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feature
10 of the most interesting cycling gadgets
There's a plethora of cycling-specific gadgets available these days, so we've rounded up 10 of the most interesting gadgets, from lights to crash sensors and navigational aids. Whatever your need, there's probably a gadget for it.
Hammerhead £TBC
The Hammerhead is a unique navigation device that uses a series of LED lights to provide turn-by-turn directions when cycling. The aim, say the inventors, is to provide safer cycling routes, and the device syncs with their smartphone app so you find or plot a route. Send it to the Hammerhead, and it’ll guide you through all the turns. An extra feature is a 15 Lumen light built into the front of the unit. It’s also compatible with any of the large number of Garmin computer mounts.
http://hammerhead.io/index.php
iCradle COBI $159
Here’s a gadget that promises to be an all-in-one smart system for adding a raft of intelligent features to your bike. It costs £100 and features front and rear lights, turning signals and brake lights. Which is pretty cool on its own. But it does more, there's GPS navigation, weather forecasting, a security system, even Spotify integration. The chap who designed it has a background in designing entertainment systems for cars, so you can see where he's coming from. The COBI was successfully funded through Kickstarter and should be available in May.
iceDot Crash Sensor £110
Small and unobtrusively mounted to the back of a cycling helmet, the innovative ICEdot Crash Sensor uses onboard sensors (accelerometer and gyroscope) to detect an impact from a crash and uses Bluetooth to sync to a smartphone to alert emergency contacts setup in the online account that contains basic information on the cyclist.
Find out more here in our indepth review /content/review/139601-icedot-crash-sensor-and-band
Copenhagen Wheel - £TBA
Launching this spring, the Copenhagen Wheel replaces a regular rear wheel and transforms just about any bicycle into an electric bike, with all motor and batteries neatly contained inside the red hub. It’s clever too - the inventors reckon the onboard sensors learn your pedalling style boosts your power accordingly, and it can be controlled via a smartphone app. It gets cleverer yet, braking or freewheeling downhill results in the Copenhagen Wheel recovering and storing energy.
/content/news/137038-copenhagen-wheel-launch-spring-video
ReconJet heads-up display glasses $699
If you like to keep a close eye on data when you’re cycling, then the nifty ReconJet glasses provide a heads-up display. They look like regular cycling glasses but they have a small attachment that displays a screen very low in your line of sight, so you don't have to take your eye of the road to see how fast you're going or how far it is to the next cafe. With integrated GPS and the option to connect to other bike sensors, you can have a wealth of information available without having to take your eye off the road.
/content/news/97171-reconjet-heads-display-computer-coming-uk
Fitbit Charge HR fitness band £119.99
Fitness trackers have become really popular in the past couple of years as a really easy and unobtrusive means of tracking and recording activity levels, on and off the bike. Useful if you do other sports beside cycling too. The new Charge HR from Fitbit offers continuous heart rate monitoring with simplified heart rate zones, without needing to wear a chest strap. As well as exercise tracking and long battery life (5+ days), the Charge HR can sync to a smartphone to receive call notifications and syncs automatically to your computer.
Siva Atom $129
The Siva Atom attaches to the rear wheel and harnesses kinetic energy as you cycle, and can be used to power any device while you’re cycling. Alternatively, a removable battery pack lets you charge up any device away from the bike. We can see it being really useful for long distance, touring and Audax cyclists who want to power a GPS navigation device or bunch of lights through the night or for several days or weeks away from a power source.
Wahoo Blue SC Speed and Cadence Sensors £49.99
If you like to know how fast you’re cycling and pedalling, the Wahoo Speed and Cadence sensors clip onto the bike and use Bluetooth or ANT+ to relay the data to a compatible smartphone or cycling computer. With more people using smartphones instead of traditional cycling computers to record rides, and most packing Bluetooth, there are an increasing number of cycling sensors available to provide more data from your ride. They’re compatible with most popular apps like Strava and Map My Ride.
http://uk.wahoofitness.com/devices/wahoo-blue-sc-speed-and-cadence-senso...
Fly6 rear light/video camera £175
The Fly6 is a unique gadget in that it combines a rear light with an integrated video camera, so you can film while you're riding. Why might you want to film what's behind you? The inventors came at the idea from a safety angle, and reckon other road users behave differently if they know they're being filmed. It films at 1280x720 resolution, the light outputs 30 Lumens with three modes and four dimming options, and lasts for up to 6 hours.
