The Overrun

Dear (insert motorcycle brand here),

Stop. Please stop.

I understand that you are all powerhouses of science, technology and engineering. You are all extremely capable of creating machines with incredible levels of performance and style. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever hopped on one that I didn’t like, in some way or another.

But your proprietary apps that you require us to use are terrible. At best they are a passive go-between to kinda, sorta, almost make interactions between my device and I easier. At worst, they are nothing but gimmicky bloatware.

Sure, the argument to let riders tweak their bikes features and settings wirelessly, to control media playback, to get that GoPro running and cue up a trip route sounds cool in the R&D war room -- “It’s modern, plays into the trends and tendencies of those all-important youth customers and when they start to associate our motorcycles with their phones, we have truly conquered all!” -- but none of them work as well as you wish.

For those of you that don’t ride or haven’t had the pleasure of these idiosyncratic routines, I’d ask you to think back to the early days of Bluetooth connectivity in your fourwheeled conveyances. Remember how trying it could be to facilitate that connection? How often it would drop, in the middle of a call? Well, getting two or three devices -- phone, headset, camera -- to chat with each other, via an app speaking through a motorcycle can feel a lot like that. Except that are a myriad of ways for things to fail. Usually when you need them most. And none of it is actually necessary.

Every one of these platforms require the rider to have both a phone and a helmet mounted communications device (headset). To be able to heed those turn-by-turn directions, music or podcasts and be able to bark orders back at Siri or Google, the headset takes centre stage, functioning just like those AirPods that have made Zoom and Teams so tolerable. And if you don’t feel like yelling at the voices in your head, the switchgear on the headset will gladly skip tracks, answer calls, adjust volume and any other number of desired things.

So why do I need my bike, and your app, to work as an intermediary?

“To see your mapped route!” you say. A $50 mounting device handles that. It has already for years.

“Ahh but what about when it rains?!?”, you cry. “Our TFT screens are waterproof!”. Well I’ll grant that that is handy, but I’ve yet to lose a phone due to inclement weather, thanks to pockets.

So please, just stop. Or, if you must have something techy to brag about, do what Honda has done: embrace both Apple and Google as the interface overlords that they already are.

MATTHEW NEUNDORF | TRQ CONTRIBUTOR