Yeah that's 4 of my biggest concerns. 1. Maximum power input 2. How will the drive chain handle shock 3. The amount of Watts lost during gear changes 4. Upkeep, what will it take and how fragile this mechanism might be. You'll also have to deal with dirt and debris that might get caught in the mechanism. What will it take to keep this drive train mechanically sound. Good video. Thanks for posting.
When you wrote “gear changes” I got to thinking the gear on the wheel could be a helical spiral type and the shaft could be lengthened by pedal force to alway be in the “right” infinitely variable ratio. Like a cvt maybe
as you can see its a triathlon bike it's not meant for impacts it's meant for racing on flat roads. small schock/impact can handle it since its only for racing
Pretty sure the load is focused mostly on one or two teeth in a chain setup too...the chain just wraps around the others under no or minimal load? Hence the “reduction in friction” claim here?
J Just J: pretty sure the load is supposed to be spread over all teeth in contact with the chain. This is the whole point of the shape of the teeth. As the chain wears and elongates, the tension in the chain will naturally cause the chain to move up towards the apex of the teeth and away from the base, so that the chain is still in full contact with every tooth and the load is spread. Only when you have excessive chain wear will the load be concentrated on the first few teeth. This is why an elongated chain is bad for the longevity of the drive train (this and the fact that the apex of a tooth is weaker than its base). Edit: BTW I suspect this is also the reason why the smallest sprocket we can have is 11-teeth -- any smaller there will be too few teeth to spread the load.
Ben W that was my first thought. Its a load of rubbish. Mtb 4x riders race down tracks against each other with numerous crashes. No issues with them using disc brakes
Chain ring and "cassette" would have to made out of some sort of space age material due to the very small contact points under stress, 2 or 3 teeth and possibly only 1 tooth or bearing in full contact.
Don't know what there's so much hate. Innovation is a great thing.. is this perfect? no, but we should be rooting for whoever designed this... it looks really awesome.
You're absolutely correct with every concerns you raise my thoughts exactly when I started the video, n that ticking sound I always try to get my louder n cleaner on my bike, I love it
That is so cool. So innovative. Since it took 15 years for roadies to get over disc brakes not slicing your limbs off, how long will it take to get over the effect of being grated up like mozzarella cheese?
Look forward to the final solution, looks good so far. the machining is protype. so final manufacturing will take micro seconds, they will solve it all. Great effort.
The first patent for a shaft driven bicycle was issued in 1891, which... considering that the first rear wheel drive bicycle with a chain wasn’t manufactured until 1879, makes this idea almost as old as the bicycle itself. Gear driven front wheel drive bicycles are even older, having been invented well -before- chain drive, back in the days when there were probably still some real life Luddites around. Once you understand why chain drive took over the world, and shaft&gear drive did not, you’ll understand why this solution will never be better.
necessity drives innovation. i just don't see a need for this. not to mention in the time it takes to machine that one part, an entire bicycle can be assembled. you 99% efficiency? make the motor the wheel
In races like the Tour de France, the competition is so fierce that even the smallest improvement would dramatically impact results. Multiple percent gains in efficiency would be quite dramatic. I think the best chain-based drive chains are around 96-97% efficient, so this would be a 2-3% improvement. On a more practical side, as a casual cyclist I’m pretty sick of dealing with slipping and derailing chains, difficulty changing gears, replacing worn/broken chains, and general cleaning and lube maintainable that chains require. If this addresses some of these issues, I’d be ecstatic, even if it had the same efficiency as a chain. As mentioned in the video, this is a prototype and there are many problems left to be solved before this will work, so some cautious realism is warranted. Conversely, as a non-incremental leap forward, there’s a lot of potential for further improvements to be made on top of this design if it works. I don’t understand where the negativity is coming from. Why specifically don’t you think folks should look for new ways to improve bicycles?
You're right to mention the engineering challenges. Changing gear will be tough and all the load will be on a couple of aluminium 'spikes' so will have to be able to withstand enormous forces. Great idea but I doubt very much if the effort to overcome those challenges will be worth it.
I'd say this idea is totally useless. The only reason why flimsy aluminium cogs work, is because they have very limited amount of forces applied to them. So bike manufacturers can make cogs super hard when compressed vertically, while mostly ignoring horizontal pressure. THIS idea makes that impossible, and if they want to do this - they will have to make all parts from steel, and reduce their size to save weight. And with reduction of size it becomes very vulnerable to dirt, so they also will have to seal it. And voila! We got ourselves a Pinion.
They could make the cogs from softer titanium alloys probably to save on weight over steel. Cyclists love paying extra for that kind of kit, especially if the promise is to increase efficiency. Although, I’m having a hard time seeing where this system is a significant improvement over chain in terms of efficiency. I mean, if it isn’t silent, it’s gotta be losing some energy to friction, no?
Mike Kleinsteuber , bear arms--- you're right. All those challenges to get a telephone, computer, TV, GPS, still camera and a video camera in a device the size of a deck of cards, completely useless. Wasting time. Can't be done. Those engineers should go back home and pick their naval lint.
Lots of challenges to be met, with this set up, but given enough exposure, engineering minds can come up with viable solutions. One of the problems is keeping dirt out of little roller bearings.
The problem is that it would push the shaft outward as the torque increases and it would start skipping as it loses traction between the disc and the gear.
That’s the first thing I thought. The “engineering challenge” here is that there’s no way this will ever work without adding a ton of weight and following it up with constant maintenance.
Superb technology sir. Please use in normal cycles world wide. We waiting for this wonderful idea. 1 No slipping chain problem, 2 no catching clothes of riders ,like chain system 3 safe for little babies. Because they put finges in spokets. Harshment free ride.
It is definitely an interesting idea, I can see how the gear changes could work if the bearings on the driveshaft were attached to a keyed slot allowing it to slide up and down and could be controlled with some clever cable linkage. I'm not convinced it will replace the traditional chain and rear mech systems, however. My biggest concern is sideways deflection of the driveshaft and more likely the slender thickness aluminium gear-carriage which will cause the gears to skip.
Beautiful piece of engineering. The fact that it creates noise is indicative it may have more than 1% energy loss . Strictly speaking that is not the intended use for Roller bearings . I think it will be too expensive to produce and the rear gear system will be prone to failure ( certainly the weak link ) . It also strikes me that it must have a bias toward gear changes ie much smoother on the up than the down change or visa versa .
Makes me think possibly they could have a single angled gear on the rear (similar to rear diff) to take that shaft then do some clever gearing on the front mech. Would maybe give more options in terms of torque / stronger mounts etc but less gear sizing. Interesting stuff, please follow up with these guys
Very nice prototype, and please keep in mind that this is a prototype and not what would be released to manufacturing. I look forward to seeing what the final production version looks like if they get that far.
Chain is the holy grail of bike transmission. But it doesn't mean we should't try new things. This thing is not gonna work but it definitely looks cool.
В 1890 появились подобные конструкции, с 1893 их серийно производили и продавали... 130 лет прошло, а проблемы эксплуатации данной конструкции никуда не делись.
Definetly gonna fail, they're not the first to try it. It's just the basic concept for automobile transmission the only problem is when a rock kicks in there. It'll be funny to see how this fails
Hamza Bekkari any imperfection will fuck it up. They can overcome that with a casing possibly. Theirs successful driveshaft motorcycles. Not for sports use obviously.
Shane, I already gave my list of engineering thoughts about this on GCN's youtube video. - However, as an inline speed skater I can tell you that those open bearings will become a major maintenance nightmare. They work fine when new and in the showroom. In the open they get dirty, squeaky and efficiency drops quickly. Speed skates have 16 similar bearings and they need thorough maintenance after each run. You can seal and grease them to avoid internal muc, but then they don't spin freely anymore. And yes, ceramic bearings were not different to steel bearings. - It would be nice to see this system shifting, and without a catastrophic gearing failure since there is zero tolerance between the contacting bearing and tooth. - Did you really mean that it takes 8 hours in the CNC machine to make the big mozzarella shredder in the back? So Ceramicspeed will charge USD 2000.00 per disc?
As for the maintainance, this is actually FANTASTIC - once it's encapsuled. I mean this isn't the first drivetrain for bicycles. It may be the highest engineered so far, but the Idea isn't new (at all). Those drivetrains who allready exist - altough they do not shift AFAIK - are completely closed off. This should lead to extremely low maintanence, since no dirt or whatever will find it's way IN there. I mean internal gear hubs are quite popular for low maintanence applications, because they are closed off as well. They'd be a maintanence and troubleshooting nightmare if they weren't as well. A little bid of sand in there and you are gonna have a REAL bad time.
Convert the the strongest of track sprinters putting 2200 watts + through the pedals and that doesn't even equate to 3hp. Hardly call a bicycle drivetrain heavy industry.
