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Mountain Biking In Virtual Reality With the Oculus Rift and an Actuating Bike

Posted by timothy on from the it's-all-in-your-head dept.

An anonymous reader writes Thanks to the Oculus Rift DK2 VR headset and Activetainment B\01 VR bike, which pitches forward and back according to in-game terrain, has shifting, pedals, breaks, digital resistance control, and allows tilting into turns, users of the system feel like they're careening through a mountain biker's paradise. After working up a sweat in the simulator, the author of this article ruminates on whether or not his experience could be considered "real"; "Much of the feedback of actual mountain biking was present during my ride. Sure, the feedback could be more accurate, and there's still missing sensory information, like the wind through my hair and a certain set of forces on my body, but at what point is a virtual experience real enough to be well, real?"

41 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. It's gotta be better than a Lifecycle by darthsilun · · Score: 1

    Heck, the Trixter Xdream bike beats those Lifecycle pieces of crap hands down. Anything that can improve on that is a win IMO. At least until all this damn snow melts and I can go out on a real bike.

    1. Re:It's gotta be better than a Lifecycle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah it's impossible to ride in the snow... or cold or rain ... any excuse noot to ride when conditions are not perfect.

    2. Re:It's gotta be better than a Lifecycle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What, we're suppose to go out in bad weather now... because? It is not like this is being used as an excuse to be lazy and not exercise. I have coworkers that have three different bikes, so they have one that can get slightly trashed in the rain, and another that can get really beaten on by ice, slush and salt. But I just have one solid bike that can easily get my from point A to point B, and do well on longer rides on the weekend. And during the winter I have indoor equipment, which often gets me more exercise as there is less setup, fewer interruptions, and I can squeeze in more sessions between other things, or double up with listening or reading to things. For me biking is for the warmer days, while cross country skiing is for the heavy snow days, and indoor stuff fills in the gap.

      Some how several of the comments here interpret people trying to do as much riding as possible and having as much chance to do so regardless of conditions as being a pussy. I guess they think people aren't toughing it enough and exposing themselves to the elements, and must think people are also pussies for using an umbrella when it rains.

  2. so close! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Funny

    biking, running and rowing are just the tip of the iceberg! i cant wait for them to release the YARD WORK SIMULATOR!

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:so close! by TheRealHocusLocus · · Score: 2

      cite "I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld. When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in all the million ages to come, I will never breathe, or laugh, or twitch again. So won't you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment..."

      HELLO?
      Could you please take that thing off?
      There is a dreary urban landscape to explore.

      You know that door opening on to the empty lot, the one that someone painted too thickly, large flakes shedding from the rotting wood? A tiny spider has laid eggs there, they will hatch in a couple weeks. The chain link fence to the South has one link untwisted on the bottom. What could have done that? In your bathroom cabinet under the sink there is a hole where the drain goes into the wall. If you shine a flashlight there you just might glimpse something. Once in a great while a white cockroach is born. How many have you seen? Where would you look? One of the buildings in town has a really incredible basement. Subterranean parking garages typically contain strange crawlspaces. At the bottom of every elevator shaft is a pit where lost items have fallen. There is nothing as exciting and terrifying as a rotten wooden ladder on the roof of a tall building, which (shakily) allows one to climb to its most dramatic and amazing place, where one can sit and dangle the legs over empty space. Where is a largest storm drain, that one can walk into the gloom with a flashlight? Some empty lots in tornado country have storm cellars. One of them is waiting for you to discover the hatch. Do you know where that creek goes? How far could you follow it? Set out right now. Bring a change of clothes, water and snacks and bus fare. That empty lot with the discarded furniture, old tires and lumber is so haphazardly arranged. If someone were to re-arrange the items so that they would touch one another and form a labyrinth, children would find it and walking through. Somewhere next to the railroad track there are discarded metal spikes and the green glass insulators that once suspended telegraph wires. If you spotted your town's wooded areas in Google Earth you might discover a clearing where there is the old foundation of a building. Perhaps it has a basement. Head for that power pylon, the one where massive cable or chain is suspended high above the ground carrying hundreds of thousands of volts. Follow it. Every now and then you will come to a spot that buzzes. Can you hear the variations in power load drawn into distant cities? Somewhere nearby is a tower with a climbable ladder. Somewhere nearby is a small wooded area where people dump old appliances. With a pliers, a cutter and a couple of screwdrivers you could fill a bag with interesting things, that you might some day fit together in a surprising way. Start out in a park or off to one side of town. Now close your eyes and listen until you hear something interesting. Open your eyes and head in the direction of the sound. Discover what it is. Now listen for another. At the end of four hours, where have you traveled to? I had the great fortune to discover one day, while I was out walking, a large steel door leading into the side of a hill. It was slightly open and led into the gloom of a a tunnel with a side tunnel, two other entrances, ladders and hatches. I hope you will find one too some day but you best start looking. Near the ruins of old houses you can spot where there were tended gardens. What might still be growing there? That creek has a spot where water tumbles over something and falls a few feet. Scrounge around to find bits and pieces that harness the power of the water to make a little sculpture that moves or spins. Every few days, bring something else there to add to it. Many buildings in your town have fallout shelters from the 50s and 60s. Somewhere in one of them you'll find the remains of a Civil Defense stockpile, or at the very least, a rusty s

