The Implications of AI and HUD Technologies

Between the well known pairs of Masterchief and Cortana and then Iron Man and Jarvis, we all have a pretty good idea of where the combination of a Heads Up Display and Artificial Intelligence could take us. And the motorcycle industry has mounds of potential to be the realm in which the introductory conceptions of this technology will be first brought to market and refined; for the simple fact that no other set of users, besides perhaps fighter jet pilots, have the need for current information but the almost total restriction to gain access to it. We just can’t reach into our pocket, open our desired Maps application, and search for a destination while riding our bikes down the road. But imagine zooming around on your motorcycle and asking your personal AI to find you the nearest gas station, and then a moment later the road in front of you is highlighted blue and you can see that a right turn is needed just up ahead. This vision could be just around the corner.

With the release of Siri, Apple put one of the first hand-held preliminary AI models onto the market. I say “preliminary” because it is not really fully intelligent yet, as I believe intelligence is represented by some degree of self-awareness. But we’re not here to debate the gargantuan topic that is AI. What Siri represents is a technology that you can make verbal requests of and it then performs the requested task or returns the requested information. This gives you the ability to ask your phone for directions or tell it to txt your friend and tell her to start the BBQ because you’ll be there in 20 minutes. The trick of course, is to be understood by the AI and to obtain the desired result in the optimal form. For example: if I am riding my moto, with my phone in my pocket, and am able to issue a command for directions, I need the AI to commence navigation with verbal directions coming through my headphones, not have my phone attempt to display a map on the its screen.

These fledgling stages of AI may be frustrating to deal with sometimes, but their degree of intelligence should increase exponentially as we continue to use them and feed them information. Microsoft is getting ready to release their response to Siri which, coincidentally, is called Cortana. But in the field of truly intelligent AI, I have the biggest hope for Google. Not only did they pioneer an accurate and efficient web search that returns extremely relevant results, a form of artificial intelligence in itself, but they also currently process, store, and analyze more data than any other company in the world. Because when you get right down to it, the root of an AI’s intelligence is in the amount of data it has access too, and he who commands the greatest database has the most potential for creating Artificial Intelligence.

HUD technology seems to be just a few years behind AI at this point, but currently on the verge of bring some very exciting products to market. This year the motorcycling world is going to see two HUD products released; the bolt-on module by NUVIZ and a whole helmet design by Skully. Both concepts have their advantages and disadvantages and will appeal to different types of riders; I think there will be a strong market for each. Deciding between the two is going to depend on how much of your potential attention you want your HUD to be able to command. The NUVIZ module has a relatively small display, giving you the essentials without being domineering. The Skully AR-1 on the other hand can display across a large portion of the face shield, and has the added advantage of incorporating a rear-view camera into the back of the helmet. Wearing the AR-1 may be a lot like donning the Iron Man helmet, with navigation laid out before you, bike data stacked on the sides and a view of what’s behind you set at the top of your visor. Perhaps Google should call their smartphone AI assistant “Jarvis,” then we’ll have all the bases covered.

The possibilities for this new frontier of technology are vast, and I personally am very excited to see what we will be able to get our hands on in the coming days of this digital millennium. Will our helmets be able to actively alert us to potential traffic threats, or hazardous road conditions? To what degree will we be able to communicate with others; just phone calls or will txting be a possibility? Are such options even safe? Hopefully these “smart helmets” will at least be able to monitor traffic flow along our preferred routes, alerting us of traffic jams and suggesting detours.

When Life Tosses You Lemons, Sometimes You Get a Black Eye

                There are things that are out of your control and there are things that are in your control, riding motorcycles definitely drills that in to your brain. The one thing that I had never counted on, when I decided to gear up and start my amateur racing career was that I could lose my job. But it happened, and I wasn’t ready for it. My race bike was completely taken apart, I was in the middle of totally rebuilding my wiring harness, and I still had loads of testing to do on the dyno. It seemed my prestigious days of being an R&D technician for a major player in the motorcycle electronics industry were over, for now. If only the world could exist without politics, drama, and bosses with Napoleon Complexes. But that’s not the way it is, and sometimes you just have to roll with the lemons you were dealt.

                Fortunately for me as one door closed another opened up, and I found a motorcycle repair shop in southern Orange County, run by young motorcycle enthusiasts just like me. It happened that they were in need of a tech who knew his way around electrical installs, and could handle the jobs that didn’t always have a clear path to the answer of “what the hell is wrong with this bike, and how do I fix it?” It seemed like a good fit for both of us, and so now I’m getting to learn all the stuff about fixing motorcycles that a cushy R&D position doesn’t teach you. And that is definitely a good thing; my hunger for knowledge has a full plate in front of it.