2200 W at bicycle rpms is a hell of a lot of torque. Power (Watts) = Torque * Angular velocity (Or force times speed if you like). A fast cadence is 120 rpm, which is 4*pi radians/second in SI units. Rearranging the power equations, Torque = Power / Angular Velocity = 2200 / 4*pi = 175 Nm (or 129 lbf.ft for fans of units from the dark ages), which is more than some small cars and most motorbikes can manage. IC engines put the torque out at a much higher speed, to make higher power outputs. If a car had to put it's power down between 60 and 120 rpm it would need much heavier, stronger components too.
They have these, and the efficiency is very low, at under 85% under the best test. It's just not a good way to drive a bike. I myself owned one, and while the idea was neat, it never worked well. Hills that I could climb before with a 3-speed without problems I had to walk the bike up the CVT hub.
I'm waiting for someone to work out that epicyclic gears in the crank mounting could replace the entire gearsets. That means lighter chain, only two sprockets and a more compact overall package. It would also be almost completely reliable if done properly. Downside is efficiency as the ratio's get wider. Of course if you want it could be 100% efficient in one ratio (the solid gear) then get less efficient as the ratio increases and the speed drops or vice versa. Would you trade a 3% efficiency loss at low speed for a 100% efficient gearset in top gear?
- Well if you want more efficiency than just an increase of 5%, it may be good to just lose weight. Make the bike lighter or just use the bike you have got. If this is for competition purposes than it would seem that the contestants should all get the same bike in an honest contest anyways. If this makes you 0.1 % faster than what came before than I do not see the point in that. The only point of friction you are loosing is that of the chain, it may be way smarter to focus on magnetic bearings to minimize friction.
Very interesting idea! I would have thought the gear slipping due to over-torque could be solved by putting a support roller on the wheel side of the sprocket. I could imagine aluminium being tough enough if the unit was covered. Cant imagine it lasting long exposed. Also those bearing do not have outer raceways that are designed to be rollers with an unsupported point load. They would need higher load bearings to last well i would think. Great idea though. There are similar transmissions for some cnc rotary tables. The benfit is that by eliminating the sliding action of spur gears you can eliminate any wear. Same would be true for this design. As for machine time, I'm sure if you had a custom for cutter for each of the tooth rings the machine time would be a fraction of its current time. No point in making tools like that for prototypes though
I think that would work. Or they can run another shaft on the opposite side of the sprocket that turns opposite to the other one. Machine out both sides of the sprocket to have contact on both sides. Then tie the two shafts together ,with bearings, for support,and the bearings can act as a collar for use when switching gears wouldn’t be hard to do and would strengthen the build. Instead of the bearings on the shaft requiring horizontal force to propel the bike it would be sandwiching the sprocket in between the bearings leaving no room to skip gears.
Double drive shaft idea sounds good if theres enough room. I guess you lose another pecentage point of efficiency and would cost more in components but could negate any slippage. The second drive shaft could have clearence on the wheel sprocket to reduce frictional loss there. You might be able to do it just with an idler bearing on the wheel side though. As for gear changing, i guess the designers have probably thought about this. At the very least you could change a gear one time per wheel revolution with it engaged. The drive shaft would have a spline to couple the rollers' motion to it but allow it to move between the different sprocket rings. I guess you could introduce a clutch on the driveshaft if this is difficult, but it would make the mechanism complicated. Maybe if the sprocket was tough enough you could disengage the roller away from the sprocket, shift it, then re-engage, but it would be pretty crunchy on the re-engagement i reckon. Look forward to seeing what the next iteration looks like. Still a very interesting concept
There is a lot of engineers around with a lot of mechanical background. Can't imagine what was said when carbon appeared... As for me, thumbs up for all the ideas coming out of the box. I am sure is doable for a real mass product.
It looks really cool, and I'm impressed that somebody actually built a driveshaft system for a bike. It's something I've wanted to implement myself, but I'm not a machinist. But I think a driveshaft system could be built using maybe 1/10 the number of discrete parts, and the result would be tough and reliable without weighing a ridiculous amount. EDIT: Now I'm chuckling at myself, because it turns out that this has been done numerous times in various ways. It's significant that most of the bikes we see in actual use still have chain drivetrains...
@@virjeeva No doubt many engineers have had this idea pass through their brain. It fails the practicality test at every level. I find it stunning that a company with enough skill to make that device also does not have enough common sense to see the failings. They should not have even shown it in that configuration. If they actually have a way to make it work, then show it.
*NOVEMBER 2019 NOTICE* This video was made at a bicycle trade show in Germany in 2018. I am NOT associated with CeramicSpeed. ALL QUERIES regarding this product and its origins should be directed to the CeramicSpeed company. Bu video 2018'de Almanya'daki bir bisiklet fuarında yapıldı. CeramicSpeed ile ilişkili değilim. Bu ürüne ve kökenlerine ilişkin TÜM SORULAR CeramicSpeed şirketine yönlendirilmelidir. I am fully aware of the Turkish video from 2014. Abuse or unnecessary comments will be removed.
Watch this video published in 2015. Then, you will see that this chain free bike was made in turkey by Mucit Hasan ua-cam.com/video/FDvoNXPIfJ0/v-deo.html
Riley Goss Totally agree mate , indeed cool engineering but sometimes simple engineering is the best . looking at that , i think it would have to have some sort of a cover or gaurd over the rear gear area , or the first time the tyre flicks up a bit of debris like a wood chip or a stone , that shiny cheese grater on the back i would imagine would go out of alignment very easily .
Riley Goss thsts true in Chain we Trust😎 this seams to fragile and if somthing broke you are over.Whrere you can fix that in short Time and cost are huge to fix that.a chain you can fix everywear
Engineering problems to solve?? Absolutely. But it’s this out of the box thinking that moves technology forward. Maybe it won’t be this exact design. Maybe someone else will see it and say “Heh - if I changed this or added that” and a new viable concept is born. I say kudos to these guys for even trying this. If nobody tried, we’d still be walking.
Lawrence Keating, in what way does this move anything forward? These types of driveshafts were in use for centuries. The problem is, these guys replaced cog to cog interface with bits of chain and chain specific cogs. These types of cogs only work when there's just one plain, in which the chain squeezes the cog. In their variant their drive shaft will be pushing the flat cog sideways almost as hard, as it pushes it downward. Thus bending or breaking the cogs.
@Lawrence Keating: I've just come along and watched and somethoing clicked in my brain and I had a "Eureka" moment: "I'll change this, add that, put it underneath the lid of a cyclindrical shaped plastic container and make a salad drying kitchen ustensil for Mum" - it'll sell like hotcakes at any fair..... Thanks mate.
Very bad, separation forces on it will have it skipping teeth like crazy. They won't be able to keep it from happening without massive reinforcement which means weight.
So the Engineers at CeramicSpeed, who are all most likely highly educated and well versed in the engineering principles involved in bike design... Not one of them thought about skipping teeth? More to the point, this is a prototype/proof of concept... It's not finished. The designers obviously believe they can solve (or already have solved) the basic issues you can see, or they wouldn't have put it on display at the show.
Sam The same amazing engineers who charge £1,200 for a piece of crap oversized pulley/cage set for a rear mech? Simple sketches and a few calculations should tell them that this is a dead end. The entire design is riddled with flaws. The cassette's strength is in the wrong axis for a start and would more than likely fatigue to the point of total failure within an extremely short time. The chainset's teeth being in contact one at a time would leave them bent and mangled in minutes too.
The Engineers don't set the prices of the companies products. They are given a criteria to meet and design a product . If the marketing department then want to slap a £1,200 price tag on, then that's an issue to take up with marketing. But if muppets are buying it then why shouldn't they charge that price?
Some nicely thought out points on the potential flaws, I don't disagree with you. My point is, why would the company show this bike at a show if it was such a poor and flawed design? Either; - They have solutions to all these flaws you've pointed out. - The flaws you've thought of don't exist or don't factor into the intended end use for this tech. - The bike is a gimick marketing stunt to generate more business. Considering the company tend to make products for serious cyclists, I don't think option 3 is a likely case. Unless the people in charge are muppets.
like self filling water bottles ua-cam.com/video/lYFH_bXM5gU/v-deo.html solar friggin roadways ua-cam.com/video/O0yn-xBjb9c/v-deo.html or the juicero? ua-cam.com/video/zpmd7renbxI/v-deo.html
MrDmadness yeah, I’m not sure why they are saying this system is “so efficient” when the power from pedaling has to be translated to torque through a shaft first and then to the rear sprocket when Chaim allows the moment to be applied directly to the sprocket.
You can’t have anything over 100% efficient. It breaks the laws of well.. everything. If you had a system of over 100% efficiency it would be a free energy thingy which doesn’t exist
Cool to finally see more than judt a video on instagram. This actually looks cool to me. Seems like, if they can address the issues mentioned, this could make its way down to the affordable end of the spectrum evebtually. Belt drive bikes need some sort of internally geared hub and those are rarely affordable if you want any real range of reduction. I like this idea because the drive shaft is at the same angle with every gear, no issues with crosschaining or in the case of a driveshaft, over bending a u-joint. Seems like having 2 shafts with the front chainwheel and rear...I guess those aren't "cogs"...the rear gear sandwiched between the 2 shafts...with both shafts connected in the same piece of metal at the end..that seems like it would create enough stiffness no keep the bearings from jumping out of the gearswould require odd spacing the get the inner shaft to the highest gear without hitting spokes though.
