I’m all for free enterprise, and I’m leery of creating any more government agencies, but we may need to enact some new legislation and empower some sort of heavily-armed body to keep the bike industry and the tech industry as far apart as possible, because this can’t be good:
First we should finally pass the FRICTION [Federal Restriction on Integrating Cycling and Technology In Our Nation] Act, then we must empower agents from the Bureau of Wheels, Tires and Frames [WTF] to keep tech companies away from cycling companies by any means necessary. See, we must end this predatory behavior before they start “integrating agentic AI into bikes:”
Yes, it’s always about making cycling more “accessible,” isn’t it? See, the real problem with bicycles is that they’ve always been too complicated:
Fortunately, things are much simpler now:
It just keeps getting better and better:
And with artificial intelligence it will only get better still.
Look, I realize it’s futile to rail against AI. It’s the next phase in our technological evolution, and it’s inevitable. Even I use it to generate images such as this one:
Though of course it never works. In this case, I told it to make me an image of “The Time-Traveling T-Shirt-Wearing Retro-Fred From The Planet Tridork Riding His Aero Bike Of Doom,” and it wasn’t even close.
This, of course, is the Time-Traveling T-Shirt-Wearing Retro-Fred From The Planet Tridork:
Though he’ll also answer to “Bret.”
But just because AI will eventually figure out how to generate accurate images and will probably be writing this blog in a matter of months, that doesn’t mean I want it on my bikes, or that I need a smart handlebar:
Do you think it comes in quill?
I’m going to guess it doesn’t.
Either way, you probably didn’t ask for “the world’s first fully connected smart handlebar.” For that matter you didn’t even ask for 31.8. But guess what? You’re getting it anyway, and it’s called…FLITEDECK!?!
I’m sorry, WHAT?
If you’re old enough to remember 9 speed (sounds crazy, but someone born when Shimano introduced 9-speed Dura-Ace is now almost 30 years old), you know that Flight Deck was Shimano’s integrated cycle computer:
[That appears to be a 10-speed version, but whatever.]
You controlled it via a little nubbin on the lever hood, which allowed you to toggle through exciting features such as “CLK” (that’s techn-jargon for “clock”), and of course Campagnolo answered with its own version, the “Ergo Brain,” which, uh, probably also had a clock:
Of course, in those dark days of male chauvinism, while we may have had computers, there was no place for data on our actual handlebars, as that space was reserved for images of scantily-clad ladies:
But those days are over…or maybe they’re not:
Maybe this is only the beginning:
I guess it’s safe to assume FLITEDECK will have a “Virtual Pin-Up” feature.
Now they can get cease and desist letters from Shimano and Cinelli.