I’m taking a quick break from Interbike coverage–without my editor Greg’s consent, I might add–to do some quick speculation about the Apple Watch. The Singletracks team was on its way to Las Vegas when the watch came out. It seemed the world saw the watch, leaned its head back as far as it would go, and emitted a colossal underwhelmed “bluuurgh.”
But let us not blurgh too quickly. Don’t forget that bikes are getting smarter all the time, and that means that the day when your fancy watch can gossip with your bike about your fitness–or in my case, lack thereof–is nigh. Obviously, there are some stopwatch, heart rate, cadence, and Strava sorts of features.
But let’s go farther than just recording data. Let’s use it for something someone besides ourselves care about.
What if your watch’s accelerometer could talk to your phone’s accelerometer, and together they could adjust your suspension based on speed and position on the bike? That day could be pretty close, as should be obvious from Greg’s coverage of smart suspensions like Magura’s.
But no! We must go deeper!
What if the Apple Watch could team up with your iPhone, use data about your position, heart rate, etc. and use that to adjust not only your suspension, but the geometry of your bike?
Don’t kid yourself. Adjustable geometry bikes are coming some day. Mark my words. And as soon as they do, someone’s going to stick a few motors on it and try to make a bike that can XC just as well as it DJs or DHs. Wild, right?
Of course, it all goes wrong when you run out of batteries and your head tube goes loose. Or worse, your devices go insane, corrupt your bicycle, and use it to snip your legs off like insane robotic scissors.
Hm, maybe I better not get one of those Apple Watches after all.
3 Comments
Sep 16, 2014
I met with a guy from ANT+ at Interbike and I learned a bit about the difference between ANT+ and Bluetooth and there are some really interesting things you can do easily with ANT+ but not Bluetooth for technical reasons I don't quite understand. Bottom line, an ANT+ Garmin watch will probably be more compatible with shape-shifting frames and butt massaging saddles than the iWatch.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014