@drew13600 Prototypes are not prototypes if they cannot be tested in real life situations. In that case they are concepts. and this is a really shitty concept
It's a prototype and people here are like "it's unreliable and sucks". Firstly, there's a near 0% chance you've tried this. Second, chill, let the engineers do what they do and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
Exactly BS. "Let the engineers do what they do and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work". What the f. does that suppose to mean? If they were doing their work things would work and this thing is plane stupid from the mechanical point of view.
listerreg except that 99% efficiency thing is really enticing, so if they can find a way to make it work, great! If not, it isn't your money wasted, only your time watching the video and typing these comments.
Challenge ideas, sure. My request is to do it with respect. I make a video - My wife and I are now the subject of personal abuse (which I won't go into here). I reply "exactly" - Now I'm being called bullshit. People. Respect. I don't ask for anything more.
The technology is interesting, but not very practical. Very gentle treatment and constant service. And if you hit the moving element at speed, then everything will break at once. But the idea is amazing.
Hi Shane, yes you brought up the very issue I first thought of, small contact area = big problem under load. I do like the idea though and thought for gear changing the wheel "cassette" could be smaller and the inside of the chainring be a similar design to the cassette, so that when the drive shaft moves forward, the drive circle at the front is reduced while the drive circle at the back is increased, lowering the gear, and when it is moved backwards, the gear is increased. the designers still have a lot of issues to "torque" about though.
This company already makes some components in use by some of the top pro teams in Europe and they have partnerships with several high-end manufacturers, including Specialized. This is a prototype and while not ready for prime time, it is some serious engineering.
Those bearings are so tiny and all the power from the rider is going through, two or three, at best? I'm just a lazy downhiller but I bet I could still crank that to destruction.
Place this in an enclosure with a light motor and would be good for a electric bike. Also enclosed could be good for just basic riding but the mechanical advantage that a chain gives over this is just so much greater. The slippage of those bearing and any debris getting in them will kill it. Also I can see trying to change gears causing the bearings to lock around the driven gear and breaking the entire thing. Cool concept but doesn't seem practical at high speeds or in dirty environments.
Yes, the noise is annoying, but where is used coming from? It's not from the drive itself, because it keeps going when the pedals and the entire drive mechanism stop. So that seems like something that's easy to solve.
I believe we should commit ourselves, to achieving the goal before the decade is out, of designing a lightweight internal gearbox driven directly by the crank with belt driven rear wheel.... Love new designs that inspire people to think.
I think that went right over a lot of heads Johnny. But your spot on it is a concept, thinking, trial and error, development end results may or may not resemble this.
Good idea that would equalise the lateral forces, also as the front and back cogs are no longer being pulled together, as in chain drives, eliminating the chain stays would save some weight if dual driven. It will be interesting to see if they can bring it ti market.
maybe a reverse hook in the teeth pattern can avoid deforming the disc. I think their real problem is shifting under load. they haven't figured out how to pattern the teeth and bearings to allow shifting yet.
-T-X-M- i know. Prototypes are made of cheap materials as proof of concept. If a stronger yet affordable material is available for marketed models then it could work
7075 T-6 aluminum is used for aftermarket rear sprockets on dirt bikes. Lots of power and torque handling, and hard anodized 7075 is some hard and tough stuff. www.chapmoto.com/renthal-520-off-road-rear-sprocket-parent-520-rear
I really love how this host is both incredibly knowledgeable about bikes, and plays the total bumbling idiot so perfectly. It's professional level stuff. Making a video that is informative, interesting to the experts (not me) and entertaining to the novice (me. I can inflate a bike tire!) as well. This is what a quality UA-cam video should look. Informative, entertaining, fun
Technology 😂 motorcycles with drive shafts lose about 12.5% per 90° translation. 25% loss through a double translation is typical. Chains lose way less in use, which is why all racing motorcycles use chains.
That is incredible. I see much room for improvement and much more than just bicycle applications. To start with instead of having teeth it should have a thicker stock with ridges instead of teeth. That would drastically cut down on CNC time and make it a much stronger plate.
Whether this ever makes production or not because of some of the hangups in physics I want one and I will ride it and not look where I'm going because I'll be busy watching it operate
They have tried these types of gear concepts in the automotive industry. The increase in the diameter of the cog size means more teeth to maintain the same tooth size, meaning more teeth required. This causes a misalignment of the teeth. Thus misaligned teeth between gears. Hense the invention of the clutch. This idea works but gear changes will be rough and clunky. All the best.
Martin R. And yet anyone putting Shimano out of business is utterly laughable it will never happen they didn’t get two world war military contracts making Japanese tank/ components in between their fishing gear and bicycle components to then be over taken by a flawed new comer with a sudeo divinci idea
This is literally a drive shaft with the pinion being replaced with bearings. It's not going to be 99% efficient just due to the mass in that shaft alone, let alone the friction in the pinion bearings, or the bearings acting as a pinion. There's a reason chains are used on motor cycles for performance and not drive shafts. This driveshaft set up is a joke.
More than 50% of motorcycles are shaft or belt driven but the rest of your comment is correct. Just reading it seems to me though that you're assuming the majority if not all motorcycles are chain driven. That's not the case.
nateh120, please provide the link to the source which confirms your claim of "More than 50% of motorcycles are shaft or belt driven. All too often people are just throwing out numbers on here to back up their preconceived ideals and why they don't provide the source or a credible source to back it up
nateh 120 Lots of Harleys are belt drive, Honda sold a ton of shaft drive Shadows over the years etc. It might not be 50% but I'll let someone else count beans. I have a life.
And yep, the automobile was a joke to the horse industry, and the chain is so 18th century, just like the wind mill. Wich is so 14 or 15 century. ???? My point is, new tech is always cool, any tech to delete a chain from a bike is cool thaught.
Unmannedair you are missing the key factor here. Typical gear pressures occur due to the shear and slip. In this case hard faced aluminum against a ceramic bearing shouldn't be deformed so long as it can resist deflection. If made of say cuntstained targlide it would be even harder with a carbon backing for rigidity.
Thunderfoot mode on: A great idea! A shaft-driven bicycle. Noone have thought about it for sure. Truly a revolutionary idea! ... Ehhh... Eh... No, shaft-driven bicycles have been around since 1891
As has been mentioned a thousand times in the comments. And as CeramicSpeed claim.. what is new about it is the bearing interface, not direct mesh. Take it out on them, I know.
For zero drive train losses, have no chain, no pedals, nothing. Except a saddle to sit on and you move by pushing your feet off the floor, Flintstone style... Oh, we tried this in the 1800's. Mmmm. Ok, tell you what lets use a chain to drive a back wheel and use pedals to rotate the chain ring. Yes! Problem solved....
Paolo Monello because it is a solution looking for a problem - it solves nothing - the drive shaft is graphene - the cost will be astronomical and that is not even taking into account spare parts and maintenance - might see it in the next Batman movie if Batman adds a bike to his fleet
It looks loke one can have 1% advatnage in efficiency... who might be interested in this when... better aero skin suit like this from this year TdF gave Team Sky 2nd place in tiday TTT ;) Drivetrain Efficiency & Marginal Gains www.cyclingpowerlab.com/DrivetrainEfficiency.aspx "As power output increases efficiency increases because frictional losses become a smaller part of total input power. Typical best-case efficiency of a drivetrain in the 200 - 300 watt range is 96-97.5%. Above 300 watts typical best-case efficiency is 97-98%."
The thing will doubtfully work in mud and dirt, though it's comparatively easy to make mudguards for this one. Also, it's quite clear that the rear hub must be combined into one unit with this rear set of sprockets to prowide enough support and sustainability - maybe at a cost of shorter spokes. Anyway, this is much better than all previous attempts to add shaft drive to standard rear hubs. Hope this drivetrain gets into production and on to the shops at a reasonable price.
Carbon fiber, servo motor, wireless when i hear those words all together my mind directly jumps in my pocket and try to figure how much $ will be jumping to buy a goodie combined all those together and it's very clear that the $ will be a huge amount. I can understand those R&D engineers wishes to come up with a great solution but i can't predict how long will it take to see an actual affordable working model if possible. :) I hope i'll see a working model before i hit my 100 birthday.
It won't. It's a gimmick. Drive shafts are good at high rpm. They aren't good for low rpm and high torque, aka the bike market. Imagine if your car engine only produced 130 rpm's and had to delver all that torque through a drive shaft. Yikes.
Nice-ish in theory... but no. It won't work. The wear on the very few teeth ever in contact will be HORRIFIC. The noise at even the lightest power is testament to just how much friction there is. At a guess, 8hrs to machine, 8hrs to destroy. Also from an engineering standpoint, the closer you get to the 11t equivalent the more teeth will shear. The closer to the much higher gears, the more the "cassette" will flex in towards the spokes. Can see multiple weak points and multiple high wear contact points. Not going to happen
Trying to reinvent something that no one asked for. Bike chains are simple cheap and ubiquitous. This looks complicated, expensive, and not leap of improvement over the current chain systems.
