Apparently that light can be seen from a mile away in daylight. Photo: Garmin
The road can be a dangerous place for cyclists, so it’s a good thing Garmin launched a new taillight Wednesday that has a high-def camera and radar. It will record everything going on behind you while you’re on your bicycle. And its radar can alert you to approaching vehicles.
Using the new Garmin Varia RCT715 Radar Camera Tail Light, you can download all footage to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch via the Varia app. That could come in mighty handy if you’re in a crash and need to prove what happened.
Discover the secrets of the Activity app. Photo illustration: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac
At first glance, the iPhone Activity app seems pretty simple. It’s basically just a calendar to keep track of your daily Activity Rings. But if you know where to look, you’ll find a surprising number of pro features buried beneath that slick, simple interface.
So check out our top 10 iPhone Activity app tips and discover some indispensable stats that will help take your fitness to the next level.
Find a bike near you with Apple Maps. Photo: Apple
Apple Maps can now help you find a healthier and more environmentally-friendly ride. A new partnership with Ito World allows you to locate bike sharing stations in more than 175 cities across 36 countries. Simple search “bike sharing” now to get going.
When you’re out on your bike, you need to be as visible as possible — especially at night. See.Sense ACE is a bike light that uses artificial intelligence that reacts to every moment of your journey, making cycling safer and simpler.
The light improves visibility when you need it most, and ensures you’re seen on the road. It also connects to your smartphone to provide things like theft alerts and cycling stats.
Rapha designer Alex Valdman uses iPad Pro for everything. Photo: Apple
The iPad Pro and Apple Pencil have completely changed how the cycling clothing company Rapha designs its fashionable road gear.
In a new short film, Apple goes behind-the-scenes with Rapha’s head of design, Alex Valdman, discussing everything from his approach to design, creative process, and how he uses the iPad Pro to get work done.
Keep yourself and your iPhone alive with the BSEEN Boost Pack. Photo: Trident Design
You can charge your smartphone while cycling or running with an accessory also designed to keep you alive on the road.
Sounds like a lot to ask of a battery pack, but the Boost Pack by BSEEN does both with a rather simple design.
The Boost is a belt pack with an LED light panel that stays lit or flashes. It also holds your smartphone and a lightweight 4000 mAH rechargeable travel battery pack to keep your phone charged.
This Red Bull-sponsored film of Tyler Fernengel, an up and coming BMX star, shredding through the creepy post-apocalyptic remains of Detroit’s Silverdome stadium is both amazing to watch and poignant at the same time.
The stadium represents with a gravelly-voiced narration, as well.
“I remember it like yesterday,” it says. “The smell of fresh paint. The stands overflowing; a colosseum for the modern age. Forty years ago, I stood for Detroit.”
Kevin Manning's ingenious Pump-Hub system inflates bike tires as you ride. Photos: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
SAN FRANCISCO — Sometimes even a great idea falls flat at first. Take Pump-Hub, a self-inflating bike tire gizmo. It was rolling along at trade shows and getting lots of good press before the financial crisis of 2008 sidelined the project.
Now its creator, engineer Kevin Manning, is getting back on track with a new team behind him and plans to expand his original idea — an automatic, adjustable, tire-inflation system housed in the hub of a bike wheel.
For cyclists, the Pump-Hub means no remembering to check the tire pressure or pack a pump, no fiddling around with the valve and then racing to put the cap back on before the air wheezes out and your aching arms have to start all over again. It inflates the tires to the proper pressure while you ride, making a gentle clickety-clack sound reminiscent of spoke cards from childhood days. When the tire hits the designated pressure, the fluttering sounds stop. If you get a flat, just upend your bike and spin the wheel until pressure is restored.
“It’s like how using a Macintosh is easier than using a command-line interface,” Manning says, turning his Gunnar bike upside down on the Embarcadero to show me how the Pump-Hub works. If you really boil down all the technology behind his invention, he adds, the main advantage basically ends up being “it’s easier.”
No one but actual, honest-to-God bicycle messengers had the authority to wield a Timbuk2 messenger bag. If you were an iron-assed hard case living life on a bike, you’d probably earned the right; though you might still have found yourself the target of diluted messenger disgust.
That was the pervading vibe 15 years ago when I bought my first Timbuk2 bag, a Bolo (back then, each size had a name; the Bolo was the large version). Make no mistake, these were Messenger Bags: simple, voluminous, virtually indestructible black holes, able to swallow an inordinate amount of awkwardly dimensioned deliverables, specially stabilized for use on the bike exclusively. The only grudging nods to civility were a couple of pockets sown onto the outside of the bag and an optional padded shoulder strap.
And apart from a few minor changes, it’s stayed that way. Like the coelacanth, the Classic Messenger has remained a living fossil, unchanged, while other Timbuk2 species have evolved and developed around it. Until now.
The little dots on the sensor's face are lights that tell you whether the sensor is connected, or if the battery is low. Photo: Eli Milchman
LAS VEGAS — Rather than come out with a more casual-oriented wearable fitness tracker like everyone (and we mean everyone) else, Wahoo stuck to its athletic roots and took the more serious route of improving the heart-rate monitor strap and accompanying training software the company introduced a few years ago.
In fact, Wahoo has created three new versions of its Bluetooth HR strap. The company even tried to restructure the way athletes think about training with the new “burn or burst” approach for the Wahoo iOS app.