I’m all without cost enterprise, and I’m leery of making any extra authorities companies, however we could have to enact some new laws and empower some kind of heavily-armed physique to maintain the bike trade and the tech trade as far aside as attainable, as a result of this could’t be good:
First we should always lastly cross the FRICTION [Federal Restriction on Integrating Cycling and Technology In Our Nation] Act, then we should empower brokers from the Bureau of Wheels, Tires and Frames [WTF] to maintain tech corporations away from biking corporations by any means vital. See, we should finish this predatory conduct earlier than they begin “integrating agentic AI into bikes:”
Sure, it’s at all times about making biking extra “accessible,” isn’t it? See, the actual drawback with bicycles is that they’ve at all times been too sophisticated:
Fortuitously, issues are a lot less complicated now:
It simply retains getting higher and higher:
And with synthetic intelligence it would solely get higher nonetheless.
Look, I notice it’s futile to rail towards AI. It’s the subsequent part in our technological evolution, and it’s inevitable. Even I take advantage of it to generate photos comparable to this one:
Although in fact it by no means works. On this case, I advised it to make me a picture of “The Time-Touring T-Shirt-Carrying Retro-Fred From The Planet Tridork Driving His Aero Bike Of Doom,” and it wasn’t even shut.
This, in fact, is the Time-Touring T-Shirt-Carrying Retro-Fred From The Planet Tridork:
Although he’ll additionally reply to “Bret.”
However simply because AI will ultimately work out learn how to generate correct photos and can most likely be scripting this weblog in a matter of months, that doesn’t imply I would like it on my bikes, or that I want a sensible handlebar:
Do you suppose it is available in quill?
I’m going to guess it doesn’t.
Both approach, you most likely didn’t ask for “the world’s first absolutely linked sensible handlebar.” For that matter you didn’t even ask for 31.8. However guess what? You’re getting it anyway, and it’s referred to as…FLITEDECK!?!
I’m sorry, WHAT?
Should you’re sufficiently old to recollect 9 velocity (sounds loopy, however somebody born when Shimano launched 9-speed Dura-Ace is now nearly 30 years previous), you realize that Flight Deck was Shimano’s built-in cycle laptop:
[That appears to be a 10-speed version, but whatever.]
You managed it through slightly nubbin on the lever hood, which allowed you to toggle by thrilling options comparable to “CLK” (that’s techn-jargon for “clock”), and naturally Campagnolo answered with its personal model, the “Ergo Mind,” which, uh, most likely additionally had a clock:
In fact, in these darkish days of male chauvinism, whereas we could have had computer systems, there was no place for knowledge on our precise handlebars, as that area was reserved for photos of scantily-clad women:
However these days are over…or possibly they’re not:
Possibly that is solely the start:
I suppose it’s protected to imagine FLITEDECK could have a “Digital Pin-Up” characteristic.
Now they’ll get stop and desist letters from Shimano and Cinelli.