It's worse than that - they've invented nothing, this style of drivetrain has been around for literally centuries - have a look at drivetrains in Dutch windmills for example. This technology actually predates manufacturing and metallurgy being good enough to make reliable chain drives. When chains came out the whole bike industry went straight to them because they were much better.
While I understand the concerns of the ‘engineers’ on here (exposed parts, aluminium gears, ingress of dirt, patented in 1830 and so on), we should bear in mind that this is a PROTOTYPE, not a finished product. All of these things will have to be addressed if the concept is to move forward. The idea of a shaft drive may not be new or even as efficient as a chain but there is an undeniable appeal to its clean lines and I’m pretty sure there is a place for it. Gear selection by changing a helical drive contact point across a disc looks like a brilliant concept. Admittedly this particular example leaves a lot of questions unanswered and it’s easy to see that it needs more work, but so does the Mars expedition. Showing it to the public like this should be of benefit. My own take on it might be to enclose the gear bevels into a housing to keep the dirt out and give scope for a more robust construction which would in turn allow more torque to be applied to the pedals. It would also allow for ‘enclosed, low maintenance lubrication’ if needed. And how about putting the gears at the pedal end? If the drive shaft itself were telescopic the existing ‘varying diameter disc’ concept might still be used but at the front, and that would put the ‘contact point’ further behind the front sprocket and out of harm’s way. Alternately a fully enclosed ‘gearbox’ with Epicyclic or planetary spur gears could be used at either end of the shaft and the whole thing could be enclosed. It might not look as ‘trick’ as this one but I don’t think I’d want to catch my trousers (or worse, a finger) in that exposed machinery down there next to my foot. It all looks a bit sharp. Anyway, nice one Shane Miller - GPLama , good interesting video (congrats on four and a half MILLION hits), and well done Ceramic Speed, it clearly still needs work but it’s a great idea and ideas keep us moving forward. Keep it up and keep it upright! To the 4K of ‘thumbs down’ engineering critics out there, how about being a little more constructive? Tearing things to pieces isn’t much of a help. Let’s have a bit more inspiration and a bit less condemnation. Peace, pedal power and love (from an old hippie)!
Dennis Loobman none of the questions are unanswered. This is elementary level stuff that first-year dentistry students can answer with only a few minutes of thought.
Yeah that's 4 of my biggest concerns.
1. Maximum power input
2. How will the drive chain handle shock
3. The amount of Watts lost during gear changes
4. Upkeep, what will it take and how fragile this mechanism might be. You'll also have to deal with dirt and debris that might get caught in the mechanism. What will it take to keep this drive train mechanically sound.
Good video. Thanks for posting.
When you wrote “gear changes” I got to thinking the gear on the wheel could be a helical spiral type and the shaft could be lengthened by pedal force to alway be in the “right” infinitely variable ratio.
Like a cvt maybe
i tthing they could use less fancy but well tested rings from cars gearbox
Stupid idea.
Also how hard is it going to be to get the wheel off when you get a puncture.
as you can see its a triathlon bike it's not meant for impacts it's meant for racing on flat roads. small schock/impact can handle it since its only for racing
The load will be concentrated on one or two teeth instead of being spread over 10-20 teeth.
Xia Jiang the cranks and cassette needs to be extremely stiff and strong for it to be usable and practical
Pretty sure the load is focused mostly on one or two teeth in a chain setup too...the chain just wraps around the others under no or minimal load? Hence the “reduction in friction” claim here?
J Just J: pretty sure the load is supposed to be spread over all teeth in contact with the chain. This is the whole point of the shape of the teeth. As the chain wears and elongates, the tension in the chain will naturally cause the chain to move up towards the apex of the teeth and away from the base, so that the chain is still in full contact with every tooth and the load is spread. Only when you have excessive chain wear will the load be concentrated on the first few teeth. This is why an elongated chain is bad for the longevity of the drive train (this and the fact that the apex of a tooth is weaker than its base).
Edit: BTW I suspect this is also the reason why the smallest sprocket we can have is 11-teeth -- any smaller there will be too few teeth to spread the load.
Xia Jiang only if the chain and sprockets are a perfect match. Real world tolerances mean this is NEVER the case
there is still a lot of friction due to the chain having to move through other teeth.
I really love the new design and the idea of having a driveshaft is really smart
turkish design
A track sprinter will shred the hell out of that thing in his first pedal push.
Well a track sprinter won't need gears will they...
@@discbrakefan I think he means a track bike sprinter, not a runner
@@fenderstratguy I know what he meant - track bikes don't have gears...
@@discbrakefan Oh! lol
CHUNK-CHUNKCHUNKCHUNK for every power stroke.
Very weak design.. innovative sure .. but weak. Anyone with big legs will destroy that design.
i always tahught chains were too light reliable and cheap. glad someone finally came up with a sollution
mirteoda hahhhahahahahaha
what's wrong with light reliable and cheap?
George Alexander
My head
vvvvvvvvvvvvv
your mom
weazeluchiha13 only hipsters care about light reliable and cheap.
George Alexander get some friends instead of talking to me on youtube.
That rear cassette proto is definitely going to trigger those already paranoid about spinning brake discs of death!
A mincer ;)
Those little plastic shields might be making a comeback!
Turning the cassette around would solve that issue. Would require an offset though.
It will be encased in a shell to get rid of the Mad Max style spinning razors ha - and so it will stay clean when going through mud etc.
Ben W that was my first thought. Its a load of rubbish. Mtb 4x riders race down tracks against each other with numerous crashes. No issues with them using disc brakes
Wow mate 4 Million views on this and counting! Congratulations! Subs have shot up accordingly too. Well done and deserved!
Cheers. I've got a video planned on hitting the UA-cam lottery with this one. It was a wild ride for two weeks with this video.
Knocking on 6 million views now. Bet ya never saw that coming when you uploaded it! :D
I know! This was just another video uploaded... like the other 1100+ I have on here.... but it has gone wild.
Biggest question.... Can it still make that sweet engine noise when you wedge a soda can in the tire?
Yep! 😂
Adorei vou fazer na minha Vaiquer
Chain ring and "cassette" would have to made out of some sort of space age material due to the very small contact points under stress, 2 or 3 teeth and possibly only 1 tooth or bearing in full contact.
Hey Ropate K. Will titanium do, it's very light and very strong!
Nice one for mentioning the engineering challenges no one else seems to have picked up on! Cheers!
Easy work.... There aren't any major issues with this, it can all be easily built and prototyped....
What challenges this system is like 30+ year old
toordog How?.
: )Tyler
musicmetal1 wow that's an awesome explaination of this new design..!!??
musicmetal1 wtf
Don't know what there's so much hate. Innovation is a great thing.. is this perfect? no, but we should be rooting for whoever designed this... it looks really awesome.
You're absolutely correct with every concerns you raise my thoughts exactly when I started the video, n that ticking sound I always try to get my louder n cleaner on my bike, I love it
That’s the most advanced fidget spinner ever!
And how many fidget spinners will grate carrots, too?
It's not a fidget spinner! It's actually a prototype driveshaft for a bicycle, if you watch the video you will see!
"a prototype" of 100 year old technology lols
its two fidget spinners with stick replace a middle bearing transfreing rotation from cogs
Damstrait As your Dad no
That is so cool. So innovative. Since it took 15 years for roadies to get over disc brakes not slicing your limbs off, how long will it take to get over the effect of being grated up like mozzarella cheese?
Rixter it’s the $600 pizza 🍕 gear replacement cost i would be worried about
Roadies are a bunch of divas. Can never please them.
A simple alloy or carbon plate to cover the cogs to avoid injuries...
Are you kidding? With that much carbon, roadies will be all over it!
1890 tech, luv bill,i voted 9thhor him
Look forward to the final solution, looks good so far. the machining is protype. so final manufacturing will take micro seconds, they will solve it all. Great effort.
This looks like a solution looking for a problem.
The first patent for a shaft driven bicycle was issued in 1891, which... considering that the first rear wheel drive bicycle with a chain wasn’t manufactured until 1879, makes this idea almost as old as the bicycle itself. Gear driven front wheel drive bicycles are even older, having been invented well -before- chain drive, back in the days when there were probably still some real life Luddites around. Once you understand why chain drive took over the world, and shaft&gear drive did not, you’ll understand why this solution will never be better.
necessity drives innovation. i just don't see a need for this. not to mention in the time it takes to machine that one part, an entire bicycle can be assembled. you 99% efficiency? make the motor the wheel
DeD Fear the necessity here is to win the race
Zack Aroo I'm genuinely interested in hearing why chain drive is better if you'd care to share.
In races like the Tour de France, the competition is so fierce that even the smallest improvement would dramatically impact results. Multiple percent gains in efficiency would be quite dramatic. I think the best chain-based drive chains are around 96-97% efficient, so this would be a 2-3% improvement.
