I think its dumb too, but isn’t a conventional chain just a collection of tiny bearings?
Though they are much cheaper and don’t work as hard I guess.
Not ball bearings like that in a chain.
While the concept is far from complete, I’m interested in the way they’re planning on doing tooth profiles to have smooth shifting, especially over several shifts. Kind neat.
[quote=Andrew_Squirrel][quote=ergott]Surprised this wasn’t posted yet. I know it’s prototype, but seriously?
[/quote]
I thought it was kinda interesting until they got to the part about requiring a high pressure to keep the rollers contacting the cassette… also the fact that they didn’t bother designing the shifting portion before showing it off really bothered me.[/quote]
I feel like this would work better if turned laterally. So the teeth on the chainring were facing outwards. And it might be more reliable if you had more engagement from the bearings to the teeth so have the bearing circle go around the hub and match onto the ring…
I think that’s cool as fuck
those bearings will be fine atmo, and if not it wouldn’t be a big deal to make em more like bushings a la chains
it’s not like they actually spin that much, they just have to swivel a bit
if it’s electronic I’m sure they can time the shifting to the position of the wheel, so it only shifts when the teeth line up
still curious to see what they do with the tooth profiles if anything
Every time I see that thing I just keep wondering why it is that we can’t have a good IGH. Is there just no way to make those things good, put a carbon shaft drive on it, etc etc?
Watch yo’ mouth…
Good engineers are just damn hard to find in the bike industry. The pay sucks, so you have to really be passionate, and you either end up with enthusiastic C-students or lone high school dropouts who learned everything in their dad’s machine shop, but absolutely refuse to go to work for anyone else and just make singlespeed freewheels in a garage in Utah.
Ceramic speed “rings” result in lateral forces when transferring power, I’m not sure a large ring / big dog can be rigid enough at an acceptable weight. “normal” rings are loaded mostly in the direction of maximum rigidity under power transfer. Straws comment about the ring might help but then you’d have the bearings rotating around the bearing axis (find) and about the no bearing axis which could wear the bearing or ring
PS IGHate: chains are unfortunately like 99% efficient, tolerate misalingment ( too such an extent it’s used to shift gears), light and fairly cheap. Everything else requires changes in 100 year old bike industry norms and usually has some main pro and several cons, soma derpouts anyone?
I think straws was being facetious and described a traditional sprocket/chain arrangement 
I think straws was being facetious and described a traditional sprocket/chain arrangement ;)[/quote]
LULz, reading on phone comprehension fail.
Indeed, a string of bearings, or “bearing string”, running in pockets arranged radially around the edge of a pulley, or “radial-pocket pulley”, as proposed by straws does seem a much better solution. of course there are all sorts of exciting possibilities with such an arrangement, like lateral bearing string displacers, to allow the bearing string to be moved between multiple radial-pocket pulleys
[quote=Tail Hook Lengthener]
you either end up with enthusiastic C-students or lone high school dropouts who learned everything in their dad’s machine shop, but absolutely refuse to go to work for anyone else and just make singlespeed freewheels in a garage in Utah.[/quote]
[quote=Tail Hook Lengthener]
refuse to go to work for anyone else and just make singlespeed freewheels in a garage in Utah.[/quote]
Dammit, can someone enlighten me? I have no idea who needs burn cream.
The reason they didn’t show a working prototype is because it won’t work. Unless as previously stated it can shift at some magical point where everything lines up for a second.
it also will lose some efficiency when they do that. Dropping it from that mystical 99% to a regular old 98% we get with chains. It will need to have channels and stuff for the end to slide. That will probably introduce play and be crappy.
Overal it’s a lot of nothing IMO. Cool if they overcome these challenges but it truly is adding fire to the sun.
[quote=Andrew_Squirrel][quote=Tail Hook Lengthener]
refuse to go to work for anyone else and just make singlespeed freewheels in a garage in Utah.[/quote]
Dammit, can someone enlighten me? I have no idea who needs burn cream.[/quote]
It’s no one in particular, just thinking of some of the guys I used to buy singlespeed MTB parts from who were clearly talented and brilliant, but obviously refused to be employees at some engineering firm, or even go to school to refine their talents.
Hidden bolt cranksets.
How are ya gonna hold your bagel when the clamp interface is that close?
That is literally a bent cylinder that exists but I wish didn’t.