HERE
This would be interesting to tri!!!
I don’t understand the appeal or desire for this, but then again, my car is also a stick shift.
I love this new stuff. Interesting what can be done once we had electronic shifting.
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Time trialing I see the advantage but I think it posses several major disadvantages for TRIs. Firstly passing in TRI’s presents the same situation as standing on a road bike which would require manual overrides. Then there is the matter of changing gearing/pedaling style coming out of T1, to warm up the legs, and then going into T2, to get your legs ready for the run. What is best for a pure bike split isn’t the fastest style for a full TRI. Finally there is not insignificant problem of ensuring the bike doesn’t shift suddenly during periods of natural instability i.e. when a hand is off the bike getting food, water etc. Grabbing for a bottle/feed on a road frame is tricky enough, just ask Contador. The last thing I want when grabbing water out of my rear cage is to have the bike suddenly shift.
What saddle is that? Looks like it needs a Viagra.
On topic I really couldn’t see myself using this. Can see the advantage of sequential shifting (i.e. you just have an up and down button, don’t have to worry about front/rear, the system just picks optimal chain lines for you). Can maybe see the benefit of a system that advises you to shift up or down because your cadence is out of optimal range or your power is dropping. But would always want to make the actual shift myself - too many variables involved such as having a hand off the bars to drink/signal, dropping gears because you’re coming to a stop sign, doing low- or high-cadence intervals, etc. But then I’m commuting 100-150 miles/week on rolling hills on a single speed at the moment, so probably not their ideal customer!
I’ll become interested once its fully automatic without any shifters or derailleur. All gearing and shift decisions would be internal within the rear hub (which would have enough range to eschew the front derailleur). Think about how clean that frame would look! basically a track bike with a heavy rear wheel.
I’ll become interested once its fully automatic without any shifters or derailleur. All gearing and shift decisions would be internal within the rear hub (which would have enough range to eschew the front derailleur). Think about how clean that frame would look! basically a track bike with a heavy rear wheel.
Shimano already have an internal gear 11-speed hub with Di2. The Alfine series hubs. Still need front chainring options though.
What saddle is that? Looks like it needs a Viagra.
It’s an SMP…truly awesome saddles for allowing you to really roll your hips forward with no pressure on the soft bits.
Yeah, but Alfine hub plus shifters weighs about 2kg and most of that is in the hub so is rotating weight. By contrast Dura Ace components (shifters, derailleurs, cassette, hub, I’ve excluded crankset, brakes and chain since those are still needed with an Alfine) weigh about 1kg and less than half of that weight is rotating. Plus there are still big differences in drivetrain efficiency between hub gears and derailleur gears.
Hub gears are great for situations where reliability and lack of maintenance is of more importance than speed (I’m tempted to get a commuter bike with Alfine at some point, preferably with belt drive as well) but I don’t think they’re ever going to close the gap for any bike that is used competitively.
I hope this gets popular… as it will increase my chances of passing faster riders… with more money, that are pulling dropped chains out of their BB. I already have a fair shot of beating folks that are stuck in 1 gear (check out Amanda Stevens race report from Kona… Di2 strikes again).
Again, I still have trouble with adding any technology to a bike that doesn’t have a direct impact on actually going faster. Again, solutions in search of a problem.
In cars, manual transmissions are still often faster because they are lighter. Though newer automatics have closed that gap quite a bit and offer more gear ratios.
Yeah, but Alfine hub plus shifters weighs about 2kg and most of that is in the hub so is rotating weight.
I was responding specifically to the comment about wanting to use it with such a hub, despite the weight. I was merely pointing out that one already exists that’s compatible with Di2 and would satisfy most of the specification asked for.
There is no argument that it’s relatively heavy but you are concerned about rotating weight. Seriously? Do people not do high school physics over there?
It’s application is perfectly suited to for people who want easy to use bikes, which is quite a sizeable market outside of the micro-cosmos that is triathlon. That may also include some people who do triathlon for fun and recreation.
I can also see it appearing on motor assist bikes, great for commuters and recreational riders in less than flat locations.
I don’t see why anyone looking for performance gains would want automatic shifting. I could see it being used in commuter bikes though.
What saddle is that? Looks like it needs a Viagra.
On topic I really couldn’t see myself using this. Can see the advantage of sequential shifting (i.e. you just have an up and down button, don’t have to worry about front/rear, the system just picks optimal chain lines for you). Can maybe see the benefit of a system that advises you to shift up or down because your cadence is out of optimal range or your power is dropping. But would always want to make the actual shift myself - too many variables involved such as having a hand off the bars to drink/signal, dropping gears because you’re coming to a stop sign, doing low- or high-cadence intervals, etc. But then I’m commuting 100-150 miles/week on rolling hills on a single speed at the moment, so probably not their ideal customer!
I would love a system that automatically shifted you to the small chainring and next lowest gear combination automatically when you passed the lowest acceptable combination on the big ring (and vice versa). And a system that would automatically switch the rear derailer to give you the next lowest/highest gear combination when switching chainrings.
Are chainring changes with DI2 smooth enough that sequential shifting would not be disruptive? Looking at the gear ratios for my road bike I would have a lot of gears ratios very close together in the middle of the range with a few normal shifts. Would the odd spacing of gears be disruptive or are we envisioning a system designed to give more even spacing of the ratios with sequential shifting?
I already have an incredibly reliable system which delivers power from 1 rpm to over 150 rpm. The whole system is controlled directly by my brain. No levers, no switches, no cables, no wires, no batteries, no head unit, no apps.
Yeah, but Alfine hub plus shifters weighs about 2kg and most of that is in the hub so is rotating weight.
Rotating weight at a very very small radius, so effectively no different than static weight.
Without watching the entire video…
Awesome, I love nice crunchy shifts under power.