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Go Go Gadget Stem! SpeedForce Smartens Up Your bike With Fully Loaded Stem

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SpeedForce

With electronics getting smaller and more powerful at the same time, companies and inventors are constantly looking for ways to better our world. That includes helping us become more integrated with the things we use…. even the bicycle. SpeedForce looks to do just that when they put integration front and center with their new feature rich “smart stem”.

Transport yourself past the break to see how many things they fit into this slick little stem….

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It is already standard practice for us to find ways to smuggle hide peripheral items in our bikes. Whether it’s cables, Di2 batteries, or anything you can fit into your SWAT door equipped bike. Basically find a hollow space and stash something in it. Speed Force wants to clear your bars of practically all accessories by building them into their stem. So far they are 1,170% over their Indiegogo crowdfunding goal, (not a misprint).

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The unit has pedal and wheel sensors that measure speed, time, distance, heart rate, altitude, temperature, and cadence. It also has a built-in GPS chip that syncs with your phone’s GPS, and activates turn signal indicators that light up telling you when to turn. The GPS has “Turn by Turn” and “Off the Road” modes. Turn-by-turn requires your smartphone’s GPS. and sends the navigation via Bluetooth to direct you. Off-the-road is when you program your route and without your phone, the SpeedForce’s built in GPS will guide you on the submitted route.

SpeedForce

In addition to all of the smart features, the SpeedForce Stem also houses a 150 lumen headlight. They claim the stem will operate for up to 40 hours, (16 using the GPS), and the battery is removable making it replaceable as well as giving you the option to keep a spare around.

Speedforce MTB

The SpeedForce stem comes in mountain and road versions with length apparently only 90 and 110mm. Though not obvious in the pictures, the stem’s lower “face plate” is removed by 4 bolts making bar installation simple.

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The data from the SpeedForce stem will sync with their SpeedX app letting you access your ride data with your smartphone. The app will allow you to share your data with other users and see how others are doing as well. There is a leader board letting you compete with others. According to their website, they have already had over 400,000 users download the app.

While not everyone’s cup-o-tea, there is obviously a massive amount of interest in increasing integrating more with our bikes and the SpeedForce Stem is no exception.

SpeedForce Indiegogo Page

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14 Comments
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dr_lha
dr_lha
8 years ago

IndieGoGo instead of Kickstarter is a huge red flag for this. Not that I care much, as it’s a silly idea.

badbikemachanickx
badbikemachanickx
8 years ago

This is actually really cool. Bring on the intergrated bike gizmos!

AlanM
AlanM
8 years ago

“They claim the stem will operate for up to 40 hours.” There’s a sentence I never thought I’d read.

rick
rick
8 years ago

Waiting for your long term review.

Clay
Clay
8 years ago

Why would IndieGoGo be a bigger red flag than Kickstarter? They are both red flags. I have bought stuff from both types of campaigns and I am truly not impressed. Never again.

Evan
Evan
8 years ago

It’s a nicely resolved design. As long as they have the internal resources to handle the software side of things, the mechanical part of the design (i.e., the stem itself) is simple and should be successful. That’s the part that bugs me about all of these crowd-funding campaigns. If they are so confident in the success of their design, why not be confident enough in it to get the money from investors or, gasp, fund it themselves? Why should the customers take the financial risk?

James
James
8 years ago

Interesting sample screens. They kind of make sense: If I were pedaling 234 “rpm” then my heart rate might indeed briefly hit 266.
But if I were pedaling that fast, it wouldn’t be with “Jackie Chen” — more likely Jackie Chan. Or Chuck Norris.
It needs to handle power meters to even have a faint chance of success beyond kickstarter.

bbb
bbb
8 years ago

Integrated stuff is lovely untill it breaks down and you need to service, replace repair something… No thank you.

Ricardo Stanoss
Ricardo Stanoss
8 years ago

What handlebar is that? Sorry, unrelated to the stem.

dr_lha
dr_lha
8 years ago

@Clay: Quoting DC Rainmaker from his recent article about the “Limits Powermeter”:

“While buying into a crowd-funded project is always risky, that’s even more the case with Indiegogo projects (over Kickstarter). Indiegogo allows companies to pretty much do whatever the heck they want with zero controls to protect the consumer.”

Kyle
Kyle
8 years ago

Ricardo, looks like a Bontrager aluminum aero bar that they put on the Madones.

Seems weird to put electronics in an item that is used to adjust the fit of the bike. I like integration but maybe something a little more modular with different length stems available would be better?

Bazz
Bazz
8 years ago

Like the idea. But does it sync with Strava? Also, I don’t like the angles much I need -17 for both road and MTB, would be great if they had shims like the Specialized stems to change the angle. Also would be nice if it was more modular and you could for instance remove the light. I’m sure other manufacturers are looking into something like this.

Psycholist
Psycholist
8 years ago

I was sold on the “unlimited motivation to keep you going” promise, but then they crossed the line by stealing scenes from the Lifecycles film (2:27-2:33). Shame on them!

Yes to the idea
Yes to the idea
8 years ago

I like the idea and have wanted something like this for a while. When you have numerous gadgets cluttering up the handlebars and especially in the colder months when you have to add a light, it makes a lot of sense to integrate them into the otherwise-unused space of the stem.

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