I got to work yesterday without thinking about anything other than motion and that of enjoying the company of an old friend.
When you have been off of the bike for some time (I’ve only ridden three times so far this month, this does equate to me being off the bike and being accused of selling out to a lucrative career of sport climbing) and then you jump back on and hit the road, it’s like bumping into an old friend at the super market. And by friend, I don’t mean an acquaintance or someone that you used to hang out with.
In my lexicon, the word friend can only apply to someone that has been in your life long enough that you can consider them family. Someone that you have spent more time with than most of your family. It is certainly not something that you advertise on Facebook and count on the sidebar of your screen. It’s something that cannot be proven by clicking on a web link.
Friends are like bikes. You enjoy the hell out of ’em when they are around and when you don’t have time or are busy in other areas, they are cool to chill until you bump into them again at the super market and realize how much you enjoy the hell out of ’em…
Riding to work yesterday was like pulling an old friend out of my shed. The crazy blue bike wasn’t mad that she hadn’t been ridden in a few months. She was overjoyed at the prospect of having her tires pumped up and some torque applied to her cranks and I was ecstatic to oblige. And like all commuter bikes, she was up and ready to go in less than three minutes. Like bumping into an old friend at the super market.
Yup, those were the thoughts occupying my mind on the way to work.
There was definitely no thoughts of how much torque was being applied or how that equated into power. There was no contemplation on how I could keep all my friends in the shed organized digitally.
You see I have Facebook to keep track of all my human “friends” in one, easily accessible digital depository. When I am concerned about someone, I can jump on my computer screen and check their status to know they are in deed still alive, at least digitally. I can jump on their info page and see that they are now single and no longer work at the corner 7-11. And they got fat.
So I was ecstatic when I ran across the Bike Quiver app that was reviewed in the latest Dirt Rag.
As you can see, it allows you to keep track of your “bike” friends in a digital manner. “Record gearing information, tire pressure, brake pad type, seat post height, mileage and much more to plan upgrades or remember what size tubes to buy at the bike shop.”
As Billy Sedan, a user that gave the app a five star review, put it, “Very handy way to keep up with my bikes. Thanks!”
I can see this being useful in the sense that it is a central location to record your serial numbers. God knows I don’t have mine written down, anywhere. But I don’t see how this allows you to “keep up” with your bikes. The phrasal verb to keep up, when used in a relational context tends to mean that you are interacting in a way to share information and know what the other half is been up to (another phrasal verb). Unless your bikes are inputting the info, I don’t see how you are “keeping up” with them. Maybe he means the app makes him faster so when he is chasing the bike down the street he can “keep up.” Or maybe he just meant to keep track.
Anyway, thanks to the new Bike FacebookQuiver you can keep up with all your bike friends and ensure that you buy them the right brake pads for their birthday. All though I didn’t see a place to enter their birthdays so you will have to put that on your calendar manually.
As I mentioned, the other thing that wasn’t on my mind was how much torque I was applying to the cranks. Luckily during my morning trip into Rumorland, I found another device that will keep track of this for me so I don’t have to think about it.
Finally, a power meter crank with revolutionary oval chainrings. Maybe if Shimano had teamed up with SRM back in the day, we would still have Biopace.
This $2499 crankset will record your power info and send it to any Ant+ device. The Ant+ device, of course, will then record the information. So while you might not be thinking about your power output while you are riding, you can review said data later. Also, the BCD is the same as XX cranks so you can run normal round rings too. You know, if you want to not have the awesomeness of oval chainrings.
So what have we learned today? Well, while you may not be thinking about your bikes or your power there are plenty of devices that will help you make sure that you get the most out of your biking experience by recording this info for you. We also learned that bikes have their own version of Facebook. All this means that you can “keep up” with your bikes while anal-yzing your power data on your computer.
And most importantly Facebook sucks so you do need to go to the super market every once in a while to interact with something more than pixels.
P. L. and R.