Are you ready for another solution to a non-existent problem?

[martl]

Originally Posted by ultraman6970

That thing has been around for a while and for a reason is not in the market yet.

I imagine they have to figure it out the torque part and make it cheaper?

A lot of people have very bright, or sometimes not so bright, ideas to make the bicycle better. These ideas look good on paper.

Once the prototype arrives in reality, some(most) discover that the devil is in the detail:
The surprisingly high forces and torques.
How hard it is to build something that still works when not every tolerance, gasket and bearing is at 100%. That still works in the rain, with sand and grit and dirt, without weighing a lot and producing a lot of friction, and production cost.

Then the brighter ones of those inventors see that a chain over two sprockets does exactly all that, in an affordable, reliable, few-parts-needed way.

The brighter Inventors leave it at that. The others, they go find venture capital, produce shiny CGI videos, get enthusiastic news coverage for a few years, and then vanish in a puff of Pedro's chain lube.

[benb]

The 1899 bike at least got it right in that they sealed up the back end of the bike and bathed it in a lubricant.

That is what I would see being required to make this work.. some of the CeramicSpeed pictures show a cover but I think that's just a dust cover/aero fairing/protective device for the same reason we have disc covers.

Like was already said the teeth are super fragile. They're going to have to beef it up a lot . The whole point of the bearings on the shaft appears to be to try and negate the need for sealing & lubricating the whole thing.. but it won't really matter cause in the real world grit will get in those "cogs" and the thing will be skipping like mad as soon as the teeth start to wear.

But as soon as you seal this up and lubricate it I bet all the friction savings go right out the window.

[FlashUNC]

Its interesting and CeramicSpeed is continuing to iterate on it.

Is it the Apple Newton -- just something that's terrible but ahead of it's time and needs technology to catch up -- or just a bad idea? Time will tell.

This is also the forum where a not insignificant number of people think bike tech development stopped with the introduction of the 10 speed rear cogset, so I doubt this audience here is much the target demographic for it either way.

[benb]

It is a good project for them in terms of keeping their name in the news even if it never works out.

If their name stays in the news a few more people will buy their other products.

Their other products are all a bit sketchy too so they need to try and keep themselves relevant.

There's some small # of people who actually think derailleur pulley friction actually matters.. if that fad or the weight weenie fad dies down these little companies are vulnerable.

I disagree on the forum.. sure there are some people here who are skeptical but there are plenty others on this forum who jump on every new thing just for the fun of jumping on each new thing.

There's clearly enough cyclists who are ready to drop massive $$$/$$$$/$$$$$ for things which are questionable at best, there have been a LOT of tech "advances" that fit in that category that have been successful in the market in the last 10 years.

[smontanaro]

Saw this in my news feed:

https://mashable.com/video/ceramicsp...rs-carry-load/

[ultraman6970]

Interesting video, thanks for posting it.

[charliedid]

It's hard to have a fully formed opinion yet, but I'm glad they are thinking different.

[bicycletricycle]

Originally Posted by ultraman6970

Interesting video, thanks for posting it.

In the last couple seconds of the video you can actually hear it, it sounds really loud. I didn't expect that.

[charliedid]

Originally Posted by bicycletricycle

In the last couple seconds of the video you can actually hear it, it sounds really loud. I didn't expect that.

I too noticed that but it may just be an effect of the mic?

[bicycletricycle]

Originally Posted by charliedid

I too noticed that but it may just be an effect of the mic?

perhaps, I am curious, it seems to shift pretty well.

[Red Tornado]

This:

Originally Posted by zmalwo

Now the single tooth in contact with the driveshaft have to take all the torque instead of spread out on multiple teeth. the teeth disc have to be a lot bulkier and stronger to handle an average cyclist.

... and this

Originally Posted by martl

A lot of people have very bright, or sometimes not so bright, ideas to make the bicycle better. These ideas look good on paper.

Once the prototype arrives in reality, some(most) discover that the devil is in the detail:
The surprisingly high forces and torques.
How hard it is to build something that still works when not every tolerance, gasket and bearing is at 100%. That still works in the rain, with sand and grit and dirt, without weighing a lot and producing a lot of friction, and production cost.

Then the brighter ones of those inventors see that a chain over two sprockets does exactly all that, in an affordable, reliable, few-parts-needed way.

The brighter Inventors leave it at that. The others, they go find venture capital, produce shiny CGI videos, get enthusiastic news coverage for a few years, and then vanish in a puff of Pedro's chain lube.

[unterhausen]

There is nothing I hate more than someone "reinventing the bicycle." Usually it's true in the sense that they are reinventing something that has been tried before and did not work out because the bicycle is one of the most highly evolved machines ever developed. And in this case, if I was an engineer currently working on this project, I would be keeping my resume up to date. However, I really like this project, I appreciate the innovation even though it's an extension of something that's older than dirt. Not that I would ever buy it, I'll leave that to people with a lot of money that don't ride their bikes.

[David Kirk]

The gear changing mechanism is very clever. It's hard to picture this being a better alternative to chain drive in the future but it's cool that they are trying.

dave