On a more practical side, as a casual cyclist I’m pretty sick of dealing with slipping and derailing chains, difficulty changing gears, replacing worn/broken chains, and general cleaning and lube maintainable that chains require. If this addresses some of these issues, I’d be ecstatic, even if it had the same efficiency as a chain.
As mentioned in the video, this is a prototype and there are many problems left to be solved before this will work, so some cautious realism is warranted. Conversely, as a non-incremental leap forward, there’s a lot of potential for further improvements to be made on top of this design if it works.
I don’t understand where the negativity is coming from. Why specifically don’t you think folks should look for new ways to improve bicycles?
You're right to mention the engineering challenges. Changing gear will be tough and all the load will be on a couple of aluminium 'spikes' so will have to be able to withstand enormous forces. Great idea but I doubt very much if the effort to overcome those challenges will be worth it.
I'd say this idea is totally useless.
The only reason why flimsy aluminium cogs work, is because they have very limited amount of forces applied to them.
So bike manufacturers can make cogs super hard when compressed vertically, while mostly ignoring horizontal pressure.
THIS idea makes that impossible, and if they want to do this - they will have to make all parts from steel, and reduce their size to save weight. And with reduction of size it becomes very vulnerable to dirt, so they also will have to seal it.
And voila! We got ourselves a Pinion.
They could make the cogs from softer titanium alloys probably to save on weight over steel. Cyclists love paying extra for that kind of kit, especially if the promise is to increase efficiency. Although, I’m having a hard time seeing where this system is a significant improvement over chain in terms of efficiency. I mean, if it isn’t silent, it’s gotta be losing some energy to friction, no?
Mike Kleinsteuber , bear arms--- you're right. All those challenges to get a telephone, computer, TV, GPS, still camera and a video camera in a device the size of a deck of cards, completely useless. Wasting time. Can't be done. Those engineers should go back home and pick their naval lint.
Lots of challenges to be met, with this set up, but given enough exposure, engineering minds can come up with viable solutions. One of the problems is keeping dirt out of little roller bearings.
Nah man it will work no problem if you use adamantium
The problem is that it would push the shaft outward as the torque increases and it would start skipping as it loses traction between the disc and the gear.
That’s the first thing I thought. The “engineering challenge” here is that there’s no way this will ever work without adding a ton of weight and following it up with constant maintenance.
Michael Harto yeah. That's what I'm thinking
Thank you . I didn't know the words but you explained it perfectly. And if they wanna machine this out of aluminium they're in for alot of returns.
If it works on automobile it'll work on bicycle too, remember that we are in the 21st century's
Just incase it with a cover that can be opened.
Superb technology sir. Please use in normal cycles world wide. We waiting for this wonderful idea. 1 No slipping chain problem, 2 no catching clothes of riders ,like chain system 3 safe for little babies. Because they put finges in spokets. Harshment free ride.
It is definitely an interesting idea, I can see how the gear changes could work if the bearings on the driveshaft were attached to a keyed slot allowing it to slide up and down and could be controlled with some clever cable linkage. I'm not convinced it will replace the traditional chain and rear mech systems, however. My biggest concern is sideways deflection of the driveshaft and more likely the slender thickness aluminium gear-carriage which will cause the gears to skip.
I’m fed up with fixing my chains, this just solved all my problems
Beautiful piece of engineering. The fact that it creates noise is indicative it may have more than 1% energy loss . Strictly speaking that is not the intended use for Roller bearings . I think it will be too expensive to produce and the rear gear system will be prone to failure ( certainly the weak link ) . It also strikes me that it must have a bias toward gear changes ie much smoother on the up than the down change or visa versa .
Making sound doesn`t take so much energy, friction makes heat and it is much bigger problem.
Makes me think possibly they could have a single angled gear on the rear (similar to rear diff) to take that shaft then do some clever gearing on the front mech. Would maybe give more options in terms of torque / stronger mounts etc but less gear sizing. Interesting stuff, please follow up with these guys
Comedy cemetery
Very nice prototype, and please keep in mind that this is a prototype and not what would be released to manufacturing. I look forward to seeing what the final production version looks like if they get that far.
No need for a baseball card in the spokes.
LOL or a coke can in the back
@@thereborne5219 We used to do that as kids except with plastic bottles instead
fun KNEE
Chain is the holy grail of bike transmission. But it doesn't mean we should't try new things. This thing is not gonna work but it definitely looks cool.
В 1890 появились подобные конструкции, с 1893 их серийно производили и продавали...
130 лет прошло, а проблемы эксплуатации данной конструкции никуда не делись.
Definetly gonna fail, they're not the first to try it. It's just the basic concept for automobile transmission the only problem is when a rock kicks in there. It'll be funny to see how this fails
It works. Its a kardan. Motorcycles have it too. Bit heavier
Hamza Bekkari any imperfection will fuck it up. They can overcome that with a casing possibly. Theirs successful driveshaft motorcycles. Not for sports use obviously.
About time that something changes the chain system, chain system is well beyond 💯 years!
Shane, I already gave my list of engineering thoughts about this on GCN's youtube video.
- However, as an inline speed skater I can tell you that those open bearings will become a major maintenance nightmare. They work fine when new and in the showroom. In the open they get dirty, squeaky and efficiency drops quickly. Speed skates have 16 similar bearings and they need thorough maintenance after each run. You can seal and grease them to avoid internal muc, but then they don't spin freely anymore. And yes, ceramic bearings were not different to steel bearings.
- It would be nice to see this system shifting, and without a catastrophic gearing failure since there is zero tolerance between the contacting bearing and tooth.
- Did you really mean that it takes 8 hours in the CNC machine to make the big mozzarella shredder in the back? So Ceramicspeed will charge USD 2000.00 per disc?
As for the maintainance, this is actually FANTASTIC - once it's encapsuled.
I mean this isn't the first drivetrain for bicycles. It may be the highest engineered so far, but the Idea isn't new (at all). Those drivetrains who allready exist - altough they do not shift AFAIK - are completely closed off.
This should lead to extremely low maintanence, since no dirt or whatever will find it's way IN there. I mean internal gear hubs are quite popular for low maintanence applications, because they are closed off as well. They'd be a maintanence and troubleshooting nightmare if they weren't as well. A little bid of sand in there and you are gonna have a REAL bad time.
What a beautifully elegant design! Kudos!,
there's a reason why heavy industry relies on chains and belt drives for power transfer between two parallel shafts (like in your car etc.).
also i highly doubt the many bearings i see in that system, which have to be properly sealed for real world use, will be more efficient than a chain
Convert the the strongest of track sprinters putting 2200 watts + through the pedals and that doesn't even equate to 3hp. Hardly call a bicycle drivetrain heavy industry.
i'd love to see some track sprinter rip this ridiculous idea apart with his legs. probably some proper roadie would do the job as well, though
jbkltc Love to see it take more than about 200W let alone 1,500-2,000. This entire concept is laughable
2200 W at bicycle rpms is a hell of a lot of torque. Power (Watts) = Torque * Angular velocity (Or force times speed if you like). A fast cadence is 120 rpm, which is 4*pi radians/second in SI units.
Rearranging the power equations, Torque = Power / Angular Velocity = 2200 / 4*pi = 175 Nm (or 129 lbf.ft for fans of units from the dark ages), which is more than some small cars and most motorbikes can manage.
IC engines put the torque out at a much higher speed, to make higher power outputs. If a car had to put it's power down between 60 and 120 rpm it would need much heavier, stronger components too.
I think the holy grail would be a bike with a Continuously Variable Transmission.
If they can solve the weight issue i agree.
They have these, and the efficiency is very low, at under 85% under the best test. It's just not a good way to drive a bike. I myself owned one, and while the idea was neat, it never worked well. Hills that I could climb before with a 3-speed without problems I had to walk the bike up the CVT hub.
I'm waiting for someone to work out that epicyclic gears in the crank mounting could replace the entire gearsets.
That means lighter chain, only two sprockets and a more compact overall package. It would also be almost completely reliable if done properly. Downside is efficiency as the ratio's get wider. Of course if you want it could be 100% efficient in one ratio (the solid gear) then get less efficient as the ratio increases and the speed drops or vice versa.
Would you trade a 3% efficiency loss at low speed for a 100% efficient gearset in top gear?
Yea thats correct bro im with yaa
It is done! the transmission can go forward and back with centripetal forces, and make it CVT.
Ideas to concepts are difficult.
Have to start somewhere, and they have. Well done.
Exactly. Fail fast, fail often. When something does work it just might change the world.
Shane Miller - GPLama As with many concepts, this will generate other ideas and may produce something totally unexpected.
to scam some money from idiots.
@@hothothotmale I hope this will inspire someone
They copied
one of the coolest thing ever seen on UA-cam
If you put a chain on it and a shimano gear you would be good to go.
Work With Nature LOL!!!!
BEST COMMENT ON THIS IN MY BOOK!!🚴♂️🚵♂️🚴♀️🚵♀️
Work With Nature But using a chain would make it a lot less
efficient
I think you missed the point.
Would love see someone stick a carrot on this. It would be at least 5% more efficient than current vitamix available!
