The white-hot rate of change in technology may leave many gasping but one spin-off is that "leading edge" soon becomes "old hat", often begging for enterprising use in other fields.

Well, I’ve yet to see any MP3 players being used as audible fishing lures but it’s rapidly becoming "suck it and see" when it comes to persuading even last year’s hi-tech to work with "engines" such as the ever-appealing Picaxe family.

A solar cell charger being monitored with Stan's Picaxe ammeter. You could also charge small SLA batteries (as shown at the top) and even use one of Jaycars's small wind generators (just visible top right of photo) instead of the solar cells.

I was reminded of this when overhearing a competitive mountain bike rider saying "Magnetic pickup bike computers are so 1990s. . ."

His handlebars were so festooned with electronic devices, including a mapping GPS, that he looked more like a low-flying jumbo jet pilot. Probably even the average pedestrian now sports more computing power than the entire western world had 30 years ago and it is becoming increasingly common to see hikers with handheld GPS units as part of their portable electronics payload.

But . . . bike computers?