The bike that tweets for you

Technology and bikes seem to go hand in hand a lot.  It was not to long ago that I wrote about the effect of Twitter on the cycling world.  Now, we’ve got a bike that can do the tweeting for you – as well as post ride stats like location, grade and more to a website.

The bike is Precious – and it is being ridden cross country by Janeen McCrae to help raise money for the Livestrong Foundation.  You can follow her progress on the Yes I am Precious website – which has a wonderful application with up-to-the-minutes stats on the ride.  For example, as I am writing this post I can see that Janeen is riding just shy of 20 mph, in Hodgenville, KY.

According to the Biking Bis blog, this is Janeen’s second attempt after an unfortunate crash prior to the first attempt.

While the sensor data – like speed, temperature, etc. – is automatic, the twitter posts the bike is capable of are also automatic – partially.  Janeen has pre-programmed some set messages that the bike will send to twitter based on some selection criteria.  Again, fro Biking Bis blog:

As explained at Mashable, if McCrae’s bike records a long downhill stretch and high temperatures at the same time, it might post the Tweet, “Coasting is easy but somehow I’m still sweaty.” That Tweet is removed from the list and never appears again.

McCrae can also press a button that sends out a Tweet from several categories.

Part of the web page displayed at http://yesiamprecious.com/ tracking Janeen's ride and Twitter updates