

Cycling Enters the Electronic Age With a New Gear-Shifting System - ojbyrne
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/sports/cycling/14gears.html

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silentbicycle
New bike equipment can have a hard time displacing conventional gear. On one
hand, a large part of the market seems to be driven by people buying gear for
racing* , who can be fanatical about things like shaving a few grams of weight
off their bike. Very tough standards. On the other extreme, there are the
(admittedly much smaller) touring / commuter cyclists, who tend to prefer
stuff that, in a pinch, could be fixed with nothing but zip ties and a multi-
tool. Air-less tires and chain-less drivetrains seems to have been reinvented
several times, but haven't ever really caught on.

* and people who buy gear _marketed to_ people who race, but that's neither here nor there.

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wallflower
> New bike equipment can have a hard time displacing conventional gear.

Remember the one-year Japanese BioPace fad that infected Shimano (non-
round/oval chainrings that were hard to maintain a steady pedaling cadence
with because they weren't round but supposedly were more efficient)? Most
_Every_ bike that year (even high-end XT) came with these odd-shaped
chainrings. The next year, BioPace was gone.

I still own a BioPace mountain bike - that I keep for sentimental reasons and
to look cool (though the bike shop says I'm not the only BioPace'd owner).

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silentbicycle
Yes! I see those now and then. They look really cool, haven't ever used one
though. :)

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tel
_The action of the electronic system is so effortless that, compared with
mechanical levers, it leaves users feeling almost disconnected from the bike._

That seems like it'll be the death of the product for many.

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wallflower
Yikes. As someone who bemoaned indexed shifters (in favor of older friction
shifters), I think this is a disturbing development.

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jacquesm
The article mentions automatic transmission too, and that the bike would have
to 'read the mind of the rider' to know when he's going to sprint, wouldn't it
be possible to measure the downforce on the pedal to indicate the difference
between the riders 'desired speed' and the current speed ?