      --
      <blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
    2. Re:so close! by TheRealHocusLocus · · Score: 1

      tl;dr
      Would have read if you knew what paragraphs are.

      your unwillingness to
      read Ogg words make Ogg sad
      Ogg sorry
      maybe you read more in next life
      when we are both cats

      --
      <blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
    3. Re:so close! by peragrin · · Score: 2

      apparently you never played farmville on Facebook.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    4. Re:so close! by genner · · Score: 1

      apparently you never played farmville on Facebook.

      Pffftt cow clicker is so much better.

    5. Re:so close! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you click on her or his name, you'll find that (s)he doesn't know how to type short. Looking at just the recent comments, they're all longer than this one.

      And there's over 200 more comments available for reading.

      Seems typing is his or her entertainment. Maybe even moreso than communicating.

      By the way... Ogg art awesome. WTG.

    6. Re:so close! by FoxMcElroy · · Score: 1

      Your post was beautiful, with a child's sense of wonder carried into adulthood. It's a fascinating world and there are many things to do. However, interacting with someone's lovingly crafted virtual artifice could easily be an experience on par with digging up crap in the cracks of a sidewalk. Variety is the spice of life.

    7. Re:so close! by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      I will never forget the feeling of riding a motorbike as fast as possible down a twisting mountain road, swapping the lead back and forth with another random madman on a bike. But that was almost 40yrs ago when I was young and bulletproof, something like this is probably as close as most people will get to that feeling.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  3. get dizzy? by vyvepe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sounds like a cool way to get dizzy because the acceleration effect on the inner ear will be missing.

    1. Re:get dizzy? by sir-gold · · Score: 1

      Speaking over the sound of your own delayed voice is a similar principle.

      For most people, having their own words fed back into their ears with a specific delay causes them to be unable to keep speaking (they start stuttering really bad). However, people who are accustomed to speaking in public (through a PA system) don't suffer from this, because their brain learns to ignore the sound of their own voice.

    2. Re:get dizzy? by The+Raven · · Score: 1

      Not quite. It will be muffled, but not missing. Simulators can accurately change the angle of acceleration force to match your expectation, even if they cannot change the magnitude. The result, when you have actuators that are fast enough, is amazingly immersive. Some users will have simulation sickness, but others will not; similar to other types of motion sickness it varies wildly.

      --
      "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
  4. Real by Urquhardt · · Score: 1

    It will be real enough when it is real. Sorry, no substitutes accepted.

  5. Smellavision by fred911 · · Score: 1

    nt

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  6. when you have road rash by oheso · · Score: 2

    ... complete with gravel to tweeze out of the wounds.

  7. It is not the same by cjonslashdot · · Score: 1

    It is nothing like real. Measure the calories expended - it will not be comparable at all. This reminds me of one time when Konan Obrien challenged Serena Williams to virtual tennis on the Wi, and Konan won. Yeah that's real tennis - not. :-)

    1. Re:It is not the same by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It is nothing like real. Measure the calories expended - it will not be comparable at all.

