I like that no-key Noké but rather than pay the two hundred quid it will no doubt cost this side of the big blue when it is launched this side of the Atlantic, I'll wait for the Chinese lookalike.
But the guys selling one of the other "must-have" components, the all-in-one electric motor with battery and controller all in the back wheel (I wonder how much that weighs and what it does to the bike's handling) demonstrated that without a doubt they're a) Americans (Steven Scharf says he hardly ever sees a hub dynamo on the Silicon Coast...) and b) clueless when in their promotional video the cyclist -- wait for it! -- pushed a sidewall gennie onto the tyre before setting off. Eh? That's 1950s tech, boys. We're just passing through the hub dynamo age, for the last thirty or forty years, and moving into the time when your bicycle lamps will be powered by your electric motor battery. Oops!
What almost all those "must-haves" (really? how'd we ever get along without them?) demonstrate is that when your phone becomes obsolete, so does your bike. While peripherals, even expensive ones, are disposable, I don't think a bike should be. Anyhow, as we used to say Down Under, I am too attached to my favourite bike to let it be buried with every Apple or Samsung phone. The difference between a bicycle and electronics is that a bicycle is a permanent part of your family, whereas a smartphone has a limited life, known on the day you lash out its obscene price.
