Let's get Digital

Garmin Vector Pedals

Let’s get digital. Digital. Let’s get digital. Diiiigital….

Everything on bikes is going all Edison on us. Or Tesla depending on the kind of conspiracy theorist you are. Last year Shimano introduced to us the Ultegra 11 speed Di2 and now SRAM has an Electronic group in the works. We have electronics in wheels, cranks, shifters, clothes and now…. Pedals!!! I know, I know, I have no room to talk. After all I am the one that gave the world the Di2 BS. Electronic shifting in your saddle. You are welcome.

But for $1,699.99, you too can have a set of pedals that tell you what we already know, your left leg is much weaker than your right. But not before spending at least an hour connecting, syncing and updating everything on the bike that can be synced, updated and connected to.

I’m well versed in tri-bike maintenance and building and I get a lot of heat for it here at the shop. “Those aren’t even bikes anymore” someone will yell out from the bathroom. The funny thing is though, TT bikes or closer to traditional bikes than mountain bikes, and we all know how SG loves some mountain bikes. Mountain bikes have hydraulic brakes, suspension parts, and linkages and soon there will be electronic shifting. Officially. Not the K-Edge mod.

Sort of seems the only bikes that are traditional may be those silly hipster kids and their new-fangled gearless bikes with their lack of brakes and gears. Now if only they would do away with the lights and affix kerosene lanterns to the fronts like they did in the hay day. Then they would be truly old school and tra-dish.

But now, I’m not just a bicycle mechanic, I am also a bicycle electrician and programmer. I now have to read lines and lines of code, tracing wires back and forth and in circles, all whilst trying not to let all the smoke out of your Garmin units.  I hear the smoke is imported from Eddy Merckx ass high above the Swiss Alps.

But still, with all these R&D studies and wind tunnel testing, integration of man, bear and pig and machine and electrons and hydro-pneumatic shenanigans, I am left asking myself, and Herman, this question day in and year out. “Why am I still using zip ties on this $12,000 bike?”

Wrap that around your head Sheldon Brown.

Yours Truly,

Jamers!