/content/review/139075-fly6-mk2
Skylock solar powered cycling lock $159
The Skylock is a solar powered lock featuring Bluetooth and WiFi so you can lock and unlock it from your smartphone, so it’s keyless, and it can alert you in the event of somebody trying to make off with your pride and joy. Connect the Skylock to a local WiFi network and it’ll fire you an alert if the internal sensors detect somebody tampering with the lock.
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
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24 comments
I have always loved gadgets in any sphere (hence why I work in IT !!) it is why I love cycling, everything can be measured and measure yourself against it.
It is why Strava is so popular and why so many love the competitive feel of it.
It is 2015, it is the era of the internet for all gadgets and long may it be !!
Now where is my power meter I ordered ?
Cyclist. I've read the piece again and just can't find the bit that says "buying this thing is a substitute for riding your bike".
Just remember there is some miserable bugger wearing hessian shorts grinding his way up a mountain on wooden wheels and a single massive gear who thinks your notebook is just about the ponciest thing he's ever heard of.
Wow... lot of angry people out there... should take it out on a hill, not other cyclists... we already have enough enemies.
This thread has become a gadget lovers vs traditionalists and it was not meant to be. TBH though, the aggro was started with a post telling us that we don't need gadgets, when actually, what we don't need is to be told what we need.
I thought I would get myself a gadget and remove all need from even using my legs.... Awesome bit of kit means I can spend more time looking at my iGpsstraveHrPowergarmingoggles, saves loads of effort.
As for recording my efforts, that's what a paper and pen are for. Or is that so last century... D##ks.
image_759.jpg
Yeah, gadgets be damned. I don't even use a bike for any of my training, or my racing - I just run on my own two feet, like we used to. Actually, I haven't even evolved feet. I'm more a sort of a single-celled organism. Y'know, from before mammals and things were cool.
Just HTFU and get back in the primordial soup!!! ///(>_<)\\\
"Never underestimate the ability of business to introduce ever more complications into your activities in the pursuit of profit ..... to the point where the original activity is lost in a swirl of irrelevant and pointless tail-chasing."
Anon.
Harvard School of Business Text c.1989
"Caveat emptor"
Someone in Rome, ages ago.
Again, if people don't want gadgets, they don't need to buy them!
I think the Fly 6 and Icedot at very good ideas. I ride alone a lot and it would certainly help make my wife feel happier when I'm out on a long ride. Maybe she'd stop ringing my mobile so much after I've been out for 4 - 5 hours. Maybe not!
'Couple of years ago there was a fitness experiment... Loughborough sports science dept V's Army PTI training methods (old skool Hit training v state of the art science and nutrition) the Army cohort smashed the shite out of the science cohort... Have all the gadgets for fitness in the world but they will not do the work.'
I'd love to see the results of that experiment. Suspect it's fairly limited, otherwise all of the GB olympic team (amongst many others) would be following army methods rather than scientific training methods. Were the tests involved just 'forced route march with a heavy Bergen', 'Freckles' and 'Beating the shit out of people in a pub'? I could understand squaddies winning those, certainly.
In an effort to reduce my reliance on gadgets I shall be riding without brakes, those newfangled derailleur gears and possibly even pedals and a chain this year!
Early adopters pave the way for the rest of us to catch up further down the development road. Let them indulge in their fascination, without them I would not use a speed & cadence meter nowadays. I personally love reading maps, understand the geography, explore the side roads, therefore still stuck in the past on that one. Theft security needs a revolution: light, secure, trackable. Inventors to your desks!
Learn about your body instead of gadgets. Find a hill as a test, ride up it, time it, repeat, under as identical circumstances as possible, faster = fitter.
Gadget reliance is taking mindfulness out of cycling.
Learn to read a map, batteries never go flat.
People will be riding with more weight in gadgets than their bike weighs.
Couple of years ago there was a fitness experiment... Loughborough sports science dept V's Army PTI training methods (old skool Hit training v state of the art science and nutrition) the Army cohort smashed the shite out of the science cohort... Have all the gadgets for fitness in the world but they will not do the work.
HR monitor is my only concession to a gadget for fitness, paper, pen and understanding the human body, especially mine. I don't even take a smart phone out... Little all weather Nokia, 15yrs old with buttons and it's just a phone!! Light & robust.
If people matched their gadget fever with quality training and recovery in the same way, there would be many more fit people about.
Uploading this that and the other waste of time, unless you are a competitive amateur or pro level...
Commuter stuff obviously is all good, well, some of it.
I appreciate where you are coming from, but this thread is about gadgets, not how to get fitter using gadgets. I love gadgets because I love gadgets. If they make me fitter then that's even better. Since I got back into cycling in recent years the acceleration in small scale tech has added so many opportunities for people like myself to get so much more out of cycling.
