Navigation system with traffic monitoring, service interval display, brake wear indicator, tyre pressure monitoring - we can reassure anyone who thinks they have the wrong magazine in their hands when they hear these terms. Although these technical gimmicks are generally associated with the automotive world, electronic assistance and monitoring systems were also a topic at Eurobike 2015, the world's largest showcase for new bike-related developments. Electronic aids have long since added a new dimension to road cycling - gears, power meters and GPS devices are an integral part of the product world. One of the most exciting innovations for road bikes this year was SRAM's new eTAP electric drivetrain. Its components communicate via radio signals, shifting is handled by actuators in the rear derailleur and front derailleur, and cables are no longer necessary. But the SRAM engineers have thought even further: the rear derailleur has a wireless interface via which it can also exchange data with other components on the bike. What else you could do with it beyond gear indicator and charge status is still a dream of the future. But the function alone shows that the sensible networking of components is becoming a key issue.
Island hopping
Until now, many of the electronic gadgets have been stand-alone solutions from individual providers. The sensible combination of the collected data, the evaluation and the resulting action is usually left to the cyclist - with a sometimes rather annoying side effect: anyone who wants to use the electronic features extensively and combine them with each other has to deal with complicated sensors or different computers - and above all with the question of what fits together and "works" with each other. In recent years, the integration of sensors, display devices and analysis software into a functioning package has improved significantly. One of the pioneers is the US navigation device manufacturer Garmin, which recognised the potential of a standardised product and software architecture more than ten years ago. This is not only necessary in order to collect data from several sources and process it together, but also to make the display simple and the operation intuitive - for many experts one of the biggest hurdles on the way to making the products and their possibilities accessible to the widest possible audience.
Read more in the new issue of TOUR!
