5 Aug 2009  ::  As always; unimpressed
Ok, first note, which has absolutely nothing to do with the blog- Kevin and Andrea have a wee baby named June, and I'm excited for them. I'm pretending it makes me a f-uncle (fake uncle) and telling everyone I see about it, and because I don't have school or work, amounts to no one.

One of the rather endearing traits of people is that they are constantly striving to improve things, even when they are obviously not. Nature made me an angry man who easily criticizes and rarely creates, making me more prone to hating designs and policies.

I know about bikes though, and this one is particularly insipid. The major aspects of the design are based around pedals that always stay upright, random lights and insulting cafe racers everywhere by openly admitting to copying their styling.

I think it is fantastic, really, that the designers of said bike were incapable of getting their foot in the toe clip while pedaling, which is rather solid evidence that they should spend less time working on designing and more time actually riding.

And to think that bar end blinkers are in any way handy. The only people who care that you are turning are following and they won't see the the flashing bar ends in any case, mainly because the bars are too short. Oh wait, narrow bars suck for any sort of climbing, even the "half persistent" type mentioned on the site, because narrow bars don't offer any leverage.

But do you know what is indeed helpful for riders bombing around at night? A front light, so cars know you are approaching and don't pull out on you, or so other cyclist know you are coming directly at them on the bike path.

This project is almost entirely fluff with no substance. Rationally speaking, the only thing mildly well addressed is the back light, but even then, the light is entirely dependent on a rechargeable battery pack shoveled into the headtube, which goes to show the narrow and ignorant vision of the entire mechanism. Should a bike run wires throughout and go to the trouble of incorporating a button mechanism, the bike should just go ahead and make an integrated converter that uses the energy used from a spinning hub or bottom bracket to power both a front and back light whenever the trigger is has been flipped, making it renewable without being a burden to the electrical grid.

I really hope the Pulse wasn't given much credence, even by interweb renobs.