brainwashed most of the bicycle enthusiasts, they will have bought six different bicycles in the time this takes to break.
Otherwise, your point stands. I’m more of a Garmin Edge guy though, personally.
I’m running a Garmin Edge too. I just wanted to use something other than garmin in a post for once.
This is e-waste. This could just be a decent bike computer and a light that you could slap on to any bike, but they had to go and make a thing that forces me to replace the handlebars that I picked to match my body and riding style? An expensive electronic thing that i can’t remove from my bike? No thanks.
Wait’ll you find out about ebikes!
I mean it’s all e-waste at this point. My bikes are all carbon, which ain’t recyclable, plus the shifting is all electronic, and yeah my eMTB is a ticking timebomb that will be otherwise useless if either the battery or motor quits.
On your other points: Carbon bike frames can be repaired, so even though they aren’t recyclable, they can still last a long time, so they’re not the worst. Electronic shifting feels a bit gimmicky to me, but all the mount points for the shifter and derailleur are standard and they can probably be swapped out for a standard cable shifter in the future without changing other parts on the bike.
It’s pretty gimmicky for sure. The electronic setup on my road bike is pretty finicky too, id rather cables to be honest, but it’s just the way everything is going. It especially sucks when you are at the door all geared up and ready to go, and realize that one of your batteries is dead.
Electronic shifting felt gimmicky to me until I tried it. It’s actually pretty awesome, although if you don’t want to spend the money for it, there is also great mechanical shifting still available.
My road bike is electronic shifting and absolutely awesome. Every shift is absolutely perfect, and I set it up to handle compensating the large gear jump between front chain rings automatically so I don’t have to shift the rear to compensate myself. Also, since I’m still getting used to the new gear ratios compared to my gravel bike, it’s nice that my headunit can warn me when I’m doing something stupid with the gear selection.
I sometimes wish my gravel bike was also electronic, but it’s not like I enjoy it any less because it isn’t. It’s a “man, if I had a shitload of cash laying around” not a “I neeeeeeeed this” thing. I still put 3,500 miles on the bike, it’s still an awesome bike, I still have reasons to ride it.
Oh, I’m definitely upset about ebikes with motors and batteries integrated in the frames, with no replacement parts available. Often you can’t even install used parts because the firmware needs to be flashed by a dealer for your specific bike.
I own an ebike now and I’ve built one in the past. The one I built had a powerful mid-drive motor and could easily have been reverted to a normal bike (I got hit by a car before I ever got to think about that) and the ebike I have now has a basic bafang hub motor with a bolt-on battery, all of which I could easily replace if they failed.
The motor controllers on both bikes are/were also able to be reflashed or replaced without going to a specific dealer.
There is no reason that companies could not design ebikes and their components to be repairable, replaceable, and reprogrammed by users except for profit, and it’s gross as hell.
Technically not really e-waste, as it’s just the same cycling computer you were buying anyway, and presumably would have a similar lifespan.
The waste part is the non-electronic bits, i.e. when the computer needs replacing you need to bin off the attached bits of aluminium and rubber that make up the rest of the handlebars.
Yes the moment the “article” framed modularity and replaceability as a problem it was clear for me that this is nothing else than product placement… Those things are features I would wish my car would have.
I dunno where you live, but round these parts people are having their phones and PDAs snatched off their bikes.
While riding?.. what parts are those? 😲
I’d be more concerned about leaving an integrated device where it can be vandalized, instead of taking it off the bike when it’s parked.
London. It’s a bit wild here at the moment. As poverty goes up, people get more and more desperate.
But at the same time I would rather an integrated handlebar than clipping on my phone anyway. In my time I’ve see so many broken grips for phones and PDAs, I’m really not a fan. Maybe MagSafe can negate that, but who knows.
Wow… that’s sick. 😲
MagSafe wouldn’t help, it’s just a bunch of magnets, yank and it’s gone. It could keep the phone charged, but that’s about it.
When I used to ride a bicycle, I had a front torch, back light, and a phone in a waterproof “cage-case”, attached to some solid mounts with a “unlock lever, rotate, slide” release mechanism. Quick enough to take them off when parking, not easy enough to randomly grab and run. Still, using an old phone was an extra precaution, also against random accidents (almost got clipped by a bus or van, more times than I’d like to admit 😬).
A trick I learned about mounts, is that they can break from vibration over time, so it’s a good idea to add some rubber under the mount as a shock absorber. As a bonus, it protects the paint. Also, never buy the cheapest one… if you can’t throw it against the floor and keep using it, then it’s not good enough.
