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OPINION

Dear bike tech brands who insist on crazy proprietary chargers and cables: here’s a better solution

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Being driven mad by the number of different connectors all your gadgets have? Us too, and we think we have a solution

Makers of bike gadgets, listen up. We need to talk.

Now, if your gadget charges with one of the standard versions of USB, you can tune out. Go back to working on the next generation gizmo that monitors blood adrenaline so our Garmin bike computers can provide evidence that we really were terrified when that cabbie almost killed us and casting profane doubt on his family relationships was perfectly reasonable, despite what the police say. Or just tell us when our ride was really gnarly and we should be properly stoked. 

2022-garmin-forerunner-955-solar-crop
Four metal contacts on the back of this Garmin watch – Garmin's clever but non-standard USB socket

The rest of you still with me? Polar, Garmin, Wahoo Speedplay, CooSpo and everyone else whose devices have unusual or proprietary interfaces to get power in and data out? Listen up. These wacky cables, cradles and what have you are a monumental pain in the arse.

2022 Polar Verity Sense Optical Heart Rate Sensor - mount and charger.jpg
The cradle for Polar's Verity Sense Optical Heart Rate Sensor plugs straight into a USB charger – if you can find it

Look, I get it. You want to make your device as tidy and compact as possible. There just isn’t room for a USB-C plug to go a whopping 6.65mm into it, so your connections are instead tiny gold-plated panels on the device surface, or if you’re Garmin making a watch you have a special low-profile socket for a custom cable. In terms of making Nice Things™ it’s a perfectly sensible approach.

2022 Wahoo Powrlink Zero Pedals - charging clip 2.JPG

The charging clip for Wahoo Powrlink Zero Pedals

But in terms of whole-life usability, it’s a bloody disaster. Can I find my CooSpo heart rate monitor cable? Can I hell. Do I know where the cable for my Garmin watch is? Well, yes, but only because it’s literally tied round my bedside lamp so I can charge the watch overnight every few days.

In two months’ time am I going to be able to find the tiny charge cradle for the Polar Verity Sense heart rate monitor I’ve just been sent to test? Only if I hot-glue it into a USB extension cable and attach a big label to it that says POLAR. And the only reason I know where to find the charge cables for my Assioma power pedals is that they're permanently resident on charge cables zip-tied to the bike stand in the garage where that bike always gets parked. As editor Jack Sexty put it when I showed him the first draft of this piece "Amen, I say as I look for my Assioma pedal chargers…"

I know, I know, we should be better organised and having too many bike widgets with odd charge cables is the epitome of First World Problems. But widget makers are missing a trick here, so here’s an idea that benefits both them and us poor occupants of St Zita’s Home for the Tragically Disorganised.

Ribbon cable - Rnewkirk7954 under CC BY-SA 3.0 on Wikimedia Commons

Like this, but bright pink with a large bike computer brand logo on it (Rnewkirk7954 under CC BY-SA 3.0 on Wikimedia Commons)

Ribbon cables. Attach your cradle, plug, magnetic interface or whatever to a honking great flat cable, the wider the better. When you order the cables get your company name printed on them over and over again. And make them any colour you like as long as it’s NOT black. Yellow, red, bright blue, green, pink, purple — all these alternatives exist and will make it easier to spot your cables among the nest of black infesting everyone’s desks and drawers.

You get free marketing, your products get to be Nice and we can find your wacky cables. Everyone's happy.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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16 comments

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David9694 | 1 year ago
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unpopular opinion - USB isn't perfect for outdoor equipment - moisture and grit take their toll. I had a See.sense light where although the UBS socket didn't fail, it had me worried until the light dies anyway.  Aren't we re-purposing something intended for indoor use?  

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IanGlasgow replied to David9694 | 1 year ago
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Micro USB sockets are notoriously unreliable. I've had several fail on a variety of devices including a phone and a See.Sense light.
USB-C seems slightly less bad.
Wireless charging is the best option.

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quiff | 1 year ago
1 like

Will the EU standard charger rules change this? Not clear if these sorts of devices will be caught: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220930IPR41928/long-...

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hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
7 likes
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HoarseMann replied to hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
1 like

At least with bespoke charging cables, there's no risk of using the wrong one and damaging your equipment. Not like the good old days of DC jacks, with a myriad of sizes, variable polarity, voltage and current.

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hawkinspeter replied to HoarseMann | 1 year ago
1 like

HoarseMann wrote:

At least with bespoke charging cables, there's no risk of using the wrong one and damaging your equipment. Not like the good old days of DC jacks, with a myriad of sizes, variable polarity, voltage and current.

I almost broke my PineBook Pro laptop (https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/) by grabbing a charger with the correct size DC jack and assuming it was the right voltage. It behaved a bit strangely for a while but seems to have recovered now.

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andystow | 1 year ago
2 likes

Yeah, no. Just come up with a standard for Pogo pins or similar, plus one for eighth-turn or quarter-turn mounts while you're at it.

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Rixter | 1 year ago
2 likes

How about why every bike has to have a different derailleur hanger, what's the point of that?

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hawkinspeter replied to Rixter | 1 year ago
0 likes

Rixter wrote:

How about why every bike has to have a different derailleur hanger, what's the point of that?

It's because the frames are different.

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Backladder replied to hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
2 likes

It's because they can charge more for unique spares rather than generic ones.

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mark1a replied to Backladder | 1 year ago
1 like

Although I had a pleasant surprise a few weeks ago. Called Specialized Rider Care to get the part numbers to hangers for 2019 Venge and 2020 Roubaix. Both it turned out were same part number, and a very reasonable £10.99. Maybe they've realised it makes sense for both customers and suppliers to make every post-2018 frame with thru-axles have the same hanger. 

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HoarseMann | 1 year ago
1 like

Custom charge cables are also a way to achieve a waterproof IP rating. USB sockets have not been great for that in the past, although you can get IP68 rated sockets nowadays.

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Sriracha replied to HoarseMann | 1 year ago
4 likes

There are plenty of dunkable Android phones using USB-C, so it can't be all that impossible. For my part, if it uses something other than USB-C then I'll almost certainly pass.

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hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
2 likes

Ribbon cables suck for device charging

  • As the conductors aren't twisted, there's issues with cross-talk between the wires
  • No shielding although there won't be high current going along those wires
  • Those wires aren't going to handle fast charging devices unless you like seeing the plastic melt off
  • The connectors aren't designed for heavy usage - you typically pull on the cable to get them free which will break the connector over time
  • They have a preferential bending axis, so aren't as flexible as you may want

On the positive side, you can get them in rainbow colours and they're cheap.

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TheBillder | 1 year ago
0 likes

Get that man an old shoe box and some coloured sticky labels for Christmas.

More seriously, most stuff is USB, so only needs 4 conductors. Why put in a 32 pin ribbon cable instead? And there's a good reason why those tend to be used in places where disconnection and reconnection are uncommon - they are not that durable, especially for the mechanically unsympathetic.

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Backladder replied to TheBillder | 1 year ago
1 like

He declares the connector is the problem but comes up with a cable as the solution!

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