Wii Cyberbike: Stay In, Save The World

After the hydraulically controlled Afterburner cockpit, this is the biggest game controller I’ve ever seen. The new Cyberbike is a static cycle such as you might find in your local gym, but instead of zoning out to BBC news or MTV, you get to control a little Eco crusader, cleaning up pollution or some such by collecting packets from around a 3-d map on your cycle powered helicopter, or racing around cartoony looking tracks on a more conventional bike. It sounds a bit like a sweaty version of Pilotwings to me… You can also hook the cycle up to MarioKart on the Wii, although it’s not yet clear whether your pedal speed will reflect how fast your Kart will go.

If you’re one of the millions who bought a Wii fit, then this is probably right up your alley; I know I’d much rather use my own exercise bike at home than deal with the butt-sweat of a hundred unknown strangers on the bike seat down at the gym, but then I don’t like going to the public pool because I know the water I invariably swallow has most likely washed past some pensioner’s genitals before it gets to me. Another bonus is that you don’t have to freeze your butt off outside or dodge traffic on city streets. If only they had rigged the bike to have an electrical output so you could heat your house or power the Wii while you cycled then you could really save the world while you played the saving the world game.

I’m hoping that the Cyberbike will inspire other manufacturers of exercise equipment to produce Wii compatible machines – there was a rowing machine called the super GyRo back in the 90’s that had a stab at doing this (you could play a game where you tried to escape from a shark, a bit like the bleep test where you ran across the gym at school), but it would surely be easy to build a game to plug into your concept II computer – hell, there’s probably an app for it already.

Tags: bike cyberbike cycling electric stationery bike wii wii fit wii fit controller wii fit equipment