Slashdot Mirror

The Bike Brain connects a Palm to your bike. The computerized bike Behemoth includes a Sun box (and three other PC-class computers) and has probably been on slashdot before. It has HUD, communications, everything and more ...

eCycling is my Specialized Ground Control Comp A1 equiped with hokey spokes, Garmin GPS, Bike Brain and a 1,000 song sound system.

Maybe if you're riding an old 1900's high-wheeler. With no cyclecomputer. If you're riding a modern bike, and use a cyclecomputer, or own a Palm system, may I point you to BikeBrain? [bikebrain.com] Not only is it easier to configure than most cyclecomputers, but gee, it runs on a Palm OS, and there are readily-available dev tools for that.

Seems bikes are plenty hackable.

For more on hacking and bicycles, in the fiction bent, read Bruce Sterling's "Bicycle Repairman" (which won the Hugo) in his collection A Good Old-Fashioned Future. [amazon.com]

-- Dan
(who is currently working to open his own bike shop)

"Yes officer someone stole my computer."

"I see, is there anything that would distinguish it as yours?"

"Yes, it was attached to a blue Trek 5500 with a raccoon tail on the back of the seat."

I have a couple of the little Vetta and Cat Eye computers (well, hardly computers) on my bike already, just for mileage, speed, etc (I was going downhill about 37 mph yesterday on my mountain bike, whee!) and they're pretty good for basic information. For a few bucks more you can get heartrate and cadence (how fast you pedal) monitors. Bikebrain has had a nice unit which offers pretty much everything for quite a while, there are some high marks for it on rec.bicycles.* newsgroups. I bought a Garmin eTrex GPS to keep track of my rides, hikes, etc, and it has a little bracket which I can put on my handlebar and take it off easily (important since the mountain bike requires major hosing down after most rides) It's shock resistant to some large number of G's, more than I'd survive

It's important to remember that riding with one of these things it's not likely to take much of a beating, since you pretty much have to be there with it and it it's too much for it, you're probably splattered by now. Thou I'm not sure how well a hard disk might work in one, I wouldn't recomend it.

Biggest concerns will actaully be water/dust resistance, since this is what you get in the great outdoors, possibly heat if you ride in the sun a lot (LCD displays turn black if they get too warm, lot of help that would be), other concern is weight. Many riders try to strip weight off bikes, because it takes incrementally more energy to haul it up hills. Tiny Cat Eye and Vetta computers are ideal for everyday riding, where a bike computer I'd only use to chart rides, same as I do with my GPS, to get an idea of the profile and perhaps what cadence worked or didn't for me in the long run. Leave the heavy bits home when you're really out for a ride.

bikebrain All you need to do to get your t-shirt is send them the description and directions for 5 biking routes you like.

Special Offer - Get a free BikeBrain T-shirt by sending us 5 route sheets. Each route sheet needs to have a clearly defined starting point, distance points, (delta distances are optional), corresponding turn indications and descriptions. If yours are usable, we'll send you a free T-shirt. Follow the directions below for submitting a route.