Designed to crowdsource mountain bike safety and help expand a sense of community among trail riders – Tilt is a simple wheel sensor that alerts nearby riders, then an emergency contact in case of a crash. Essentially a small bluetooth sensor that you strap to your front hub like a modern speed sensor, you pair the Tilt with a mobile phone app which differentiates regular riding motions from an actual crash, and gets you help when you need it.
TILT mountain bike crash detection & rescue response system
Whether you do a lot of solo mountain biking in isolated areas or just end up on tough adventures far from home, sometimes it can just be reassuring (especially to your loved ones) to know that if you crash, someone else will know. So Tilt will monitor your riding and send out a call for help, even when you can’t – all with the tagline ‘Never on your own’.
TILT mountain bike crash sensor – Tech Details & How does it work?
The small 15g, made in Denmark Tilt sensor is powered by a single CR2032 watch cell battery and has a claimed operating life of one year before you need to replace its battery. The simple electronics of its motion detector sit inside a snap-together case, that is then held in place to your mountain bike’s front hub with a rubber strap. Once you pair it, and install to your bike, you don’t have to touch it again until you need to change the battery. Sensors inside automatically wake the device when you start to ride, and it looks for its paired smartphone and the Singletracker app to communicate. If you don’t open the app nothing else happens.
But with the app running Tilt keeps an eye on you. If you have a bad crash (a sudden & dramatic stop detected by the sensor on the hub), the app will pop up a notification asking if you are OK. If you don’t cancel it, the Singletracker app running on all other devices in the area with get a full red notification screen saying someone nearby needs assistance, and will allow others to indicate that they will help. If no one is there to help, Tilt will then use the Singletracker app to send a text message to your preset emergency contact indicating that you crashed & need assistance, together with your GPS location data. You can also send a distress signal out through the app manually if you don’t crash but need assistance.
The Tilt device itself sells for 95€ and requires a smartphone to operate. It also will require a future subscription service for continued network operation, but 12 months is included with purchase (and a subscription fee isn’t required for any users yet as far as we can tell, but is expected to be something like 1€ per month.)
Singletracker social mountain biking app
Of course to get the full benefit of a communal response, you need a bunch of other Singletracker users (otherwise it just will be texting your emergency contact.) At its start now that network seems rather limited, probably more dense in Tilt’s home of Denmark. But Tilt & Singletracker seem to be planning for more active participation in the near future, working with international trail centers & bike parks to map trails and organize community events to bring riders together and reward them for using Singletracker, with things like prizes if you attend several events or ride a certain trail a number of times.
Singletracker is a free app for iOS or Android, and builds in social trail riding perks, as well as helping introduce riders to new legal trails to mountain bike on. Its developers seem to really be getting behind global MTB community building, so we’ll be curious to keep an eye on how that progresses in the future.
In the meantime, we are going to try this little Tilt out, and see how it works on the trail. We’ll try not to crash too much, but we have a certain tester in mind who will be a good guinea pig to see how hard you have to hit the deck, and how often you’ll get false positives in real riding situations.