      What? Why not? If they've got a resistance on the crank and the bike is tilting around so you have to move yourself around the bike, why wouldn't it consume the same kind of energy?

      All in all I think it's a cool idea for the times when it's raining out, and you can't get good traction.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:It is not the same by cjonslashdot · · Score: 1

      Perhaps it could be like the real thing, if done right - but the real thing throws you around, and you can fall off and roll onto the ground. To duplicate that would be quite a simulation! But as you say, if it is raining out, it sounds like the next best thing.

    3. Re:It is not the same by Shinobi · · Score: 1

      Wind resistance, real slopes, fighting slippery surfaces, absorbing shocks and bumps, changing weather conditions, maintaining your concentration to a far sharper degree than a sim demands all cause you to burn more energy than any simulator you use.

      It's why you see so many gym stars perform like shit when facing the real thing. Or why iRacing(a pretty good racing simulator) stars, who outperform real racing drivers in the sim, are like 20 seconds behind the same racing drivers when placed in a real racing car, even after 2 weeks of training in the real car.

    4. Re:It is not the same by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Wind resistance, real slopes, fighting slippery surfaces, absorbing shocks and bumps, changing weather conditions, maintaining your concentration to a far sharper degree than a sim demands all cause you to burn more energy than any simulator you use.

      There's no difference whatsoever between a real slope, and tilting the bike back further and increasing the crank resistance. Bumps and jolts can be generated, and what's more they don't have to be as strong as the real thing — just use a bike without suspension, and then emulate the suspension. Concentration is an issue, if the simulation is not sufficiently engaging. But gaming often requires intense concentration because it doesn't provide as much visual information as reality. You have to do more interpolation.

      It's why you see so many gym stars perform like shit when facing the real thing.

      The question of whether this is as good preparation as real practice hadn't even come up, until you just now mentioned it. We were talking about whether it provided as much exercise. Let's stay on topic.

      Or why iRacing(a pretty good racing simulator) stars, who outperform real racing drivers in the sim, are like 20 seconds behind the same racing drivers when placed in a real racing car, even after 2 weeks of training in the real car.

      No, it's because real racing drivers have balls of steel. As it turns out, those simulators are actually pretty good for learning tracks and improving times around them. Then you get into the car and start learning which parts of the track are rough or smooth, et cetera. But you also have to start dealing with the fact of your own mortality.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  8. Re:masturbation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yes, that's as real as it gets. But I missed that part in the video.

  9. Beowolf by Time_Ngler · · Score: 1
    Imagine a beowolf cluster of these!

    (I miss the old slashdot)

    1. Re:Beowolf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Imagine a beowolf cluster of these!
      (I miss the old slashdot)

      In Soviet Russia, beowulf cluster imagines you!
      (Me too)

  10. When... by johnnys · · Score: 1

    When you ride the bike off a cliff in the game and you die for real, THEN it's "real enough". Seriously, if you want a real experience then turn off the PC, go outside and DO IT.

    --
    Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
    1. Re:When... by Radtastic · · Score: 1

      Seriously, if you want a real experience then turn off the PC, go outside and DO IT.

      Ah, the "it's not everything so it's nothing" attack. If you happen to live in the upper northeast, I could see this being a helpful part of one's winter-exercise regimen. Or inner cities. Or anywhere where easily - accessible mountain bike trails aren't accessible.

      And the truth is, for many of us, something like a MTB trip to Moab would be really cool, but it's not quite high enough against competing options. It'd be awesome to experience some of that scenery.

      Lastly, for anyone naysaying the technology... give it time. VR is in its infancy, and in some not too distant future, it will be indistinguishable from the real thing.

      --
      You stereotypers are all the same...
    2. Re:When... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Seriously, if you want a real experience then turn off the PC, go outside and DO IT.

      What if you don't live near a mountain? I live near a mountain, but the only road up it has a "No Trespassing" sign.

  11. Real? by dugancent · · Score: 1

    I have a huge scar on my side from mountain biking accident and spent 3 days in the hospital. Is the rift going to give him that?