-
Well if you want more efficiency than just an increase of 5%, it may be good to just lose weight. Make the bike lighter or just use the bike you have got.
If this is for competition purposes than it would seem that the contestants should all get the same bike in an honest contest anyways. If this makes you 0.1 % faster than what came before than I do not see the point in that. The only point of friction you are loosing is that of the chain, it may be way smarter to focus on magnetic bearings to minimize friction.
Very interesting idea!
I would have thought the gear slipping due to over-torque could be solved by putting a support roller on the wheel side of the sprocket.
I could imagine aluminium being tough enough if the unit was covered. Cant imagine it lasting long exposed.
Also those bearing do not have outer raceways that are designed to be rollers with an unsupported point load. They would need higher load bearings to last well i would think.
Great idea though. There are similar transmissions for some cnc rotary tables. The benfit is that by eliminating the sliding action of spur gears you can eliminate any wear. Same would be true for this design.
As for machine time, I'm sure if you had a custom for cutter for each of the tooth rings the machine time would be a fraction of its current time. No point in making tools like that for prototypes though
What about the ability to actually switch gears? This prototype can't even do that.
Lorro Symonds en una cnc se pueden hacer de titanio.
I think that would work. Or they can run another shaft on the opposite side of the sprocket that turns opposite to the other one. Machine out both sides of the sprocket to have contact on both sides. Then tie the two shafts together ,with bearings, for support,and the bearings can act as a collar for use when switching gears wouldn’t be hard to do and would strengthen the build. Instead of the bearings on the shaft requiring horizontal force to propel the bike it would be sandwiching the sprocket in between the bearings leaving no room to skip gears.
Double drive shaft idea sounds good if theres enough room. I guess you lose another pecentage point of efficiency and would cost more in components but could negate any slippage.
The second drive shaft could have clearence on the wheel sprocket to reduce frictional loss there.
You might be able to do it just with an idler bearing on the wheel side though.
As for gear changing, i guess the designers have probably thought about this. At the very least you could change a gear one time per wheel revolution with it engaged. The drive shaft would have a spline to couple the rollers' motion to it but allow it to move between the different sprocket rings.
I guess you could introduce a clutch on the driveshaft if this is difficult, but it would make the mechanism complicated.
Maybe if the sprocket was tough enough you could disengage the roller away from the sprocket, shift it, then re-engage, but it would be pretty crunchy on the re-engagement i reckon.
Look forward to seeing what the next iteration looks like.
Still a very interesting concept
Lorro Symonds
The bicycle is the most complete machine made by man.
There is a lot of engineers around with a lot of mechanical background. Can't imagine what was said when carbon appeared...
As for me, thumbs up for all the ideas coming out of the box. I am sure is doable for a real mass product.
There are* a lot of engineers ...
Holy micrometer clearances
CoffeeMed wtf? Lmao what
VERY cool idea but , what a nightmare to have problems with !
LOL
...Batman
Ya pretty cool. Throw some oil sand and dirt on it and see what happens in 200 miles.
Do the same with a chain ...
palimpalim,
Sure and the chain will last substantially longer
engr. knows that before you know how to use youtube.
Get-The-Lead-Out.45
Why should it? Bike chains are not very durable products and they require constant care.
Not to mention crash hard and it's fucked
I don’t ride bikes but very innovative 👌🏽
It looks really cool, and I'm impressed that somebody actually built a driveshaft system for a bike. It's something I've wanted to implement myself, but I'm not a machinist. But I think a driveshaft system could be built using maybe 1/10 the number of discrete parts, and the result would be tough and reliable without weighing a ridiculous amount.
EDIT: Now I'm chuckling at myself, because it turns out that this has been done numerous times in various ways. It's significant that most of the bikes we see in actual use still have chain drivetrains...
This machine had been found long ago and only financial support and sponsors could not be found. The inventor's name is Hasan Kum!!!
ua-cam.com/video/FDvoNXPIfJ0/v-deo.html
@WungusBillThough I am not a mechanical engineer, I agree with your conclusion , with simple common sense it seems it is highly not practicable.
@@virjeeva No doubt many engineers have had this idea pass through their brain. It fails the practicality test at every level. I find it stunning that a company with enough skill to make that device also does not have enough common sense to see the failings. They should not have even shown it in that configuration. If they actually have a way to make it work, then show it.
I dont think this is an original concept. I remember hearing that some of the early bicycles were powered this way.
*NOVEMBER 2019 NOTICE*
This video was made at a bicycle trade show in Germany in 2018. I am NOT associated with CeramicSpeed. ALL QUERIES regarding this product and its origins should be directed to the CeramicSpeed company.
Bu video 2018'de Almanya'daki bir bisiklet fuarında yapıldı. CeramicSpeed ile ilişkili değilim. Bu ürüne ve kökenlerine ilişkin TÜM SORULAR CeramicSpeed şirketine yönlendirilmelidir.
I am fully aware of the Turkish video from 2014.
Abuse or unnecessary comments will be removed.
Watch this video published in 2015. Then, you will see that this chain free bike was made in turkey by Mucit Hasan
ua-cam.com/video/FDvoNXPIfJ0/v-deo.html
De uitvinder is een Turkse man.. Turkish guy found this out..
@@carlitobenitto9283 KARDEŞİM NİYE ALMANCA YAZDIN
@@refikcabuk4746 knk adamda onu anlatmış zaten
? L
Love it, it’s simple and all of it can be encased. Looks promising
That's not simple at all! Lol
Nothing new - rambler cycles had that already in 1904
...and it was 99% mechanically efficient...?
Manoo42 , no, it just doesn't work well which is why we have chains.
1904 Pope Rambler 88
Manoo42 I doubt it's 99% efficient... that's virtually impossible to get...
roland H sure
That's a pretty cool engineering feat, but there's nothing like an old trusty chain.
100% with you there Riley. Until they nail this design... or something newer and more robust than this prototype/concept.
A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link :p
Riley Goss Totally agree mate , indeed cool engineering but sometimes simple engineering is the best .
looking at that , i think it would have to have some sort of a cover or gaurd over the rear gear area , or the first time the tyre flicks up a bit of debris like a wood chip or a stone , that shiny cheese grater on the back i would imagine would go out of alignment very easily .
and we got some old rusty crankplate
Riley Goss thsts true in Chain we Trust😎 this seams to fragile and if somthing broke you are over.Whrere you can fix that in short Time and cost are huge to fix that.a chain you can fix everywear
Engineering problems to solve?? Absolutely. But it’s this out of the box thinking that moves technology forward. Maybe it won’t be this exact design. Maybe someone else will see it and say “Heh - if I changed this or added that” and a new viable concept is born.
I say kudos to these guys for even trying this. If nobody tried, we’d still be walking.
Lawrence Keating this guy gets it!
So many cynics
Lawrence Keating, in what way does this move anything forward?
These types of driveshafts were in use for centuries.
The problem is, these guys replaced cog to cog interface with bits of chain and chain specific cogs. These types of cogs only work when there's just one plain, in which the chain squeezes the cog. In their variant their drive shaft will be pushing the flat cog sideways almost as hard, as it pushes it downward. Thus bending or breaking the cogs.
@Lawrence Keating: I've just come along and watched and somethoing clicked in my brain and I had a "Eureka" moment: "I'll change this, add that, put it underneath the lid of a cyclindrical shaped plastic container and make a salad drying kitchen ustensil for Mum" - it'll sell like hotcakes at any fair..... Thanks mate.
Team33 No problem. Excited for your new invention 😉👍
This beats turning over a heavy chain endlessly . I would buy it.
Very bad, separation forces on it will have it skipping teeth like crazy. They won't be able to keep it from happening without massive reinforcement which means weight.
So the Engineers at CeramicSpeed, who are all most likely highly educated and well versed in the engineering principles involved in bike design... Not one of them thought about skipping teeth?
More to the point, this is a prototype/proof of concept... It's not finished. The designers obviously believe they can solve (or already have solved) the basic issues you can see, or they wouldn't have put it on display at the show.
Sam The same amazing engineers who charge £1,200 for a piece of crap oversized pulley/cage set for a rear mech?
Simple sketches and a few calculations should tell them that this is a dead end.
The entire design is riddled with flaws. The cassette's strength is in the wrong axis for a start and would more than likely fatigue to the point of total failure within an extremely short time. The chainset's teeth being in contact one at a time would leave them bent and mangled in minutes too.
The Engineers don't set the prices of the companies products. They are given a criteria to meet and design a product . If the marketing department then want to slap a £1,200 price tag on, then that's an issue to take up with marketing.
But if muppets are buying it then why shouldn't they charge that price?
Some nicely thought out points on the potential flaws, I don't disagree with you.
My point is, why would the company show this bike at a show if it was such a poor and flawed design?
Either;
- They have solutions to all these flaws you've pointed out.
- The flaws you've thought of don't exist or don't factor into the intended end use for this tech.
- The bike is a gimick marketing stunt to generate more business.
