Sensory Bike

The Sensory Bike is an adaptation of the most recent Sonic Bike which plays sounds and music dependant on where you ride. The Sensory Bike has the addition of sensors fitted to different points on the bike which manipulate the sound playing, meaning that the rider can also control what they hear by how they ride.

The Sensory Bike therefore becomes an instrument that riders can play and perform on, by choosing to go slow, fast, or to hop, zig zag, making their own sound pieces that go faster or reverse, changing pitch and timbre as they dance on their bike.

The Sensory Bike was first prototyped in 2013 and further developed during Kaffe’s Varèse Professorship in Berlin, 2016, trailing at SoundCycleGarden and launching at lean to go up, slow to go loud that same year. The Sensory Bikes are currently (2021) in our Berlin lab to be developed within the Enviro Bike which measures air pollution.

Read more about the sensory bike and how it was created: Making Lab: Sensory Development

Hear the sensory bike in action in the project lean to go up, slow to go loud

The current design used the same kit on sonic bike design but includes four additional sensors that can be used to manipulate the sound playing:

• Sprocket sensor: currently measuring a pulse – capturing the motion of pedalling, forwards or backwards, fast or slow, used to control speed & direction of the track. 
• Dynamo sensor: measuring bike speed – currently controlling note change.
• Brake switch sensor: Activating the break triggers a switch – currently used to modulate the tone.
• Sense hat on raspberry pi & handlebar sensor: Together they measure the tilt of the bike from lean and turn – currently used to filter the sound.

The sensory bike comes with a newly design speaker bar, made from recycled bike frames and features adjustable speaker heads – so as to position the speakers more accurately for each rider.