Smart gear is dumb. Well, not all of it鈥擨 like that my heart rate monitor talks to my watch, which talks to my phone. But then I have special needs, thanks to an occasional heart arrhythmia. I鈥檇 rather ride like I ski鈥攚ith zero data. And often I do exactly that on mellow mountain bike outings. I even leave the phone in the car. Dumb gear is where it鈥檚 at.
My dogs have confided in me that they feel no need to track intervals with a fit collar. After a 30-minute setup that involved a call to customer service and multiple reboots to get the Bluetooth firing, my smart headlamp landed in a gear pile in the garage, where it鈥檚 now free to talk to the spider and the fly. With headlamps, smart is an on/off switch. I thought it would be worthwhile to track my sleep, but thanks to a borderline unhealthy low resting heart rate (see: arrhythmia, above), my oh-so-smart watch thinks I鈥檓 slumbering when I鈥檓 reading or laying awake at 2 a.m. stressing about something my asshole phone just told me.
Last month, one of my favorite ski manufacturers made a smart ski. Embedded sensors tell your phone whether your weight is a little forward or a tad back and whether you鈥檙e getting a deep flex out of the ski. Now, skiing isn鈥檛 golf. 国产吃瓜黑料 of competition, there鈥檚 nothing worth quantifying. The best GS racers in the world ski in the back seat鈥攖ail gunners, according to Bode Miller. And the best freeskiers barely bend the ski. As for me, who gives a shit what I do? If my ski starts talking back, I鈥檒l make an Adirondack chair out of it. I recreate outdoors to escape nagging software.
Sensors in my daughter鈥檚 ballet shoes won鈥檛 make her dance better. My son and his teammates on the high school mountain bike team don鈥檛 need power meters to get faster. Power meters are for old dudes. Sport is about learning to control your body in space and time, growing accustomed to stress and recovery. Ned Overend was America鈥檚 greatest mountain bike racer, and he trained and raced off perceived effort. To ski well, you need to keep your shins in the front of your boots, engage the core lightly, look where you鈥檙e going, and breathe. That鈥檚 about it. Sounds easy, but because snow and terrain are always changing, it takes a lifetime to figure it out. If you鈥檙e looking at a screen, you might miss some crucial insight. Also, the universe.
Besides, evolution has equipped us with some pretty good innate tech. Our mitochondria are like little bots converting fuel for exercise. Our eyes can detect ripples in the snowpack at 60 miles per hour. But our bodies aren鈥檛 some tool. They鈥檙e us, just as a ski or a bike or a new pair of trail running shoes can feel like an extension of our being.
The more we train, the more we know that the body and the mind are one, absolute. Athletes know this to a lesser degree as muscle memory. When trained, the entire system knows what do and we barely have to think about it. Such effortless action is euphoric. And it鈥檚 not Bluetooth-compatible.