Get Wednesday!

As part of my transformation into a Strava weenie I obtained a popular brand of smart watch which I use to interface with said application, or "app" as they call it in Silicone Valley.  Alas, the other day I noticed a crack in the face of my smart watch, probably caused by repeated exposure to my objectionable visage.  So I took the smart watch to the store from whence it came and they in turn put the watch in a box and sent it away for analysis, which means I am, at this moment, deeply and profoundly watchless.

It's a touch transition and I keep looking at my bare wrist, so I think I may have to buy some sort of inexpensive "gap watch" in the interim--and I'm pleased to report I may have sound just the thing:

The watch, which took three years to develop and was introduced last month, features a mechanical odometer that can record distances up to 99,999 kilometers (62,136 miles). Mr. Mille — who, like Mr. Prost, is an avid cyclist — said the idea for the new complication came from his bike racing friends who “every time were totally unable to tell me how many kilometers they’d covered since the season began.”

I don't get it, are they not on Strava?

Anyway, here's the watch:

The case is made of Carbon TPT, or Thin Ply Technology, a shock-resistant industrial material used in the aeronautics industry, and blends three shapes — tonneau (a Richard Mille signature), rectangular and asymmetrical — for comfort and legibility while gripping a bicycle’s handlebars. Features include a manual winding tourbillon, 70-hour power reserve and a titanium baseplate and bridges that recall bicycle frames.

Oh, please, it looks like something you'd find in the Beetlejuice house:

Still, given the reasonable price tag I'm sure I can live with the ugliness for awhile:

The watch is a limited edition of 30 pieces — and those who find the $815,500 price a bit steep may take comfort in knowing it comes with a bespoke carbon road bike by the Italian maker Colnago.

Amazing.  The irony is that if you bought a Colnago and the shop told you, "Oh, here, it also comes with this ugly-ass watch" you'd probably just throw it away.

But hey, whatever motivates you to ride, right?

Mr. Mille hopes the partnership will get his clients on the saddle, even if they don’t ride as often as he does. “I absolutely don’t know how many kilometers I’ve cycled this year,” admitted the watchmaker, who now rides mostly on weekends. “So I’m expecting to get my own watch soon.”

Just imagine, oh, I dunno, this guy rode into a wormhole and time and suddenly arrived in our present:

Now imagine showing him both the Beetlejuice watch and a smart watch and explaining that one has a mechanical odometer while the other one can tell you pretty much anything you can possibly imagine, and also you can use it to communicate with people on the other side of the planet because it talks to satellites in space.  Then ask him which he thinks costs almost a million dollars and which costs just a few hundred bucks.

I think we all know what his reply would be:

"Dear god, is that the president?!?  Somebody please kill me!"

In other product news, here's a really bad brand name for a kid's bike:

You don't want to evoke natural selection when you're selling kids' stuff to parents, that's just marketing 101.  That notwithstanding, the bike looks pretty cool, though there's absolutely no reason for the belt drive:

The video cites chain stretch and lubrication, but I can assure you that kids outgrow bikes before the chains even need lubing, much less get anywhere near the point where they actually start to "stretch."  If you're measuring your child's chain for wear then get help immediately because you are a terminal Fred.

Now a quality timepiece?  That's another story, which is why when it comes to getting watches for my kids I don't mess around:

Finally, the electronic shifting on the Renovo is a whole new world to me, and to that end a friend sent me this:

Which is perhaps the most impenetrable two paragraphs I've ever read on any subject:

Dear Lennard,
I am in the process of converting a bike from Shimano Dura-Ace 7900 to Ultegra 6870 DI2. I have the BT-DN110-1 internal battery, a EW-RS910 handlebar end junction, and the SM-BCR2 battery charger. I have used the E-Tube software to update the firmware on all of the various components and everything seems to be operating just fine. I am still waiting on a rear wheel that can carry the 11-speed cassette, so I do not actually have the bike on the road yet.

My question is, how do I make sure the synchro-shift functionality is completely disabled? I just want the bike to shift normally with no auto shifting assistance. I looked around in the E-tube software setup but I was not able to see where/how this would be done. There is quite a bit of information on the internet about how to set up synchro-shift, but there does not seem to be much info around on how to disable it, so maybe this would be something good to cover in your column.
— Steven

Even so, the answer is easy:

You're welcome.