                It’s been a little rough, my daily commute is now 92 miles instead of the previous 14, and getting used to working as a flat rate tech is a giant mental adjustment from being on salary. But the future has a whole new array of potential, and at the end of the day that’s what keeps me going. Progress on my beloved track bike is beginning to move forward again. The motor and wiring harness will hopefully be completed by the end of the month. The chassis will be sent to the powder coater for some beautification, and I’ve we’ve got a welder friend who can make me the custom titanium midpipe I need to tie together my Akropovic headers and megaphone exhaust.

In fact my new employer has all kinds of industry contacts, which enable us to give our customers top notch service, and that’s a good feeling. I like being able to give a bike back to a fellow rider in way better condition than when it came to me. Whether it’s an insurance repair, carb tune, or just a new chain and sprocket set, we get it done better than anyone else around. I like being part of a good team, and I’ve definitely found that with +Riders Revelation . If you want to know more about our team and what we can do, check out our web page: ridersrevelation.com

And to my future opponents in CVMA: I’m coming, and I’m bringing my friends ;-)

From Street Squid to Amateur #886

For someone with a personality like mine, riding sport bikes is not just a good fit, but more like destiny or fate. I have always been drawn to speed, I can't remember ever operating any type of vehicle, motorized, self propelled, or otherwise, at anything less than as fast as I could make it go. How fast can I pedal my bike down this hill, how fast can I get this sled to go, how fast can I bomb down this hill on my snowboard? My friends were on the terrain park learning how to do tail grabs, while I was on the black diamonds outrunning the skiers. When my brother and I got dirt bikes when we were 14 it was the same story. I don't care about jumps, how fast can this thing go? And I bent more than a few handle bars figuring out what was possible. I was an absolute idiot in a car in my high school days, going as fast as my little 89 civic could go wherever I went. So it's probably a good thing I didn't buy my first street bike until I was 20. But once I did, it was a game changer.

I have never felt more at home than I do on a sport bike. I wasn't instantly fast, I spent a lot of time following faster rider and learning the right way to take a corner. But I was a quick learner and I could hear the track calling my name. The move to doing track days was just the next inevitable step in my riding career. Once I put rubber down on the track I knew that this was where I belonged, this was a place where I could truly unleash my raw desire for speed. It was a place to learn and grow, and continue to raise the bar on what was possible for me to do on a bike. Three sessions into my first track day they bumped me up from the beginner group to the intermediate group; I was lapping the slowest riders after four laps, every session. In the intermediate group I had faster riders to follow, and by the end of the day I knew I was going to need better gear.

I soon sold my KX250F to buy a one piece race suit and a better helmet; my old leathers were too restrictive and my helmet was too loose. An accident on the street totaled my bike, an 03 Kawasaki 636, but the damage was only cosmetic. With insurance money I bought a new street bike and set about making the 636 into a track only bike. It is amazing how big of a difference all those things made at my next track day. Gone were all the physical limitations of my old leathers, and the mental limitations of riding your primary mode of transport around a race track. If I crashed this bike, baring major physical injury, I had another bike I could ride to work the next day. My lap times tumbled. Halfway through the day I had to flip my knee sliders because they were completely worn down on the top portion; the toe sliders on my boots were almost worn through as well. Again I found the limit of my equipment, my street tires were getting greasy, I was pushing them so hard that they were getting hotter than what they were designed to handle. My pegs were too long, they weren’t giving me the lean angle I needed to take the corners any faster. And I was outrunning the control riders for the intermediate group.

My lap times were good enough to put me into the advanced group for my next track day, but first I needed to make some more changes. I cut an inch off my foot pegs to give me more lean angle, switched my shift linkage to reverse shifting so I didn’t have to take my foot of the peg to upshift while in a full tuck, and picked up a set of used race tires from a friend. A month later I was back out at the track to see what I could do. It was a little intimidating going into the advanced group. I was still relatively new to track riding, I’d only done it twice, and I didn’t want to be the squid who got in the way of the fast guys because he thought he was faster than he really was. Turns out my fears were unfounded, with the new tires and modifications I could already keep up with the average advanced riders. I was still getting dusted by some of the racers who were out there, but they were dusting everyone, so it was ok.

In the third session I latched onto the back of a group of four riders putting down a good pace, following them, watching their lines, their breaking points, where they apexed the corners and their corner exit paths. After a lap and a half I knew where I could improve on their route, and the corner to pass them in was one of my favorites, an off camber, 3^rd gear, near 180 degree right hander. This corner was preceded by a mini straight and a slight hill that you had to brake up, turning in just after the crest. I had been working on pushing my braking point deeper and deeper into this corner. This group I had been following wasn’t braking as deeply as I knew I could and they did stay all the way to the left of the track. I took two of them on the entry, zipping up the very edge of the track, late on the brakes and threw it into the corner. Since it was off camber it meant that you quickly ran out of lean angle, knee on the ground, toe scraping the pavement, minimum contact patch on your rear tire. I was even with the second rider in the group, trying to carry more corner speed by taking a wider line through the corner instead of hugging the rumble strip like he was doing. I needed more lean, so I scooted my foot back to give myself another inch of lean, and brought the bike down more, giving it a hair more throttle as I did.

