Turn your push bike into an automatic? There's an app for that
While changing gear on a bicycle is pretty simple, newbie cyclists are often unsure which gear is best for when. Not anymore, though, because a clever app will do everything for you.
Effectively turning your bike into an automatic, the technology developed by Mark Wilson and co-workers at Cambridge Consultants Limited fuses a Shimano automatic gear shifting system with a low-power version of Bluetooth so that your bike can talk to your iPhone.
Complex maths – which we will leave to the experts – then allows the accompanying app to calculate pedalling speed (cadence, as it's known) and your road speed via two sensors, one on your crank and another on a wheel. Using this info, the app works out the correct gear you should be in to make life as efficient as possible.
Improvements are being made to allow the gears to know when you are about to go up or downhill, which would make the system a lot more practical. The company has even entertained the idea of developing an anti-lock braking system to keep you from skidding.
Although the technology won't be in bike shops for a while yet, we can see cyclists eager to eke out extra an extra second or two at competition level tempted by the idea. What's a few hundred extra quid when that carbon fibre push-bike already cost you thousands? Or tens of thousands, if you bought that One-77 Aston Martin bike.
[via New Scientist]
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Comments
clickers
28 weeks ago
now thats what i call a usefull app i have never been able to work out which gear i should be in
Wongsky
27 weeks ago
I can't help but think this is destined for very limited commercial take-up.
Whilst I admire the warm, soothing, techie-ness of it all, you've only got to look at the audience - most new and inexperienced to cycling aren't usually prepared to spend anything like good money on equipment - witness the amount of "Supermarket Specials" in terms of bikes sold. Those that are willing to spend good money on bikes and equipment, tend to be fairly experienced and know what they're doing.
Given that the system seems to leverage equipment that's currently at a fairly high level AND cost, kind of hard to see it getting popular for those that likely truly need it until it's available for the very cheapest bikes and smartphones.
Intellectually interesting it may be, but until suitable and priced for entry level cycles, looks to be more of a solution looking for a problem, really - I mean I get there will be people reading who probably think "I'd buy that..." and probably are willing to spend a fair amount on a bike, who probably aren't interested / don't want to think about using gears - fair enough - but I suspect that's not a very sizable demographic.