Genuinely new merchandise are uncommon nowadays, however as the primary totally built-in sensible handlebar, Flitedeck will supposedly convey one thing fully completely different to high-end biking. This carbon-fiber handlebar has a 180 x 70-millimeter IP68 waterproof, hi-res touchscreen and biking pc with GPS navigation, linking with health and biking peripherals, safety, crash detection, lights, smartphone connectivity, and even coaching modes.
But, wanting past the achingly cool, future-forward design, we’re struck by the very fact no person has thought to invent it earlier than. Sure, the newest electrical bikes typically have digital shows, and as a toddler of the Nineteen Eighties all I ever wished was a Raleigh Vektar (full with sound results, speedometer, and FM radio), however even essentially the most premium race bike nonetheless depends on a slightly inelegant handlebar-mounted bike pc.
Not so with Flitedeck. It appears to be like to be an altogether extra elegant resolution. Through the use of Wi-Fi and an E-sim, downloads equivalent to GPS navigation and coaching information might be carried out wirelessly and from wherever with a telephone sign. The specifically developed wi-fi chip (Bluetooth ANT+), just like the bike computer systems it’s trying to exchange, will assist all frequent biking sensors, together with energy meters and people measuring velocity, cadence, and coronary heart price. Compatibility with merchandise such because the Garmin Varia radar additionally imply you might be alerted to approaching site visitors from behind. Early plans to characteristic a rear-view mirror digicam have been shelved although for now.
{Photograph}: Flitedeck
After getting hooked on highway biking in 2020, cofounder Sabrina Fischer was aggravated that she needed to mount ugly bike lights and computer systems to her stunning aerodynamic bike—so the thought for Flitedeck was born. Collectively together with her cofounder, Matthias Huber, she began to research, as Fischer explains to WIRED: “We requested ourselves, why couldn’t handlebars operate like a automobile’s cockpit? We thought there simply needed to be a extra built-in, extra related resolution.”
When requested why the biking trade hadn’t carried out this seemingly apparent improve already, Huber says that “electronics simply isn’t their point of interest. They perceive carbon-fiber manufacturing, aluminum, and high quality management, however there’s hardly ever an electronics division, and when elements are required [with EV bikes, for example], they only purchase them in from manufacturers like Bosch.”
What makes the German duo suppose they’ll construct state-of-the-art racing handlebars, not to mention one with an built-in sensible pc? Properly, Fischer interned at BMW and wrote her thesis on race automobile electrification whereas working at Porsche, the place she helped develop the entrance axle of the Porsche 911 GT3, no much less. She has additionally labored for Automobili Pininfarina, Roborace, the now-shuttered autonomous EV racing arm of Arrival. Huber has additionally labored at BMW, Porsche, Roborace, and Blackwave, a carbon-fiber manufacturing specialist.