Some people like a bare single speeder with no gizmos at all and there's me the other end like Inspector Gadget and loads of people in between. As long as we all get what we want from cycling, it's all good.
Cool story, I liked the fact you gave hardly any information about these "experiments".
Also, yeah let's not track anything, great idea that. Stuck in the past much?
A tool is only as useful as the skill of the user. It works better in the hands of the master craftsman. Gadgets are fun, but they are not an improver in themselves. They can be an incentive and incentivisor to exercise.
I have GPS maps, HR and cadence sensors (all I'm missing is power really), but that doesn't mean to say I rely on them. They are an aid and that is all they are. Having numbers (even just a stop watch time) proves what you feel - you're getting better/faster/fatter/more powerful or the reverse.
The army PT vs. Loughborough Sport Science story sounds apocryphal, or edited at best. Are we talking squaddies against academics? People who train people for a living against scientists that study sport? It's hardly a like-for-like comparison.....well done the squaddies then.
Most of the gadgets here are lame though. A solar powered D-lock?! What happens when you lock it in a basement or some place undercover?!?!
Well said. Nothing beats hard training, plain and simple. And that's all I have to say about that.
Well said. Nothing beats hard training, plain and simple. And that's all I have to say about that.
To any device which has to connect to another device wirelessly to work: you may be the future of technology but I have no faith whatsoever in your working correctly when I need you to. (The one exception being the laptop I'm writing this on!)
Some cools stuff here, much of it which has been in dev for an age (especially Recon Jet!).
The Hammer Head can only be as good as the direction being fed to it, and given that the Garmin often get's confused when you miss a turning, only having rudimentary info would be even more confusing in this case.
I cradle looks feature packed, but not for the lightweight purists?!
IceDot is a neat idea, until you drop your helmet and your wife/Mum calls you in a state of panic!
Copenhagen; brilliant. Will check it out to see the spec after this, but it looks like a winner. The versatility of being able to swap out for any bike gives it immense scope for use. I can see me using something similar in my late 70's in the Alps!
Recon Jet is the future, or at least the form factor of heads-up display is. For this to stick as a ubiquitous tech though it needs to have the same ability as a Garmin 810/1000 and then some. Particularly worried about battery life? When the price drops to £300 I think it will fly with the masses.
FitBit, meh... one of many devices. Not sure it adds anything.
Siva Atom is a great little device as long as it's weather and somewhat crash-proof. Price needs to drop a bit as well, but I would be surprised if something did not come alongside it as a similar offering to push the prices down.
Wahoo is a nice little gadget for those that did not get it bundled with their Garmin!
Fly6 is a neat package but not conspicuous for a driver to think they are being filmed. Could be a nice way of filming the commuter run in case anything happens and overwriting otherwise, or a cheaper alternative to a GoPro4 or similar.
I love the new angle applied to the SkyLock. It's such a faff with keys when in a hurry to get a train or get to a meeting, but, how vulnerable are the solar panels on this to the same scumbags that would make it off your your precious single speeder?!
What I would like to see Garmin do as a new feature on the Edge is add a pitot tube to factor in how hard a ride is by averaging wind speed and use it to correct the errors recorded for elevation when you stop for coffee and cake!
hmm the SkyLock, it might be solar powered but most smart phones are not so when your phone battery is dead (every day with a smart phone) you can't unlock your bike.
That Copenhagen wheel has been done before as well. A guy at work had an early moped. Basically a bicycle where they put a small internal combustion engine in the rear hub. It looked cool in a retro way but very heavy. When I asked him how it felt going round corners he said 'very exciting, especially when it's raining'.
I've been following the Hammerhead product development for a few months now. I think its a great idea executed beautifully and the concept is much safer for wayfinding than a mapping device such as a garmin.
They say its out in Feb but I'll believe it when I see it. It's $85 (US) by the way.
I had never heard of this until reading the article. Although the Hammerhead does seem like a great idea, perhaps the way the direction is shown could be simpler (although presumably the makers have done some homework regarding this).
The video on the product page shows a slow progression of lights, starting straight before indicating a turn; a simpler lighting system could perhaps be interpreted by a rider in a quarter-second glance.
I backed the Hammerhead in Oct 2013. Original shipping date was 05/01/2014. Now at the point where it simply arriving at all will be incredible!
Agreed. Got fed up with waiting for mine so went out and got a garmin instead so if/when it arrives it'll go straight on eBay