Slashdot Mirror
Motorcycle App Helps You Ride Faster, Turn Sharper, Brake Harder
Hugh Pickens writes "Alexander George writes about a new app that takes the data from a smartphone's accelerometers, GPS, and inclinometer to plot information for braking force, lean angles, speed, and on-track location onto Google Maps to shave precious milliseconds off each lap time in motorcycle races. Race Sense is designed to be a useful tool for someone who races for a living and a very fun toy for those who just like to brag about what lean angle they got at their ride day, and what top speed they reached down the main straight. Australian Grand Prix motorcycle road racer Anthony West provided much of the R&D that went into tweaking the app. 'With sponsorship's so hard to find and I need another way to survive. I spent some of my own money developing it with an Italian guy who also likes to ride himself, and who writes programs,' says West who designed Race Sense to fulfill the needs of a genuine MotoGP racer. 'Sometimes it's one second [separating] 20 people. If you adjust one little thing thinking about something in one corner you can lose four places.'"
I've been waiting YEARS for this. I mean I remember, it must be like, 10 years ago, driving down a quiet country road and thinking to myself "You know, there's not nearly enough motorcyclists acting like utter dickheads on the roads. If only there was some way we could encourage them to act even more like reckless, irresponsible, testosterone-addled morons flushing their own and other peoples' lives down the fucking toilet, the world would be so much a better place."
Well, now we have it! Soon, we can bask in the glory of a world where motorcyclists can roar up and down the road outside my sleeping baby's bedroom even more loudly than before, can weave dangerously in and out of traffic with greater efficiency than ever, and can take dangerous, blind and slippery corners even faster than ever before.
At least there won't be a shortage of organ donors if I should ever need some spare parts.
I look forward to seeing more motorcycle drivers using this app.
Because until Google Maps comes out with a 'random gravel or sand on the roadway' update to their mapping, this will pretty much just generate extra donor organs and probably bargain-basement bike parts.
Which, on the whole, is useful.
-Styopa