I also wonder about the "feel" of this system and the tourque associated with putting power down. Anyone who's ridden a motorbike with a shaft drive will tell you that you can really feel the bike's frame twisted and pulling to one side when you put the power down.

Maybe not an issue for a commuter bike but for a performance bike you definitely would't want this.

  
looks a bit like this :




I cant imagine how the drive shaft might move to shift gears on the ceramic speed one

The big difference is a normal drivetrain the chain is spread over at least 6 teeth at any one time - here the maximum is 2 or so - so the force on the teeth is massively more - so teeth have to be much stronger


looks beautiful though - very nice concept art

It would be additionally interesting if it was possible to put another internal gear in the shaft so that you could turn it into a something like a 39 speed. Think old sturmey archer internal gear inside the shaft to multiply the rotation ratio. That would be super cool.

I think you are wrong, look how all basic mountain bike standards such as freehub design, hub spacing (boost), 1X, frame redesign to has happened in the last 3 years to accomodate for 1X drivetrains for MTB. Shimano just released their new freehub body for XTR that was their first change to the standard in 30 years. Companies are willing to change standards if the benefits are big enough. The bike companies are falling all over themselves to find a compelling reason to innovate and upgrade their customers. Business 101. Cost will start high but become lower over time, as always.

It's way past the art stage. Getting to the point of fabricating functional roller/tooth interfaces, even at very low torque, took an engineer, not an artist.

I don't think they've figured out functional shifting yet, though. That'll be a neat trick.

Steel should be a viable fix for the front chainring.

The pic link didnt work before :

Yeah...would probably need to be at least roller bearings instead of ball to handle the loads...Of course, I didn't say the idea was practical though, did I? ;-)

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Bevel gear efficiencies max out around 97%. Also they are pretty limited in gear ratios and I think efficiencies go down as you increase the ratio.

Better materials, electronics, computing power, etc can take a basic idea that was not that great 100 years ago and make it great today.

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Ed O'Malley
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i couldnt find this pic whent he thread first poped up,

For sure the shifting will be interesting... in the one vid they mention the two channels on the rear cassette with two shifting areas. The big question is how do they propose to move the rear bearing assembly to change gears?

Some sort of indexing mixed with electronics or ??? It is an interesting development.

Yeah, all sort of complications with clutches, alignment, allowing the rider to still pedal while that's all going on (or not) . Super interesting engineering problem.

All that, and aero, too!

I would love to see them Proof of Concept this on a track bike.

Yeah, I was thinking something similar.

It is a cool concept so far though.

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in tems of the gear shifting, one way i could see it working is,

you measure the speed and position of the rear "cassette", and allocate windows for the bearing assy to move to the next location, this should not be too hard as its pretty similar to the way engine management looks at the crank and gets the spark in the correct position. I think the real problem is getting it to do it reliably under load, maybe the bearing assy could be fired from one slot to the next quickly enough, but I'd be supprised, maybe a system that only changes under no load or the casset rotating slower than the wheel?

Also m wondering what ratio's can be accomodated, obviosly there is a limit to how close the cassette "rings" can be together, i wonder what change in teeth this is, probably not likly that an 11-22 straight up could be done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQIfNygVMDE

According to GCN seems they've actually sold one of these in Dubai.

Talk to me when it shifts, until then it's vaporware

Ya'll are a bunch of pessimistic haters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmEYfdZOGAc

Not vaporware. It's a track bike.

Until I see a person riding it and applying a high torque, it's not even that...

So many haters.

CS, "Here's an early prototype. Nowhere near a product yet."

ST, "It's just a prototype, not anywhere near to being a product.". Well duh.

I don't agree with you. It's more like this:

CS: "we intented the best drive train ever! Only 1 watt!"
ST: "does it shift and does it work under load?"
CS: "It's the most aero too!"
ST: "But does it shift and does it work under load?"
CS: (silence)
CS: "But we also have an aero cover for it!"

Looks like it also can't be retrofit to an existing bike...

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Strava

Therefore no manufacturer will implement it due to having to have a custom frame. It's a great marketing ad though!

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Well there is the possibility of future frames being compatible (similar to how frames can be di2 and mach compatible). But that just lengthens any kind of adoption timeline.

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Strava