These days connected technologies are everywhere, and for a lot of us
they become a big part of how we live. Connected tech is in our phones, our cars,
our music, it's how we get food delivered. It's even in some shoes, but what about the bicycle?
Bikes are evolving faster than ever and some of that evolution is being driven by connected technology.
Many riders have embraced this digital evolution and found it's unlocked
a whole new world of capabilities and experiences. Others question if this new
tech will just add a bunch of complexity to their bike and take away from the fun.
But, what if instead of complicating your bike connected tech could actually make it simpler,
so you can experience more freedom, more joy, more of what you ride for in the first place.
Well, that's what we're here to find out.
Bicycles being this simple elegant machine there has always been a space for innovation
and what comes next and so, we start adding electronics and connected components onto the bike
it really just keeps opening up one door after another.
There's been a lot of advancements especially in the last 10 years around what a cycling head
unit really is. Now you're able to record all of these metrics about how your body is physically
performing right on that ride as well as where you're doing that ride, the type of terrain,
the type of weather. And of course power, heart rate, the other sensors come on board.
Power meters were really driven from high performance cyclists but, it came right over
into everyday cyclists to understand more of what they're doing on the bike, and then of course the
internet gets layered on where you get the Strava layer of understanding how fast am I up this hill
versus somebody else and that really cracked it open. When Strava hit the scene it added a whole
new social element to riding, connecting cyclists by giving them access to their performance stats,
encouragement, and healthy competition all through an App. Strava is cool, it's like a fun way to
keep in touch with people. In terms of you know the comments, and the kudos and people posting
photos and things like that. It's really cool to be like oh me, I got a medal this time which
means I was doing better at something that I did last time. The stats like the data like I can see
exactly like how much faster I'm riding. When I know I'm on a segment I push a little harder. You
go faster when you feel like somebody's watching you even though you're by yourself you get that
feeling that somebody's with you on the ride. I'd steal one of my friends crowns and they'll
be like hey you got my crown and then it becomes a bit of like a inside joke race. Strava helped
pioneer the digital riding community, and the events they host are inspiring generations of
riders to try things they never thought they could. Like the Rapha Women's 100.
Rapha Women s 100 has been a massive event that has built so much community
around getting women out to ride all together on the same day.
It's our biggest ride of the year, every year as a single day event, we've been able to share those
stories through a platform like Strava and get people excited to take on a challenge like that.
And whether they rode by themselves or with a group of friends, they were all riding as one.
So, we've seen ways connected technology is helping track performance, bring riders together,
and build community. But what happens when wireless connectivity is built into the actual
components of the bike? We're in a world now where you can change the temperature of your house
from an app, the AXS ecosystem lets you have that same control and understanding over your bike.
We didn't want to just copy the way we shifted before, so we got rid of the cables entirely,
we went to a wireless shifting system. The role of AXS on the bike is really
interesting because it really liberates the rider. It also liberates the components from the bicycle
in a certain way because it's no longer limited to a cable. It's really great to have a really simple
shifting logic where right hand goes harder left hand goes easier just like an F1 car.
For me the way that SRAM shifting works is really natural because it is the same
that every team has in their car so left paddle is downshift and right upshift.
When I tried the SRAM I was like okay this is like much more natural to me so it's so simple.
I want to care about the person I'm talking to, the place that I'm riding,
the landscape that I'm being absorbed in. I don't want to care about the shifting and that becomes
more possible than it ever was, if it's taken away from me in a way that just makes it disappear.
Connected tech has made things like shifting simpler and more intuitive, and even more
reliable. The real power of a connected ecosystem though, is how it lets you personalize your bike
on a level never before possible. Without AXS customization it's purely a physical thing,
where are my brakes, how high is my stem, but with AXS there's logic that's part of
the customization, how should things behave, how should they act. Being able to program
different clicks to do different things it's a whole new frontier that we're able to explore
and figure out how we can aid in accessibility in what's needed for different people, there's
just a lot that we're able to do now that we couldn't have done before. You may have a rider
with some form of adaptability need, where they require let's say for example all the shifting
on one side of the bike, they could set it up that way. Because of my hand situation with the Blip,
I'm able to have three controls on the right-hand side. Life-changing for my riding, it's insane.
So, most cyclists you can pedal and shift at the same time because using your legs. Well, if you're
using your arms going forward you can't do that with a wired system, so the wireless system allows
me to pedal and shift at the same time and be very efficient at what I'm doing. For a hand cyclist
it's worth its weight in gold. There's a
clear benefit to combating ableism in cycling and electronic shifting is a hundred percent going to
take us down the road where it makes it easier for more people to quite literally ride their bike.
