Homemade Heads Up Display For Bicycling?

An anonymous reader asks: "I am a geek that bicycles in an urban center. After seeing this commercial product, I was interested in the possibility of building a homebrew HUD for a bicycle helmet. I searched the usual places and couldn't find much so I thought I'd ask the readers of Slashdot. A HUD that displays speed, distance, and cadence seems very feasible as many bike computers collect that data. A great longshot would be a range-finder that told you the distance to the object you were turned toward, but I'm not crossing my fingers for that. So what components would be needed to make such a cool device?"

Comments

idea: tactile doppler radar helmet

[J05H]

This is my, umm, naughty dream high tech bike helmet. It doesn't exist yet. Basically this would be a fancy new-school helmet like a Giro Pneumo, with microelectronics that create a short range phased-array radar. Inside the helmet is a grid of small air bladders. As you move through the city, the radar generates a crude map which is translated as pressure around your skull. You feel a constant roll on the right side, parked cars. Behind and to the left, the moving press of a car passing. Alternately, the radar hardware could be mounted on the bike. Hand/Eye free computing (tactile) holds a lot of potential for custom uses.

On topic, I'd recommend at most getting a decent Cats Eye cyclocomputer, maybe a GPS to go with. As someone who rides almost every day, please take this advice: when riding, just ride. Like the urban rider above, that fraction of a second is all-important. Displays, gadgets, heck even waterbottles are distractions. Work on improving your hearing instead, developing your brain and senses.

Stay safe on the road,
Josh