    --
    SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
  12. VR based on current technologies will not be real by CptJeanLuc · · Score: 1

    OP is asking for "real", IMHO it cannot be done. In order to properly experience the forces on your body on a bicycle, you would have to follow the same trajectory as the real thing in a gravity field - or alternatively another experience which provides the same forces, simulating gravity. In order to do that, the simulator would basically have to be put inside a spaceship which simulates those forces. This is something we cannot do with current technology because a spaceship can only provide thrust for so long.

    Then there are "VR glasses", which though I have never had the chance to try the latest models, I can say that the only 3D-like experience that technology based on two separate 2D images can provide the user, is one with a predefined focal depth which will not be perceived as true 3D by the brain, i.e. more like watching a 3D movie than being in the real thing. I don't foresee any mechanisms witih eye tracking which would simulate user controlled natural change of focus.

    So "true VR" will only happen when we are somehow able to interface directly with the brain at a level that the experience is directly projected into our conscience, thus bypassing our sensory organs. Obviously we are nowhere near that type of technology and perhaps it is not even possible, so in answer to OP's question when do we get true VR, I would answer hard to say, probably not in our lifetime, and perhaps never.

  13. +1 O M G by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I would spend fifteen mod points on this if Slashdot allowed it.

    I'm not sure I've ever seen a description that simultaneously so illustrates a foreign mentality, evokes the sensations of inhabiting that mentality, and pulls you into participation -- you reach the end of this passage, having read all the odd quests that it suggests, and realize that you have just completed an odd quest every bit the match of them. In, ironically enough, an entirely non-"real" world solely of words.

    I didn't think I would be sending a valentine today, but here you go, TheRealHocusLocus. Thank you for this.

  14. Re:VR based on current technologies will not be re by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    OP is asking for "real", IMHO it cannot be done. In order to properly experience the forces on your body on a bicycle, you would have to follow the same trajectory as the real thing in a gravity field

    Nah. All you've got to do is stimulate the nerves of the inner ear or the part of the brain that it connects to, and combine that with a system which can move you around sufficiently for the environments you're going to replicate. There's lots of times on a bicycle where the perceived feeling of motion is not that great, so this particular case is completely doable. The Japanese have done some work on diddling your sense of balance already...

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  15. Re:Breaks? by tj2 · · Score: 1

    I actually sent them a message pointing that out. I'm guessing the folks in Norway simply made a mistake, but it'll be interesting to see if anyone follows up and fixes it.

  16. allows tilting into turns by swell · · Score: 1

    After 1/4 million miles on two wheels, it is my experience that a rider never senses any tilting in turns. You can test this theory by placing a carpenter's level across the handlebars and taking sharp turns that require an extreme lean angle. The bubble on the level will indicate that you have never left the vertical.

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  17. Re:HOLYF*CKBALLSTHISCHANGESEVERYTHING by wiredlogic · · Score: 1

    It will simply because there is a huge market for personal exercise equipment purchased by people too self conscious to go outside and run, ride a bike, or find suitable cold weather substitutes.

    Much like Huffy bikes are only designed to last for 50-miles of use, consumer level exercise equipment is designed to look sexy on the showroom floor and sit unused for most of it's existence after purchase. There's no shortage of people who will fall for this gimmick. The engineering costs are the biggest hurdle and there are tons of cheap, capable engineers in China now.

    --
    I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
  18. Need crashes by bongey · · Score: 1

    You aren't really mountain biking unless you crash. Here is 75 ways to crash https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    1. Re:Need crashes by styrotech · · Score: 1

      You aren't really mountain biking unless you crash. Here is 75 ways to crash

      The dubstep in that video really helps you to also feel the pain of those riders!

    2. Re:Need crashes by bongey · · Score: 1

      I don't know which one is worse dubstep or the crashes.

  19. Re:VR based on current technologies will not be re by CptJeanLuc · · Score: 1

    I think we are saying more or less the same thing, i.e. manipulating brain inputs directly (e.g. inner ear nerves) rather than simulating the actual real life inputs. So I agree with you :-)

  20. It's real... by rnicey · · Score: 1

    When you can't tell the difference. Looong way to go.

  21. Welcome to 1991 by CityZen · · Score: 1

    UNC demoed something similar in 1991 at the Siggraph Emerging Technologies display.

    http://www.siggraph.org/~fujii...