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Thief tracking pedals hit $50,000 funding target in just 24 hoursConnected Cycle 2

Thief tracking pedals hit $50,000 funding target in just 24 hours

Connected Cycle Pedal will also collect and upload ride data without ever needing a charge
by Alex Bowden
Wed, Apr 29, 2015 17:05
9

French start-up, Connected Cycle, launched an Indiegogo campaign for the world’s first smart bike pedal this week. Billed primarily as a means of locating your stolen bike, the pedal hit its $50,000 funding goal within 24 hours.

We reported on the Connected Cycle Pedal earlier in the year. As well as tracking the bike’s location, alerting the owner when it has been moved, it also delivers a number of other functions. It will automatically record the speed, route and incline of all of your rides, along with the calories you’ve burned, and it will do all of this without requiring any battery power as it charges through your pedalling.

The pedal is installed pretty much the same as any other, but with the crucial difference that a specific coded tool is required – a means of preventing its removal by a thief. Once installed, all bike locations and ride statistics are automatically uploaded and available through the Connected Cycle smartphone app.

If you’ve forgotten your phone or it’s out of battery, it doesn’t matter. The data will still be there when you next log in. The app will also notify you should someone move your bike. The Indiegogo page mentions someone trying to take off the lock as an example of when you will be alerted, so presumably relatively little movement is required to trigger this.

The pedals, which will be available in five colours, may also feature a cadence sensor if $250,000 can be raised. At the time of writing, funding had topped $90,000 in three days with 28 days still to go.

The standard pedals will sell for $220 (around £140) and it is hoped that they will be on the market by December. 

anti-theft
GPS
Pedal
smart pedal
Alex Bowden

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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9 comments

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Airzound | 9 years ago
0 likes

I can't see an S-Works Pro team bike having them fitted.

Even if the bike could be tracked if stolen the police still wouldn't do anything.

Avatar
macrophotofly | 9 years ago
0 likes

Sure there are ways to rip the crank off, etc but this idea has been through a longer thought process than some of the comments above.
You need a power source to keep the item working. What is unique about this idea is that it has covered that single most difficult item. Sure, we can mount chips in frames, weld them into components, etc, but unless they have a protected power source that is strong enough to continue collecting GPS and transmit to the internet (neither of which is low power), the chip is valueless.
The dog chip works very differently in that it has to be scanned allowing details to be checked by a third party (and that party has the resources to check 10,000's of bikes). It also works because ownership changes rarely. It's basically not that different to punching a unique code on the bottom of the frame and registering it with Police...and we know how well that has worked
Very easy to attack the idea but very hard to come up with a viable alternative. I do have some thoughts on slightly more secure ideas involving the crank, but even they cannot guarantee the kind of power generation that can come from a pedal

Avatar
Matt eaton replied to macrophotofly | 9 years ago
0 likes
macrophotofly wrote:

Sure there are ways to rip the crank off, etc but this idea has been through a longer thought process than some of the comments above.
You need a power source to keep the item working. What is unique about this idea is that it has covered that single most difficult item. Sure, we can mount chips in frames, weld them into components, etc, but unless they have a protected power source that is strong enough to continue collecting GPS and transmit to the internet (neither of which is low power), the chip is valueless.
The dog chip works very differently in that it has to be scanned allowing details to be checked by a third party (and that party has the resources to check 10,000's of bikes). It also works because ownership changes rarely. It's basically not that different to punching a unique code on the bottom of the frame and registering it with Police...and we know how well that has worked
Very easy to attack the idea but very hard to come up with a viable alternative. I do have some thoughts on slightly more secure ideas involving the crank, but even they cannot guarantee the kind of power generation that can come from a pedal

In fairness, the technology being employed is quite interesting from the point-of-view of a training aid, particularly if it can capture cadence data in-line with speed and location information. Not being reliant on batteries is surely a good thing. Obviously it would need to be built into a clipless pedal and if they could incorporate power metering it would really be a powerful tool.

I'm still unconvinced of it's usefulness as a security product though, it's just too easy to bypass. Perhaps if the technology could be built into existing pedal designs so that the thief would not be aware that they needed to ditch the pedals at the earliest opportunity I'd be a little more convinced.

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hennahairgel replied to Matt eaton | 9 years ago
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Matt eaton wrote:

Not being reliant on batteries is surely a good thing. Obviously it would need to be built into a clipless pedal and if they could incorporate power metering it would really be a powerful tool.

How about building it into a bottom bracket? Invisible, motion to power, etc.

Avatar
Matt eaton replied to hennahairgel | 9 years ago
0 likes
hennahairgel wrote:
Matt eaton wrote:

Not being reliant on batteries is surely a good thing. Obviously it would need to be built into a clipless pedal and if they could incorporate power metering it would really be a powerful tool.

How about building it into a bottom bracket? Invisible, motion to power, etc.

As a security product I think that would make much more sense, and maybe the tech that powers these pedals could be employed in a BB. As a training aid the pedal makes more sense as it's easier to switch between bikes and I can imagine that some racers might be concerned about the power-consumption affecting their race-day performance (however modestly) and would want to switch to normal pedals for races.

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bikebot | 9 years ago
0 likes

Purely because of the styling it's not something I would buy, but I'm glad it's done well. It shows that there is a demand for security products and specifically tracking devices, hopefully encouraging more to be developed.

I think tracking has a lot of potential to reduce bike theft, and it doesn't need to be ubiquitous to do so. Just common enough to become a problem for individual prolific bike thieves.

Avatar
ianrobo | 9 years ago
0 likes

and lets be honest if you have a bike worth stealing then you will not been seen dead with those. Surely there must be a simple way of chipping a bike like we do with dogs ?

Avatar
Matt eaton | 9 years ago
0 likes

I'm surprised there are so many backers; there seem to be some major flaws.

First of all, all a thief would need to do is ditch the crankset, so it doesn't really protect your bike at all. You might get your cranks back though I suppose if they don't remove them with an angle grinder.

Secondly, how many people want ride stats like cadence metering but are happy to ride on flat pedals? Surely there should be compatibility with one clipless system or another?

Thirdly, if you're in the market for £140 worth of pedals are you really likely to be riding a bike that is left locked up outside?

Avatar
Beefy | 9 years ago
0 likes

With pedals being replaceable surely the thief could fine a way to remove the pedal without coded tool, or just take the chainset off if an expensive frameset? Would have thought hiding the tech in the frame would be more effective. I suppose it's a deterrent though a little expensive.

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