When I first started livestreaming as BikeCurious I thought it would be easy. I’d download and app on my phone, hop on my bike, and I’d be interacting with viewers anywhere I rode in San Francisco. 2 years and sizable chunk of money later and I’m still struggling to solve some basic livestreaming problems. One of those problems is a “brb” scene.

You know what’s better than a global pandemic? Closing your blinds, turning off all the lights, and replacing the cold painful place we call reality with video games. Lonely Mountains: Downhill is the perfect escape. Its immersive environments had me immediately hooked and the punishingly difficult gameplay was frustrating in the best way possible.

I usually take the most efficient path to beating a game and then, minutes later, couldn’t be bothered to spend another second playing. Not Lonely Mountains Downhill. As of today I have played for 40 hours and am at 82% complete. I almost never 100% complete a game, but I can’t see myself stopping until I’ve completed every challenge Lonely Mountains Downhill can throw at me. Keep reading to find out why.z

Ryde has been a part of my life since 2013 (over 6 years). Since the beginning, Ryde was a labor of love for me. I poured thousands of hours into all aspects of building, maintaining, and promoting it. What drove me to put so much time into the app was how much the community loved it.

Almost every ryder has told us they hate the ads in Ryde. Or at least that's how it feels. And we get it, they suck. But Ryde costs money to run. Ads seemed like a viable way of covering Ryde's server costs. Until the numbers came in...

There is nothing better than getting together with friends, cranking some tunes, and riding around the city. That's why we're bringing back the Get High at the Beach Ride. It's a casual bike ride through some of the most scenic and bike-friendly parts of San Francisco. It's a great opportunity to meet new people and experience the many wonders of SF...

Your backpack is probably your most important piece of kit. Unfortunately, wearing a backpack while riding feels like wearing a ski jacket made of lead. With the Origin8 CargoLight bars you'll never have to wear a backpack again.

Over the last 6 months Billy Arlew, Justin Aguinaldo, and myself have put these bars through their paces. What follows is our assessment of the strengths, weaknesses and WTFs of the CargoLight bars...

Way back in January I promised that Ryde would have Timezone support by the time it launched in the App Store. Well that was bullshit. But this time it's different because Ryde 1.0.9 has arrived and it officially supports your local timezone. What does this mean for you?

Summer is winding down. At Modeo that means it's time peel our calloused arse-cheeks from our saddles and glue them to office chairs for the winter. And yet, it's still so easy to pick up a bottle of bourbon and slip back into the drug induced haze of summer. Which is exactly why we're giving away a brand spankin' new Bike Strap to one lucky winner.

The first question we get every time we tell anybody about Ryde is "how do you know that a trip was on a bike and not driving?" The answer: "The user tells us." Which is a major bummer and a mild exaggeration since we're able to filter out about 20% of all trips because they're just too damn fast. But 20% isn't good enough.

Ryde now uses a machine learning system to learn the way you travel and make educated guesses about whether or not you travelled by bike. In other words, we are one step closer to a dystopian future where the machines get to ride bikes and we are their tender pink energy sources.

At its core, Ryde is about having fun on a bike. Instead of awarding points for suffering, Ryde rewards you for doing things on your bike that are genuinely enjoyable.

That's why you will now receive 35 bonus points every time you chill at a new spot! Just go somewhere you've never ryde-ed before and chill until you get your Ryde notification (usually 15-30 minutes). When you save your ryde you'll see your bonus points!

Last weekend was the first ever Get High at the Beach ride. It was a casual group ride through some of the most scenic and bike friendly parts of San Francisco. There were about 20 ryders in attendance including some a few Ryde celebrities like Sam Daly and Baby Valentine...

It's high time that the Modeo community get together and meet face to face! What better way to get together than a group ride through San Francisco?

The Get High at the Beach Ride is a casual group ride along some of San Francisco's most beautiful and bike-friendly streets. The ride is 17 miles long with 2 steep but short hill climbs, each rewarded with an incredible vista, including the view from San Francisco's legendary Sutro Heights Park. Ryde users can expect to earn about 570 points!

Parse is a BaaS (Backend as a Service). Every mobile app (and many other kinds of software) are split into the frontend and the backend. In the case of a mobile app, the frontend is the mobile phone which the user interacts with. The backend is the server, which stores the data and does all of the computational heavy lifting.

3 years ago, when I started working on Ryde, Parse allowed me to focus almost 100% of my time on developing technology specific to Ryde. Instead of spending time developing systems like account management, database indexing, customer service tools, and a bunch of other things, I was able to focus on the core technologies that make Ryde unique.

So I was dumbfounded when Parse announced that their service would be shutting down...

At Modeo we're big fans of Google's mapping APIs. Since we are developing biking apps, mapping and location tech plays a big role in our day-to-day work.  So when I updated to Google Maps SDK 1.11.1 and received this error my day ground to a halt...

The first car radio appeared in 1930. It's now 2016 and I still can't buy a bike with a fucking stereo. 

Much the same way that the right album can turn a painfully long drive into an epic adventure, music is an absolutely essential ingredient in a superb bike ride. Since there's no bike out there that's designed with this in mind, I've designed my own setup.

In my past life I was a game designer. I was the person that analyzed what was fun about a game and tweaked the rules to enhance that fun.

The reason I became interested in making games was because of their amazing power to teach. Games are often abstractions of real world systems. For this reason, they can teach us about real world processes like the rise and fall of civilizations, the inner workings of the human body, or how to survive the zombie apocalypse.

But I left the games industry...

Hello bikists. It's been nearly 5 months since my last update and so much has happened. Where should I begin?!

Last month my wife and I welcomed Valentine, a healthy and strong human male, into our family. It turns out infants are adorable. Which is good because I've never seen so much poop. Ever.

It's December and the Pacific North West is as damp as that wet patch between your back and your backpack. In the northeast fresh snowfall will soon give way to fresh snowmelt, filling the road with unavoidable creeks.

We need to prepare our bikes for the onset of these rugged conditions. But which of the many fender technologies should we turn to?

Let's break it down...

Most North American Transportation Bikers who commute by bike show up sweaty. Common solutions are bringing a change of clothes, taking a shower after you arrive at work, or giving up after a few tries.

But it turns out it's not that difficult to prevent sweating while you're on your bike. I spent the last few days combing through Bicycling Science and derived these helpful tips.

Melissa and I are having a baby, and with every baby comes challenges. Fortunately, some of these challenges are overcome by buying new bikes. That's why Melissa and I test rode a Larry vs. Harry Bullitt provided by Vie Bikes.

During my 24 hour test period I rode 30 miles up and down many of San Francisco's challenging bike routes. I rode both during the day and at night. I tried to cover as many use cases as possible. In the end, I had the most amazing experience I've ever had riding a bike.