HW #8

The article is chose to read was called “Coming toyour Bicycle: Wireless Braking” by Steve Almasy. This article I found to be really interesting. The creator of the wireless braking system is Holger Hermanns. Holger first created the braking system just for fun, with no expectation that anyone would really pay any attention to it.

Holger made the braking system by putting sensors on the handle bars and two sensors on each fork on the front of the bike as well as the back of the bike. The amount of pressure that you squeeze the handle bar brake with tells the sensor how fast you want to come to a stop. To engage the back brakes you simply just pedal in an opposite rotation.

Holger immediately started getting calls from local bike shops and the word began to spread across the country. “I never thought someone would be seriously interested in this.” Holger told CNN in a phone interview. “The wireless brake works with 99.9999999999997 percent reliability, according to a news release from Saarland University.” Holger said he does not see the riders in the Tour de France adding this technology any time soon because of its heavy additional weight from the battery pack, but he hopes to improve the product as time progresses.

I think that this is a pretty cool idea, I personally do not ride a bike a lot but the idea of having no wires on a bike would be convenient. With no wires you do not have to worry about them getting in the way or trying to fix or replace them if they break. With this idea that Holger has come up with many train companies are looking into what this could do for their industry. The only downside to this wireless technology is the fact if it does not work for some reason then many trains will have to be stopped with an emergency brake and if so trains take a long time to get going again. This could potentially cause many delays on train schedules.