DIYer uses mountain bike to pedal around Google Earth
By Darren Murph 
posted May 19th 2008 10:39PM
posted May 19th 2008 10:39PM
[Via Google Earth Blog, thanks Roger]
posted May 19th 2008 10:39PM
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Who needs the Wii now?
Surely, all the wiists who need their fix do.
What happens if he stops pedaling? Does he hover in space? Or does he crash?
Wow, so you're saying that the Wii has a game that lets you fly around the world using an exercise bike? I must be out of the loop!
Or not... why did you even bring up the Wii? It has nothing to do with this.
@bondsbw: wow, you out of touch or what?
We are now gonna head over to my unmarked van which has candy for the children.
dude is creepy. reminds me of bob ross.
It's also my home!
does it factor in resistance based on slope?
Well ... it's a flight simulator, so the resistance is pretty much constant.
No, I think diving is a lot easier than climbing, thanks to gravity.
Very cool!
So... he'll be able to tell people he rode his bike over the Himalayas?
that's the idea.
I didn't have the sound on when I watched the video- does he explain why the bike has girlie handlebars?
oh you missed his soothing voice
ET find homeee
heh whats this website link goes to? kind of paranoid about keyloggers in wow forums.
Haha, he reminds me of Mack from FutureWeapons.
How has everyone missed that he is running OSX on his Dell.
I smell hackintosh.
dave
I believe it's just a dell monitor.
probably a 2001FP by looks of it..
I only say that cause i own the same one and I recognize the angle of the bevel
I was saying the same thing. I watched the video( well only the first minute or so) and it looks like Mac OS to me, from the little bar on the bottom and the bar on the top.
reject thats the monitor most likely connected to a mac tower. I smell idiot.
i dont get whats so odd about having a dell monitor with an a mac pro? You all act as if its some new thing
It's a Dell monitor, and it could be hooked up to anything (not just a mini tower). Apple advertises a certain compact desktop that can be used with any monitor (Mac Mini, the BYODKM computer)
B - Bring
Y - Your
O - Own
D - Display
K - Keyboard
M - Mouse
Dude needs to clean up his dock!
It'd be cooler if you could somehow hook it up to the Google Streetview images. Then you could peddle around the streets of various cities during your workout, sort of like those exercise bikes you see at a lot of gyms now, except with actual images.
GTA anyone?
How does that have anything to do with GTA?
aww you might be right, it resembles my 30 and the newer 24's at work.
Damn thought my first comment would be a dooozy. (multi years as a reader thou)
Great, now those damn bikes, not content with getting in the way and slowing people up on the road, will also be taking up airspace. ;-)
I didn't realize Google Earth was so sweet. The part through the mountains looks pretty great.
If you think Google Earth is sweet, you should really check out Virtual Earth. It's Microsoft's own Earth, but the textures are also just as great (if not better), and the aerial views are actually pretty high-res. And there's many 3D cities in full color. I'm not joking.
If you're interested, you can just to http://maps.live.com/ and view in 3D mode (you have to install a little plug-in), and it works right in the browser.
@quikboy - I hope Microborg pays you top $ for this...
@nikster : Sheesh, it was just a suggestion. Is it wrong these days to point something else that's better out there?
I guess anyone that recommends a Mac must be paid by Apple as well, right?
I think it has the same effect as if I just had a TV monitor in front of me displaying different places of the world while I was biking.
Did Bob Ross build a flying bike?
I did a similar thing allowing you to make your Warcraft character move by running in place. It also has Wiimote gesture support for attacks.
World of Warcraft + 16 foot screen + gesture input:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITeaCq1MTI
Neat trick, but this is old news. A buddy of mine whipped this together in a weekend about 2 or 3 years ago for a conference... http://virtualbicycle.com/
His doesn't "Fly", but it does have some experience elements like increased peadal pressure on "slopes', etc...
I'm, gonna keep my SpaceNavigator...
that's really sweet. does anyone remember an arcade game, about 10 years back, where you had to pedal a flying bike through balloons? it was beautiful, the sensation of soaring, peaceful, but I always ran out of coins. i thought: one day, i will have my own version of this in my home. kind of therapeutic. and now, i kind of can.
BTW the 'girlie handlebars' are a very intuitive way of dealing with familiar flight controls - just wouldn't work the same on drop bars or straight mountain bike bars, don't ya think?
Neat, only not. There is already a built in flight simulator in google earth which offers the identical level of control.
When I read the headline I figured he'd show it off at near ground level, in a city with 3d buildings turned on and textured. That would make for a much more impressive, and somewhat unique, way to browse Earth.
"So son where are you gonna take a bike ride today?" "Well probably over Mt. Everest and might go visit the great lakes maybe even Area 51 and not get shot while im there."
Im guessing we don't need airplanes anymore.
"monumentally inflating his ego"
Well I've watched the video three times now as I'm reporting on it and I still don't get it. What's up Engadget? Is being ambitious and proud of one's unpaid work a proof of being arrogant? He doesn't say his bike is a revolution, just tells us it has generated lots of ideas in his mind... and so what? At the time when users and amateurs and encouraged to generate content and create new devices themselves, I find this comment pretty inept. I might be wrong though, and I might not have understood something, so feel free to let me know why you feel he's being arrogant! ^^
you must be new here. this is engadget. when the editors can't find something clever to say (97% of the time), they make up some dull joke. sometimes they even pack 5 or 6 dull jokes into a post.
Is that a Dell machine running OS X?
I pedaled around the town of Bulworth (in the game 'BULLY') with a DIY bike here: http://imakeprojects.com/Projects/vr-bike/
It was pretty fun to make, and I really like the idea of using Google Earth for something similar!