Considering the company tend to make products for serious cyclists, I don't think option 3 is a likely case. Unless the people in charge are muppets.
like self filling water bottles
ua-cam.com/video/lYFH_bXM5gU/v-deo.html
solar friggin roadways
ua-cam.com/video/O0yn-xBjb9c/v-deo.html
or the juicero?
ua-cam.com/video/zpmd7renbxI/v-deo.html
Finally ive hated bike chains since i was 10 years old cant belive im 50 and they just came up with something
It is definitely cool BUT for efficiency and ease or maintenance and repair, you will be hard pressed to beat a chain.
Thomas Davis yup, chain already over 99% efficiant
MrDmadness yeah, I’m not sure why they are saying this system is “so efficient” when the power from pedaling has to be translated to torque through a shaft first and then to the rear sprocket when Chaim allows the moment to be applied directly to the sprocket.
You can’t have anything over 100% efficient. It breaks the laws of well.. everything. If you had a system of over 100% efficiency it would be a free energy thingy which doesn’t exist
Come up with something like a belt drive on my motorcycle...
Cool to finally see more than judt a video on instagram. This actually looks cool to me. Seems like, if they can address the issues mentioned, this could make its way down to the affordable end of the spectrum evebtually. Belt drive bikes need some sort of internally geared hub and those are rarely affordable if you want any real range of reduction. I like this idea because the drive shaft is at the same angle with every gear, no issues with crosschaining or in the case of a driveshaft, over bending a u-joint. Seems like having 2 shafts with the front chainwheel and rear...I guess those aren't "cogs"...the rear gear sandwiched between the 2 shafts...with both shafts connected in the same piece of metal at the end..that seems like it would create enough stiffness no keep the bearings from jumping out of the gearswould require odd spacing the get the inner shaft to the highest gear without hitting spokes though.
A unique chainless bicycle technology, best video.
Wife says go visit.
Lama says meh
Ray says go visit
Lama says how can you turn down a suggestion from Ray
It’s a great shame that there is no video showing this bike being used in real life situations.
@drew13600 Prototypes are not prototypes if they cannot be tested in real life situations. In that case they are concepts. and this is a really shitty concept
@@benbktrstv6321 Calm down it was a shit idea back then too. Id hardly be claiming dibs on a shit design.
ua-cam.com/video/UZcLioalnwQ/v-deo.html
It's a prototype and people here are like "it's unreliable and sucks". Firstly, there's a near 0% chance you've tried this. Second, chill, let the engineers do what they do and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
🙏🏻 Exactly
Exactly BS. "Let the engineers do what they do and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work". What the f. does that suppose to mean? If they were doing their work things would work and this thing is plane stupid from the mechanical point of view.
listerreg except that 99% efficiency thing is really enticing, so if they can find a way to make it work, great! If not, it isn't your money wasted, only your time watching the video and typing these comments.
people said the same thing about the plane, if you live in a world where experimenting is stupid you'd be a caveman.
Challenge ideas, sure. My request is to do it with respect. I make a video - My wife and I are now the subject of personal abuse (which I won't go into here). I reply "exactly" - Now I'm being called bullshit. People. Respect. I don't ask for anything more.
Eine revolutionierende Idee - kein abspringen der Kette, kein reißen des Bowdenzuges. Genial. (•‿•)
The technology is interesting, but not very practical. Very gentle treatment and constant service. And if you hit the moving element at speed, then everything will break at once. But the idea is amazing.
Looks good on a bike stand, at a bike show, that's about it though.
Hi Shane, yes you brought up the very issue I first thought of, small contact area = big problem under load. I do like the idea though and thought for gear changing the wheel "cassette" could be smaller and the inside of the chainring be a similar design to the cassette, so that when the drive shaft moves forward, the drive circle at the front is reduced while the drive circle at the back is increased, lowering the gear, and when it is moved backwards, the gear is increased. the designers still have a lot of issues to "torque" about though.
This company already makes some components in use by some of the top pro teams in Europe and they have partnerships with several high-end manufacturers, including Specialized. This is a prototype and while not ready for prime time, it is some serious engineering.
Those bearings are so tiny and all the power from the rider is going through, two or three, at best? I'm just a lazy downhiller but I bet I could still crank that to destruction.
that is cool
Hey there! Never knew you of all people were a bike enthusiast. Love your vids! And congrats on winning a whole bunch of money! Cheers! 👍
If. Tiny stone gets into the moving parts I can’t imagine what damage that would cause
i think its ment for inside drive, like racing or how its called with bikes
@@eastkoma6215 no gears on track bikes...
Very good. Thanks for inventing this.
My only concern is the repair cost. Seems like you would need to replace a few components if just one piece malfunctions.
My main concern is the purchase cost. That thing looks like 4 digits, not counting the bike around it ...
just like a chain then
Place this in an enclosure with a light motor and would be good for a electric bike. Also enclosed could be good for just basic riding but the mechanical advantage that a chain gives over this is just so much greater. The slippage of those bearing and any debris getting in them will kill it. Also I can see trying to change gears causing the bearings to lock around the driven gear and breaking the entire thing. Cool concept but doesn't seem practical at high speeds or in dirty environments.
An electric bike would't need a gearbox.
That noise would drive me nuts
Simon Gorman that and their claim to 99% efficient. It's no better than a regular bike.
Yes, the noise is annoying, but where is used coming from? It's not from the drive itself, because it keeps going when the pedals and the entire drive mechanism stop. So that seems like something that's easy to solve.
Ur already nuts
Whats it going to be like on that big 46t or what ever it is .that’s going to have be strong to stop it jumping
turn the volume down.
The design is great, brilliant ,and simple.
Wait till those open bearings get dirty.
It's a prototype. The bearings would have to be sealed.
@@jeffl4830 Seals add drag. Drag reduces efficiency.
Mudguards would help
I believe we should commit ourselves, to achieving the goal before the decade is out, of designing a lightweight internal gearbox driven directly by the crank with belt driven rear wheel....
Love new designs that inspire people to think.
Maybe just go and buy a Rohloff 14 speed and a belt drive from gates... Then build umyour favorite wheel on the hub with say half the spokes :)
Or the Pinion which has 18 speeds and a belt drive
I think that went right over a lot of heads Johnny. But your spot on it is a concept, thinking, trial and error, development end results may or may not resemble this.
“We choose to design these drive trains in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are haaahd.”
That's not a new idea, AFAIK it was in some bikes in 90's, it didn't work well tho
Very cool innovation! Nice to see someone coming up with a better mousetrap!
they could maybe make it double sided
Good idea that would equalise the lateral forces, also as the front and back cogs are no longer being pulled together, as in chain drives, eliminating the chain stays would save some weight if dual driven. It will be interesting to see if they can bring it ti market.
maybe a reverse hook in the teeth pattern can avoid deforming the disc. I think their real problem is shifting under load. they haven't figured out how to pattern the teeth and bearings to allow shifting yet.
they shouldn't have to pattern the teeth, the mechanism could lift and drop the rollers onto the teeth.
they were talking about some kind of electronic system, precisely syncing the engagement. sounds way harder than di2!
jlebrech great idea
Aluminum will certainly not work
Scott Tandoi it's a prototype
americans call it aluminum... freaking special snowflakes want's to be different from rest of the world
-T-X-M- i know. Prototypes are made of cheap materials as proof of concept. If a stronger yet affordable material is available for marketed models then it could work
-T-X-M- Neither way of spelling it is wrong.
7075 T-6 aluminum is used for aftermarket rear sprockets on dirt bikes. Lots of power and torque handling, and hard anodized 7075 is some hard and tough stuff.
www.chapmoto.com/renthal-520-off-road-rear-sprocket-parent-520-rear
I really love how this host is both incredibly knowledgeable about bikes, and plays the total bumbling idiot so perfectly. It's professional level stuff. Making a video that is informative, interesting to the experts (not me) and entertaining to the novice (me. I can inflate a bike tire!) as well. This is what a quality UA-cam video should look. Informative, entertaining, fun
"plays the total bumbling idiot".... yeah...um... thanks...I guess? I'm confused.
pocketpunkie they call it Marketing
that bike looks so cool and futuristic
Reminds me of being down the casino the noise it makes
Roulette anyone?
year right, sounds super "efficient" with all that noise it makes
Probably cost you about as much.
you're right. my bad
TRIGGER
1899 Columbia Model 59 Shaft Drive Bicycle.
Technology 😂 motorcycles with drive shafts lose about 12.5% per 90° translation. 25% loss through a double translation is typical. Chains lose way less in use, which is why all racing motorcycles use chains.
That is incredible. I see much room for improvement and much more than just bicycle applications.
To start with instead of having teeth it should have a thicker stock with ridges instead of teeth.
That would drastically cut down on CNC time and make it a much stronger plate.
Whether this ever makes production or not because of some of the hangups in physics I want one and I will ride it and not look where I'm going because I'll be busy watching it operate
Rusty Shackleford it's ok they could reapply the mechanism to lower my casket down and cover me with worn out Schwalbe KENDA and maxxis tires lol
Kurtis J. Kopp true
It'd be broken or bent every other week. The tolerances are too small.