That day I learned that if your peg hits when you’re in an off camber turn, then you’re going to lose traction at the rear tire and end up sliding off the track into the gravel. Moral of the story for me was: Yes I’m fast enough to run with the big boys, but if my toe is on the ground, then I better try something else besides trying to lean the bike over more. After fixing the minor damage to the bike I spent the next few years doing track days anytime it was financially viable; always looking for the fast guys to follow and learn from. Always learning, always pushing the limits and raising the bar for myself. I had always wanted to race but I kept making excuses; “it’s too expensive,” “I’m not fast enough yet,” etc. But my competitive side was begging for the challenge.

At the end of May of this year I was in Pahrump, NV at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch, riding with the advanced group like always. There were quite a few club and pro racers out there that weekend, getting ready for the coming rounds of their respective organizations. And I had a revelation; all of the experts were running in advanced group, and they were all faster than me yes, but not outrageously so, and all the amateur racers were in the intermediate group, running times slower than mine. I thought to myself what the hell am I waiting for? Upon getting home that Sunday I immediately signed up for the New Racer School with CVMA which happened to be the very next weekend. It was time to stop dragging my feet, get out there, get licensed and see what I could accomplish in the wonder world of road racing.

The first weekend of June I went out to Chuckwalla and earnd my amateur racing license with flying colors. I posted a best lap time that was 113% off the lap record, which was set by a MotoGP CRT bike with Steve Rapp at the bars, and held a pace that would have put me in contention for top five with last year’s field of amateurs. Needless to say, I am quite excited for the CVMA winter series to start on Sept 21^st. I will finally be realizing my dream to compete in the sport that has enveloped every aspect of my life.

In Pursuit of "The Flow"

When I'm tired but can't sleep my mind starts to produce inner monolougs, perhaps they're an intro to a book that I have yet to write. I'm good at intro's, bad at over all content. Or maybe it's just something my mind has to get rid of before it can rest, I dunno. But here's what I had to type out on my phone last night before I could even think about sleeping.

There are many cliché quotes about riding motorcycles: "four wheels move the body, but two wheels move the soul," "we live to ride and ride to live," and many others. And they're all true, for us at least. But for me personally it falls closer to the realm of addiction more than anything. I remember my dad telling me about a doctor visit he had a few years back; a routine checkup, of the sort you have to have when you get older. Towards the end the doctor asked if my dad was still smoking, to which he replied "Yes, and I like it." He knew the lecture; he'd heard it before and not just from doctors, but everybody on the other side of the fence, so to speak. And that's how it is with riding the way I do. I know the dangers, I've paid more than a few speeding tickets, suffered through having a suspended license, and lost friends to accidents. Nothing can equal the feeling of riding just beyond your ability to save yourself. I know where the limits are, how much distance I need to stop, how fast I can move to avoid obstacles. But riding within that range of control is boring.

I think there's a term, Habitual Suicide, for when a person continues put themselves in scenarios that could easily kill them. Who knows why we do it exactly, I'm sure the shrinks have their expensive explanations. I do it for control... But you just said you weren't in control. No I said I was beyond the limits of my control, there's a difference. It takes great handfuls of control, and skill, and talent to ride fast and not die. There is always so much that is within your ability to influence; you just need to decide what ratio of in control vs. out of control you’re OK with. When you ride beyond your ability, there is no room for bull shit, you can't day dream or brood over shitty circumstances. There is only focus, clear, crisp, razor sharp focus. After coming out of that state you feel as if you've mastered something; maybe fate, or death; for time being at least.

I imagine it is something akin to Buddhists' enlightenment; a transcendence to a higher plane. All my extraneous feelings fall away. There can still be anger I suppose, and joy too. But they're much more raw. Anger becomes aggression, joy becomes clarity and nimbleness. They mix and motivate, and drive you forward as you dodge car mirrors or hug curves. There is no feeling like it in all of life. And this is our drug, the adrenaline, the focus, the dance with the bike along asphalt corridor.

We don't ride because we think it makes us cool, or popular. We're not trying to be rebels. In fact I wish everyone could have the experience of riding a motorcycle, but I couldn't care less what cagers think of me. I need this in my life, when I don't have it, it's like going through withdrawal. I'm more easily aggravated, less focused, lacking in motivation, and over all the world seems a less interesting place. I am a knee dragger, holding fate at bay through force of will and a little bit of luck.

You can read my friend Rosemary's view on "The Flow" here.