Category: Cycling

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Connected Objects Cycling

The BEAKOR bike system outfits your ride with a little of everything

Urban areas in the United States are experiencing an uptick in the amount of cyclists roaming the streets. While this is great for individual fitness and the environment, more bikes on the road means more accidents. This makes products like BEAKOR even more valuable.

Put simply, BEAKOR is the swiss army knife of cycling devices, combining a staggering array of functionality into one system. It consists of front and back equipment that interface with a companion iOS/Android smartphone application. Together, the system combines strong front and back illumination and turn signaling with features like live front and rear HD video recording and streaming, automated accident alert messages with GPS coordinates in the case of an accident, and metrics tracking.

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Connected Objects Cycling

The Shoka connected bike bell gives the handlebar a handle on more

Cycling has never been easier nor more connected due to the plethora of gadgets attempting to be crowdfunded that help both lead and light the way. Still, there;s always room for more innovation, a challenge that continues to push small teams to create new, fun form factors like the Shoka Bell.

Like others, the Shoka Bell is a connected bike bell that helps cyclists find their way, light their path, alert others, and alert them to possible theft. Users can consult its companion app to find the safest routes from point A to point B, made safer by real-time updates from other Shoka Bell users. (It also lets users consult routes taken by friends, see anyone nearby, and upload pictures to Instagram, too.) And since it’s equipped with eight front-facing LEDs, the path to point B is made clear without blinding others in the process.

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Connected Objects Cycling

The BluBel connected bike bell gives routes a familiar ring

Cycling is one of life’s great joys, especially because it’s free to do and offers cyclists who do it often a wide-range of health benefits. However, getting from A to B hasn’t always been the easiest part of it all, forcing those on the move to stop to consult a map or a smartphone for directions, ultimately ruining the fun.

Blubel is a satellite navigation system built within a bike bell. Riders input their destination into Blubel’s companion iOS/Android app and leads riders to their destination using a set of LEDs. On the way, a set of lights indicates a right turn and another indicates a left turn, both of which are prefaced by an audible ping to indicate one is coming up. When close to a destination, a steady LED lights up and acts as a compass. What sets Bluebel apart, though, is its crowdsourced mapping.

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Connected Objects Cycling

CycloShield passive security system helps avoid road dangers

While cycling is a more engaging, more environmentally-friendly and healthier alternative to driving everywhere, the unfortunate truth is that cyclists are a vulnerable lot. With nothing to protect them from accidents, they’re at a much higher rate of injury or death, a huge, underserved issue the CycloShield addresses.

For cyclists who either commute or engage in the sport, the CycloShield passive security system is the way for a drastically safer experience. By attaching it to a bicycle’s seat bar, a set of sensors autonomously detect the approach or threat of a vehicle and audibly alarms riders of the impending danger. In the event of an accident, it not only sends an SOS message to both an emergency contact and to emergency services but also films offenders with a 5 MP camera — extremely useful in dealing with resulting legal battles more swiftly.

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Connected Objects Cycling

It turns out the BEST e-bike conversion kit really is the best

patent-claimedA lot of standard e-bikes on the market operate at the 250W configuration, even in places where it’s legal to have a more powerful motor. And in those other places, more powerful configurations mean more speed, but without the torque to truly make it powerful enough to climb steep hills, for instance.

Inventor Matteo and his brother Luca Spaggiari were challenged to create a motor that could push the limit in terms of the hills it could climb and loads it could tow. Together, they created the BEST e-bike conversion kit. The name isn’t just for show: their design has been recognized by companies like Ford and Edison for being an extremely small yet generating the kind of torque it does. The secret lies within how its brushless motor sports a 10:1 ratio, allowing for a constant, high-level of torque across a wide range of speeds. This means that no matter if backers choose the BEST’s 250W, 500W, 749W, or 999W option, the type of power it generates will be the same.

 

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Connected Objects Cycling

The FeelSpace belt pokes and prods you back home

Getting to a destination has never been easier with smart devices and their large, colorful screens capable of showing the exact way to a destination. While that’s a perfect solution when simply walking around, that’s not quite the case when it’s particularly sunny, there’s a lack of connectivity, or when riding a bike, easily becoming obtrusive to the activity at hand.

To address these navigational challenges, the team behind the FeelSpace belt took the information on the screen and found another way to communicate it: through directional vibrations on the belt itself. This means that vibrations on the belt go off whenever the wearer needs to change direction, making navigation effortless.

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Cycling

ME n’ E makes e-bike conversions more affordable

While products like the bimoz, add-e, and Dillenger dangle the tantalizing prospect of retrofitting our precious bicycles with lightweight packages of electric mobility for a more powerful ride, they do so at a less-than-lightweight price point. In the crowdfunding world, these price points are to be expected but do nothing to make it possible for more people to actually back confidently.

ME n’ E is offering an alternative, more accessibly priced e-bike conversion kit on Indiegogo that works similarly to previous kits. It takes just two minutes to install the lightweight, two-pound kit, giving users about 10-15 miles per charge at a top speed of 32mph.

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Cycling

Bimoz e-bike conversion kits gets your ride ready for more intense trips

The destructive potential of everyday actions is so obvious that it’s almost a crime not to do something — no matter how small — in order to reduce their effects. Besides the health benefits they proffer, riding bikes has long been touted as an eco-friendly alternative to gas-guzzling cars and trucks.

Sometimes, though, the distances or terrain involved can be too difficult to overcome on a daily basis. This is what the team behind Bimoz wants to help with. Riders can use the connected e-bike drive to make most any bike electric by the 250w motor inside of the middle hub, allowing it augment a ride for up to about 93 miles at a time.

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Cycling Personal Transportation

Slim down your electric ride with the Sondors THIN

The holy grail of lightweight and electric personal transportation is still a long way off. Fortunately, crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are incubators of tomorrow’s designs, with many having been fully supported and brought to market — which means all these products should be overrunning the street, right? Well, not entirely. For a lot of people, price and size are still huge barriers making a truly affordable, lightweight electric vehicle something to be integrated into daily lifestyles.

Claiming to have developed the most lightweight and affordable option on the market, the Sondors THIN Electric Bike is now on Indiegogo. Coming in at just 38 pounds, the Sondors THIN features a Panasonic Single-Cell Battery — the same technology used in Tesla’s Model S — to power a 350W motor for a top speed of 20mph and max distance of 50 miles.

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Connected Objects Cycling

Zone DPMX wearable power meter keeps your cycling in the zone

There comes a team in every competitive cyclist’s career when they realize they’re not getting better despite putting in more and miles. The problem usually lies in a lack of power, something a good deal of focused training based on performance data can help with. The problem really lies in how clunky most bike computers can be, forcing cyclists to constantly switch them out to other bikes. In short, they just aren’t as seamless as they should be.

Enter the Zone DPMX, the world’s first wearable power meter for cyclists. Designed by Brim Brothers LTD, the power meter is made up of two parts: a transmitter that sits atop the left cleat and measures cadence (RPM), and a custom-designed pedal that locks into the bottom of the left cleat and measures force (watts). Together, the Zone DPMX calculates the amount of power generated and multiplies it by two to get an estimated total for both the left and the right foot.

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