Being able to personalize your controls is a benefit to all riders, the next step is a bike
that can adjust things in real time while you ride, without having to push a button or even
think about it. We caught up with Jon Cancellier to see what makes this level of intelligence possible.
Brief version of Flight Attendant, okay, so we've got a fork with a control module,
we've got a rear shock that can talk wirelessly back and forth between the fork and the shock,
and then we've got the pedal sensor down on the cranks, and that's reading that rider input.
It's reading the trail for you, it's reading your pedaling inputs and it's making decisions
faster than you could to make sure that you have the best ride experience.
Now that the components of your bike are talking to each other, and making your riding
experience better, what if these technologies could make your riding experience safer.
This vision is what inspired the folks at Cannondale to create
SmartSense, an intelligent system of integrated onboard lights and radar.
When a car approaches from a rider's blind spot SmartSense prompts the rider and driver
to pay extra attention, helping to prevent both from being, surprised and reacting unsafely.
The thing with connected ecosystems is they open the floodgates to possibilities never before
imagined because they provide a platform for both software and hardware innovation
that anyone can build on. When the App Store first opened there were 500 apps available and
now there's well over two million apps, and that just gives you a sense of sort of the scale that
is unleashed it can be anyone from you know established companies making apps to you know
a kid that comes up with a good idea. Since I have some of these tools, I made myself a little
garage door opener so, instead of shifting a front derailleur by pressing both buttons it just opens
my garage door. We're just really scratching the surface of what wireless technology can provide.
TyreWiz is a wheel sensor that makes suggestions on the optimal pressure
based on terrain. It was used to finally end the debate on which tires are faster on the infamous
cobbles of the Paris-Roubaix. Now any rider can know the right tire pressure for where they ride
and if they've got a leak. My tire pressure right now is 21.5 in the front 25.7 in the back.
Suspension is super interesting, you cannot describe what suspension should feel like,
you have to experience it. Nobody knows how to set up a suspension bike,
that's a really tough thing to do, why don't we have something that does it for you.
ShockWiz is a true game changer because it can observe the way the suspension is working on
one person and help another person recreate that performance. The Reverb AXS post is the
most technologically advanced post in the world. Fully wireless from the handlebar to the seatpost
but with that,it's just as easy to set up on a bike as a traditional non-dropper post.
In a recent race, Vlad Dascalu broke his seat and was able to basically pull his bike in, pit it,
get an entirely new seatpost and still maintain a podium spot. You could not do that with a standard
dropper post. I had a chance like to fight again for the podium so it was amazing to have
the wireless system on that race. Connected tech is clearly changing the way we ride.
It's even changing what we mean by riding itself. Enter the smart indoor trainer.
All right, you guys ready? Much like Strava digitized elements of cycling, bringing the
world together, being able to compare segments and things with riders all around the world,
Zwift does that for the whole ride experience. This gamification of indoor cycling has opened up
like literally new worlds and new experiences and new communities. This winter we were in Europe
for cyclocross racing and stopped in London and I got to meet one of my Zwift friends in real life
and ride together in real London not Zwift London, so that was really amazing. Riding indoors used
to be like punishing you know you're staring at a wall and sweating profusely and all the motivation
has to come from within which not everybody has. I will puke before I let B. Davies pass me.
To be passed by a competitor in a virtual platform like Zwift is really a game changer. I never
imagined that digital racing would launch my professional career. In 2018 I won the Zwift
Academy Road Program and joined Canyon//SRAM Racing a women's world tour team. It's a dream
come true the digital cycling community allowed me to reach the start line in the real world.
To see these riders come out of seemingly nowhere who are now
sponsored professional athletes because they were able to pedal hard on their trainer at home,
and now race in the women's professional peloton is staggering.
In from the first year like all the women who are there are super strong athletes and yes,
they came from the digital platform, which I think was great because particularly if you're
born outside of Europe the pathways to get to the professional ranks is quite challenging.
Imagine any other sport where you have a shot at going pro from your living room. Clearly
there's already a whole lot of digital innovation going on and at the rate of technological change,
which is literally exponential by nature, imagine in five years or even two where might that lead?
The beauty of cycling is there's so many different ways to enjoy it, there's so many different ways
to do it, there's so many different tools to make the most out of it. I'm just really excited about
making everything simpler, it can tell you things when you need to be told it cannot bother you
when you don't need to be bothered, it's very very simple to install, and at the end of its life it's
instantly recyclable like those are that's really where we want to go with bicycle technology.
I wouldn't try to talk someone out of their love and joy for the tactile experience, but there's
another kind of joy when the technology is so intuitive that it disappears for us and then
there's room for the joy of just being in the experience, just being in the place.