Unlock Your Bike With Your Phone

The BitLock Kickstarter campaign is striving to raise $120K to create an app that lets you unlock your bike with the touch of a button. At first blush, it sounds like another “look what my phone can do” story, but the app also lets you create groups with discrete access policies, which means you can let your friend borrow your bike without having to meet up and pass over the key. BitLock also lets GPS-enabled phones help you find your bike, and records a bevy of cycling stats like average speed, elevation gain and loss, total cycling time, estimated calories burned, and the amount of CO2 you saved while riding. The weather-proof U-lock uses a cad-lith battery rated to last five years, employs security encryption that’s equivalent to online banking sites, and a recent design update lets you use a binary code to unlock your bike, should your phone battery die. The early bird price of $79 are all gone, but you can still sign up for $99 (plus $20 shipping). —Nathan Borchelt