They have tried these types of gear concepts in the automotive industry. The increase in the diameter of the cog size means more teeth to maintain the same tooth size, meaning more teeth required. This causes a misalignment of the teeth. Thus misaligned teeth between gears. Hense the invention of the clutch. This idea works but gear changes will be rough and clunky. All the best.
I like the idea! That rear mincer will put both SRAM and Shimano out of business ;)
Martin R. And yet anyone putting Shimano out of business is utterly laughable it will never happen they didn’t get two world war military contracts making Japanese tank/ components in between their fishing gear and bicycle components to then be over taken by a flawed new comer with a sudeo divinci idea
LOL, who knows. Big things have small beginnings ;))
This is literally a drive shaft with the pinion being replaced with bearings. It's not going to be 99% efficient just due to the mass in that shaft alone, let alone the friction in the pinion bearings, or the bearings acting as a pinion. There's a reason chains are used on motor cycles for performance and not drive shafts. This driveshaft set up is a joke.
Some BMW/Triumph motorcycles are shaft driven. Although it is not as efficient as a chain it is slightly more silent with hellical gears.
More than 50% of motorcycles are shaft or belt driven but the rest of your comment is correct. Just reading it seems to me though that you're assuming the majority if not all motorcycles are chain driven. That's not the case.
nateh120,
please provide the link to the source which confirms your claim of "More than 50% of motorcycles are shaft or belt driven. All too often people are just throwing out numbers on here to back up their preconceived ideals and why they don't provide the source or a credible source to back it up
nateh 120
Lots of Harleys are belt drive, Honda sold a ton of shaft drive Shadows over the years etc. It might not be 50% but I'll let someone else count beans. I have a life.
And yep, the automobile was a joke to the horse industry, and the chain is so 18th century, just like the wind mill. Wich is so 14 or 15 century. ???? My point is, new tech is always cool, any tech to delete a chain from a bike is cool thaught.
The biking world is so ahead of the game in drive train tech
That 'tech' is more than a century old.
A gear made out of aluminum?! I think not! Try making it out of titanium if you don't want it to shred itself after the first 100 miles.
drop92nn I agree. Only adamantium can hold up to all those battles.
Mr Brightside I don't know... There are some pretty long hills. If they started at the top...
Unmannedair you are missing the key factor here. Typical gear pressures occur due to the shear and slip. In this case hard faced aluminum against a ceramic bearing shouldn't be deformed so long as it can resist deflection. If made of say cuntstained targlide it would be even harder with a carbon backing for rigidity.
unobtainium is what they need to use for that set up.
You do realise the majority of gears are made out of aluminium.
Is it more efficient than a chain? No.. Is it cost effective? No..
Thunderfoot mode on:
A great idea! A shaft-driven bicycle. Noone have thought about it for sure. Truly a revolutionary idea!
...
Ehhh...
Eh...
No, shaft-driven bicycles have been around since 1891
As has been mentioned a thousand times in the comments. And as CeramicSpeed claim.. what is new about it is the bearing interface, not direct mesh. Take it out on them, I know.
Sorry, I couldn't bring myself to reading all four thousand comments, only the recent ones where all the juicy bits are ;)
Also it was kinda meant to be a sort of parody :)
i did that design 30 years ago, what a surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And you're commenting on a video that's five years old....
What language is that you’re speaking bro! STRAYAN?????
Yep, mate.
Hes speaking "not new zealander" remember that.
Noaice!
I notice some german in the background on 3:45 ;)
For zero drive train losses, have no chain, no pedals, nothing. Except a saddle to sit on and you move by pushing your feet off the floor, Flintstone style...
Oh, we tried this in the 1800's. Mmmm. Ok, tell you what lets use a chain to drive a back wheel and use pedals to rotate the chain ring. Yes! Problem solved....
That will never make production!
not the intention it´s all marketing
why not?
Paolo Monello because it is a solution looking for a problem - it solves nothing - the drive shaft is graphene - the cost will be astronomical and that is not even taking into account spare parts and maintenance - might see it in the next Batman movie if Batman adds a bike to his fleet
It looks loke one can have 1% advatnage in efficiency... who might be interested in this when... better aero skin suit like this from this year TdF gave Team Sky 2nd place in tiday TTT ;) Drivetrain Efficiency & Marginal Gains
www.cyclingpowerlab.com/DrivetrainEfficiency.aspx "As power output increases efficiency increases because frictional losses become a smaller part of total input power. Typical best-case efficiency of a drivetrain in the 200 - 300 watt range is 96-97.5%. Above 300 watts typical best-case efficiency is 97-98%."
Sopho Cles your spell checker seems to be having trouble with 'Carbon Fibre'
The thing will doubtfully work in mud and dirt, though it's comparatively easy to make mudguards for this one. Also, it's quite clear that the rear hub must be combined into one unit with this rear set of sprockets to prowide enough support and sustainability - maybe at a cost of shorter spokes. Anyway, this is much better than all previous attempts to add shaft drive to standard rear hubs. Hope this drivetrain gets into production and on to the shops at a reasonable price.
As a pure bred mountain biker, this even makes me gasp!
Carbon fiber, servo motor, wireless when i hear those words all together my mind directly jumps in my pocket and try to figure how much $ will be jumping to buy a goodie combined all those together and it's very clear that the $ will be a huge amount. I can understand those R&D engineers wishes to come up with a great solution but i can't predict how long will it take to see an actual affordable working model if possible. :) I hope i'll see a working model before i hit my 100 birthday.
KARDEŞİM TÜRKE AİT BU PROJE
Replacement cassette $7,000
Mc Lovin WRONG!! Its only $842.67
Now that's a bargain^^
👍⭐👑💎⚡❤ *This is a wonderful mechanism. This will run very smooth because of bearings. Rolling friction is best in mechanical terns.*
Very cool, and makes you think. But the more I look at it, the more problems I see, haha. It's a long way off still, if it goes anywhere...
It won't. It's a gimmick.
Drive shafts are good at high rpm. They aren't good for low rpm and high torque, aka the bike market.
Imagine if your car engine only produced 130 rpm's and had to delver all that torque through a drive shaft. Yikes.
Nice-ish in theory... but no. It won't work. The wear on the very few teeth ever in contact will be HORRIFIC. The noise at even the lightest power is testament to just how much friction there is.
At a guess, 8hrs to machine, 8hrs to destroy. Also from an engineering standpoint, the closer you get to the 11t equivalent the more teeth will shear. The closer to the much higher gears, the more the "cassette" will flex in towards the spokes.
Can see multiple weak points and multiple high wear contact points. Not going to happen
I would worry more about the roller bearings being the primary power transfer elements. They're typically not up to that.
Trying to reinvent something that no one asked for. Bike chains are simple cheap and ubiquitous. This looks complicated, expensive, and not leap of improvement over the current chain systems.
It's worse than that - they've invented nothing, this style of drivetrain has been around for literally centuries - have a look at drivetrains in Dutch windmills for example. This technology actually predates manufacturing and metallurgy being good enough to make reliable chain drives. When chains came out the whole bike industry went straight to them because they were much better.
peglor a chain is incredibly low friction and high strength
While I understand the concerns of the ‘engineers’ on here (exposed parts, aluminium gears, ingress of dirt, patented in 1830 and so on), we should bear in mind that this is a PROTOTYPE, not a finished product. All of these things will have to be addressed if the concept is to move forward.
The idea of a shaft drive may not be new or even as efficient as a chain but there is an undeniable appeal to its clean lines and I’m pretty sure there is a place for it.
Gear selection by changing a helical drive contact point across a disc looks like a brilliant concept. Admittedly this particular example leaves a lot of questions unanswered and it’s easy to see that it needs more work, but so does the Mars expedition. Showing it to the public like this should be of benefit.
My own take on it might be to enclose the gear bevels into a housing to keep the dirt out and give scope for a more robust construction which would in turn allow more torque to be applied to the pedals. It would also allow for ‘enclosed, low maintenance lubrication’ if needed.
And how about putting the gears at the pedal end? If the drive shaft itself were telescopic the existing ‘varying diameter disc’ concept might still be used but at the front, and that would put the ‘contact point’ further behind the front sprocket and out of harm’s way.
Alternately a fully enclosed ‘gearbox’ with Epicyclic or planetary spur gears could be used at either end of the shaft and the whole thing could be enclosed. It might not look as ‘trick’ as this one but I don’t think I’d want to catch my trousers (or worse, a finger) in that exposed machinery down there next to my foot. It all looks a bit sharp.
Anyway, nice one Shane Miller - GPLama , good interesting video (congrats on four and a half MILLION hits), and well done Ceramic Speed, it clearly still needs work but it’s a great idea and ideas keep us moving forward. Keep it up and keep it upright!
To the 4K of ‘thumbs down’ engineering critics out there, how about being a little more constructive? Tearing things to pieces isn’t much of a help. Let’s have a bit more inspiration and a bit less condemnation.
Peace, pedal power and love (from an old hippie)!
Dennis Loobman none of the questions are unanswered. This is elementary level stuff that first-year dentistry students can answer with only a few minutes of thought.