Thursday, December 20, 2007

Don't bother looking

I'm almost afraid to post this...

Only because I haven't seen it show up on some triathlete forum yet, or some techie bike forum for TT guys, that think testing the rolling resistance of tires on rollers can be directly related real world situations on the road.

Here you go... http://www.cerevellum.com/

Sure, it's meant as a camera to watch out for cars behind you. And like that isn't bad enough, thinking of people riding their bikes, terrified of cars coming up behind thme, rather than watching where they are actually going. Plus, what happens when you look at the screen, see a car coming, and since it will appear to be on the left side of the screen, your mind automatically makes you steer your bike to the right, so that you are hit squarely by the teenager driving moms SUV at 20mph over the speed limit while texting and driving in the bike lane?

Worse... someone (Triathlete/age group TTer) will find this and think, "Wow, I could turn the camera around, and use it as a video screen to watch where I'm going, and therefore keep my head down in an aerodynamic tuck!" Okay, first thing, your fancy aero helmet is designed to work with your head looking down the road. It gets exponetnially LESS aerodynamic than a standard helmet when you look down, and raise the tail into the air. Next, in my bike shop experience, triathletes tend to have 1,000% more pinch flats than "road" cyclists. Why? Not because of their silly light weight tires, but rather because they think they are aero, riding with their head looking straight down, marveling at the musculature of their ripped legs, and they run over every piece of road debris and pothole on the course. This device will only increase their propensity to ride with their head staring straight at their stem.

And even better... they the site mentions adding a powermeter readout to the screen. That will have the timetrialists falling over themselves! How perfect! You can ride with your head down, AND stare constantly at your power number for perfect pacing!

Maybe to make cyclists using this device safer for all of us, we could borrow another car technology; the "back-up beeper" that trucks use. Instead, riders using this device can just have them constantly beeping, so once you approach these people, you can give them a WIDE berth. They likely won't hear you coming anyway since they'll probably be the same people that insist on racing with their iPod cranked up.

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