SXSWTF?

 Bikes, Gadgets  Comments Off on SXSWTF?
Mar 132012
 

The bicycle that shifts by reading your thoughts has surfaced again, this time at the South by Southwest “music, film and interactive conference” in Austin, Texas. I’ll admit to not fully understanding what the SXSW “conference” is, exactly, though it appears to be both a showcase for derivative hipster music and an excuse to write off travel expenses for tech nerds whose companies won’t cover travel to Burning Man. In keeping with the theme of information nobody gives a shit about then, I’d like to hereby announce that I no longer care how anybody controls his or her bicycle. Mind controlled bike done as a publicity stunt by Toyota to sell cars, battery operated suspension systems, four D-cells that pump water from a Camelbak directly into your mouth–whatever. I’m all for it.

Yes, it’s 2012 now, and I’ve decided there’s no place left for my usual neo-retro-grouch pose on this subject. Why be a critic? I like conferences. I like music you have to be drinking to enjoy and rooms filled with hotshit tech entrepreneurs who still live at home. Have a new web and iPhone app that lets me swap dryer lint with a person in Ohio? Nice work! Made a film that re-imagines Hitler’s death as the work of time-traveling Icelandic superstar, Bjork, who assassinates Nazis with sound before a grand finale battle scene with the ghost of Wagner? How creative! Do tell me more about your mash-up of dubstep, ’80s metal, and things Mike Patton would say out loud in a Whole Foods. Seriously, who says America’s best days are behind us? If this is what we make now, I’m all for it.

But let’s go all in.

If Toyota’s “embrace the green and figure out how to wedge an iPhone in there somewhere, too” hipster ad campaign helped pay even a small part of the development costs of a new Parlee frame design, then sure, add all the neuro crap you want, as long as we all get to see that new frame. Hell, I’d like to see corporate money going to lots of innovative small bicycle companies. We’re hip now, bicycle people. We can help sell Michelob Ultra. Work it.

Here are just a few of my dream announcements at this year’s SXSW conference:

  • PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi announces a “potential” new design project in collaboration with “genuine” frame builder Richard Sachs to develop a clear plastic bicycle frame that doubles as a habitat for endangered Beluga Sturgeon eggs, with built-in rear-wheel assist motor powered by “mass hatching.” Sachs, who does not attend the event, issues no comment, but a photo surfaces on Facebook depicting him emptying a can of Mountain Dew into a toilet.
  • Pabst Brewing Company owner C. Dean Metropoulos debuts a film and YouTube channel about the development of the company’s combination urban bicycle and home brewing system, featuring a bicycle frame crowdsource designed by “everybody in Minneapolis.”
  • In an attempt to build credibility in the U.S. market and citing “deeply waning interest in Jennifer Lopez,” car manufacturer Fiat announces a joint partnership with Nokia and bamboo bicycle guru Craig Calfee, to create “a stylish and modern take on the classic ‘Fred Flintstone’ human-powered vehicle.” Ashton Kucher is a rumored investor.
  • In a clear bid to return to his roots, Hollywood director Sam Raimi announces a documentary on the making of frame builder Erik Noren’s Evil Dead track bike, a bike that uses a chainsaw chain and is painted with genuine blood because Noren is, as Raimi announces at the movie premier, “Fucking awesome.”

     

  • Long-time sponser of events in which people are barely conscious of what snack foods they actually ingest, Doritos, announces a partnership with FedEx, Taco Bell and online retailer Competitive Cyclist. For a “very modest” additional charge, your Pinarello Dogma 2 with Super Record 11 EPS is now available shipped in its own impact-absorbing, environmentally friendly* and delicious Dorito-based taco shell. (*Legal disclaimer: some Dorito-based products have proven unable to decompose naturally under any circumstances, including human consumption.)

    • It’s a brave new world of corporate sponsored innovation, art and “interactivity” and I, for one, am ready.

Like Riding a Bike

 Bikes  Comments Off on Like Riding a Bike
Oct 202011
 

Having received few donations for my doomsday cult here on the eve of destruction, I found myself distracted again by shiny, material possessions. Among the big news today, Campagnolo has set a date of November 7th for the release of their iShifters.

Personally, I never warmed to Shimano’s Di2, but make it Italian and move the decimal on the price tag a couple places to the right, and suddenly creepy little robots moving my derailleurs sounds hot. Not as desirable as a regular system without electronics, or a simple hydraulic system, or a bike that lets me spin some vinyl while wearing my skinny jeans but desirable as in, “Meh, OK.”

And yet it’s still such a drag to have to move your fingers to shift. Me, I’m holding out for that Parlee Prius that lets you shift with your brain.

This is as opposed to shifting with your Catholic upbringing, which is mostly how I ride, relying on a refined sense of self-loathing and desire for suffering that keeps me in tall gears and spinning a cadence somewhere in the single digits. Thus, on my short list of probing questions regarding this system:

  1. Do you have to squint your eyes in concentration to shift (please say yes)
  2. Would Mel Gibson be able to get out of the 53×11?

I know what you’re thinking. Sure, I hate having to accurately manipulate my fingers to shift a bike as much as the next guy, but that’s a dream compared to having to look around and steer to avoid stuff. Enter Google street view.

That looks exhilarating! It’s good to know a technology is being invented that lets us pedal a bike through a slightly laggy and occasionally blurry version of the world we’d otherwise be forced to venture out into.

And that technology might be arriving just in time, between the daily battle it is just to ride a bike, and certain subtle changes in the environment:

Yes, the march of technology is truly incredible. To think that one day soon, some company will make it possible to bypass all the silly moving around and thinking entirely, and instead just implant the pure impression of riding a bike directly into the brain. Though the technology doesn’t exist to express this, I suspect it’ll go something like this.