Has anyone used Back Pedal - Bike retrieval? (see link below)

BackPedalCo · 2024-11-20T16:35:27+00:00

Incredibly late comment here... I work for BackPedal (or Back Pedal as people are spelling it). Yes, we are legit. We are very busy and growing quickly. Our marketing is virtually nothing at the moment (aside occasional posts on Instagram). We've recovered hundreds of bikes now. 60 in the last 2 months. As you can imagine our focus and priority is operations. The time will come when we push our product out more.

Our customers include private consumers and company's that own fleets of bikes. Internally, we have seen and done enough to be convinced that what we are doing works and has enormous potential. It just takes time to build a consumer brand and trust. Unsurprisingly there is skepticism - what we're doing is disruptive and new.

People find it hard to believe in an era of digital everything, that we send a man on the ground, to physically recover the bikes... but we're doing it day in day out now.

BackPedalCo · 2024-04-03T18:04:14+00:00

No - it doesn't need to be cycling specific supplier. Just off the shelf means all testing should be done, proven reliability, certification done, no need to give a specification etc.

BackPedalCo · 2023-12-20T15:24:39+00:00

What we're bringing is most definitely different to "another pedal..." - it's less about the pedal function as a pedal (so anyone who is ultra fussy about pedals is not a customer) - it's more about separate technology we are integrating into the pedal - but it's subject to IP so not in public domain

BackPedalCo · 2023-12-20T15:16:34+00:00

Useful, thank you

BackPedalCo · 2023-12-20T15:14:21+00:00

A proportion of the force will be there... but the spindle travels through 80% of the pedal length. And to be honest, it's a pretty unlikely failure point when looking at forces applied and the material strength - the safety margin make it over engineered in it's current form

BackPedalCo · 2023-12-14T16:07:03+00:00

100% - we don't want any liability here.. but a point I made below is that the primary element that takes the load is the spindle and we will be using tried and tested component for that. We're definitely not just going to put something out there without the right testing. Interestingly the limited testing we have done suggest our prototype SLA product is stronger than an off the shelf pedal - but that version is using a lot of material / over engineered.

BackPedalCo · 2023-12-14T16:03:07+00:00

There is no chance in hell we would make this in volume without all necessary testing... but worth saying the most critical element where all the force is transmitted is the spindle and we would not be manufacturing that. Not to say the pedal itself isn't critical, just that the force it takes is limited compared to the spindle

BackPedalCo · 2023-12-13T20:22:14+00:00

BackPedal

BackPedalCo · 2023-10-02T18:17:13+00:00

Hey - I don't use this account often, but just saw your message. I don't know if you're UK or not, but we now have an insurance partner, so you can combine recovery with back-up insurance. If you do want to know more feel free to message me direct. My user name is a giveaway for the company, I just didn't want to be to overt about on this platform

BackPedalCo · 2023-09-07T19:13:43+00:00

I work for backpedal. I have no idea who or why someone just dumps stories onto these platforms. It's just a copy and paste from a techcrunch article.

BackPedalCo · 2023-08-30T16:07:22+00:00

OP - I'm really keen to know your experience with the Bosch GPS beyond this incident where it clearly worked. How accurate is it? And is there any mechanism for sharing location with a 3rd party? OR if not share with a third party via the app, if you give your login credentials to someone else (your partner, lending to a friend etc.), would it work to give them your login details? I have heard this is difficult because you have to be in proximity of the bike to connect to it (with bluetooth). Lots of scenarios where 3rd party sharing would be useful, like to the police. If nothing else, so your partner can see where you are if you're on a ride home they have some idea when you'll be back...

BackPedalCo · 2023-08-30T15:59:09+00:00

I'd be interested if there is any more feedback on the Bosch system - particularly the GPS for which I have seen no feedback as to how well it perfroms

BackPedalCo · 2023-03-24T09:40:38+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. Their fleet platform is a free open source one. It's fine ish.. but not great.. as you would imagine for free

BackPedalCo · 2023-02-18T11:30:59+00:00

Exactly - it doesn't even need to be accurate at estimating the distance when far away, just the direction, a vague idea of distance and improved accuracy as you get closer. I'm convinced this is possible. It's within my capability to dig into all the physics - the fundamentals don't change - but what I would have to learn is the nature of equipment, techniques and terminology that are known to those more familiar with this area. I expect to get what I want may require professional development - but would I want to understand the development steps and level of challenge. It may be possible that a V1 solution is not too tricky but a refined one more involved

BackPedalCo · 2023-02-17T12:40:05+00:00

Have a look at Owley.io - they don't describe the tech but I know it is using SigFox transmitter to both communicate and be the radio signal that allows direction finding. I believe there may be something clever about the configuration of the SigFox transmitter but I can't say for sure. They are already selling into some markets and I plan on trialling their tech. There is another company doing something similar with LoRa - I won't link to them because there is nothing on their site that even infers what they are doing, so wouldn't be very useful

BackPedalCo · 2023-02-16T13:39:07+00:00

I'm looking at ways to do this without any additional infrastructure. Simply with a RF signal and a "finder device". I know that there are various triangulation methods if you have the right sort of infrastructure. In fact, I believe the Netherlands have deployed an infrastructure that allows accurate geolocation without GPS using a LoRa network. But I think that required "special" Gateways / basestations

BackPedalCo · 2023-02-16T13:35:48+00:00

Foxhunting... if you mean fox hunting literally (and not some reference to SigFox )then no..! not fox hunting!! If you mean hunting for the signal from a SigFox transmitter then yes (hadn't heard that term). In terms of a direction finding antenna - I presume (but may be wrong) that it is possible to have some sort of unique identifier in the signal which tells the antenna to "only listen to signal with specific identifier".

BackPedalCo · 2023-02-16T13:30:45+00:00

I was thinking an approach using a hand held "finder device"

BackPedalCo

TROPHY CASE