You don’t need a crazy product like this, you just need a bolt-on bike computer mount, then.
Yeah, the attack surface of a locked-up bike is much larger than that of a bike being ridden?
If you don’t want your phone stolen off the bike, a removable bike computer still makes more sense, I think.
Hell it takes me the rightful owner a fair bit of careful maneuvering to get that thing off the bars (my mount needs to be both twisted while having the release latch pressed). Someone would surely be getting a few smacks upside the head as they were trying to do that. A MIPS powered headbutt or two, as well.
I mean, one of my bikes has expensive electronic parts that can’t be removed.
It’s also the bike that absofuckinglutely does not get left anywhere, like to the point that I don’t even have a lock for it.
These handlebars are still dumb though.
The novel funding method could be described as a mixture of business and pleasure
Uhm… that sounds like an old method, some would call it the oldest one in history!
Yeah, the clickbait hed suggested something far less actually interesting. This is a decent tale of using modern society to bootstrap a product. Wasn’t expecting the Porsche/BMW connection.
A rearview mirror camera had originally been planned, though any rear-focused plans are currently on hold.
Sorta lame they didn’t elaborate. On hold because of some technological hurdle they can’t overcome? A myriad of regulations that are tough to navigate?
No idea.
The camera likely provides a rear view on OnlyFans.
Features include GPS connectivity for mapping as well as 5G and Bluetooth support, integration with common cycling sensors, long battery life, built-in lighting, and more. A rearview mirror camera had originally been planned, though any rear-focused plans are currently on hold.
That seems a little silly to me. It could be lower cost if it relied on the user’s smartphone for some of this hardware. But I’m not a cyclist, so perhaps there are reasons that aren’t obvious to me.
I believe this is what those handle bars are trying to replace I couldn’t be bothered to go wake the rest the sensors up or load a route so half the data fields are blank. It also can show a route map (and reroute while offline), alert for cycling specific hazards, show Strava segments (assuming you have that set up), and a bunch of other stuff that I honestly don’t know because Garmin crams so much stuff into their stuff that I’m not sure anyone actually uses it all at the same time. There’s really no reason that a phone can’t do what this thing does since most sensors have the option of connecting through Bluetooth instead of ANT+ now. But a phone won’t do it as well, or nearly as long. The 840 I pictured has something absurd like 25 hours of battery while running navigation on multiband GPS if I remember right.
Yeah, but I was only commenting on things like GPS and 5G. I know that my phone doesn’t track my heartrate (by default) and so on. I see no reason not to have those functions in the handlebar computer. I just don’t see why actual phone features would be duplicated, making the whole thing more complex and more expensive.
From experience with FitBit that kind of GPS usage absolutely eats phone battery. Also, phones are not the most accurate things with GPS. I would have weird meandering paths and cut corners everywhere since it piggybacked off the phone. And this was nearly ideal, dead flat, open area, I can’t imagine how wonky it would have gone with bridges and tunnels and such.
The Garmin on the other hand is so absurdly accurate that I can tell where in the lane I rode even under bridges and through short tunnels, and it will keep that accuracy going literally all day without any battery concerns. I really only need about 16 continuous hours of battery at the most for the riding I do right now, although my wife has been trying to talk me into trying bike packing where the couple days of battery the Garmin should be able to do might be useful.
Phone service, I kind of agree can be tethered from a phone (actually, thats exactly how my bike computer does it for live tracking and emergency alerts if I crash). I’m not that fussed about my phone’s weight, so I just stick the phone in a jersey pocket and kinda forget it’s there. The human body makes for a decent enough shock absorber that the vibrations that kill phone cameras on handle bars don’t really get to your phone in a pocket.
Thanks for clarifying.
You want them all in one place so that they can be uploaded in one go to your fitness tracking site. That lets you see what your HR, power and cadence all where on that specific hill for example.
I used to have a Fitbit that used my phone for GPS and it was awful and drained the batteries on both devices. I guess the idea of having 5G is that you don’t actually take your phone with you, one less thing to have to force into your pockets.
The obvious is that it doesn’t require your phone, given the size (having a phablet can be awkward…), many exercisers prefer forgoing their phone when exercising - it’s why smartwatches will also have GPS and 5G
I understand the watch having these features more than a I do with the bike. My sis-in-law runs marathons. I get why a phone is undesirable when running. I don’t get why when cycling, as it can just be attached to the frame of the bike.
Wasn’t there a spate of phone camera stabilisers being broken/worn out because they were strapped to bikes?
Quadlock literally designed a new mount because this was enough of an issue.
