Its already been done decades ago in a production bicycle. Radial gears do have the advantage of efficiency over gearboxes but on modern full suspension designs most are optimized around a specified sized chainring which is another important consideration - you would need to add a pulley for the specific ideal chainline to be on par with a gearbox in that respect. Also if the Yankee version was modernized it would be better for mountain biking as there is no second front ring for the chain to fall on in bumpy conditions - so is the only advantage to this version is that you don't have to use the non-traditional shifter design of the Yankee which only works in a limited shift zone of the crank stroke? I've ridden a Yankee years ago and it seems decent - certainly better than another quirky bike I tried with the auto-shifting at a certain RPM.Seems like an interesting concept. What are the your thoughts?
Cool link. This looks interesting. Wonder why it never caught on.Its already been done decades ago in a production bicycle.
NordicTrack released its Fitness Bike in 1992 featuring the Radial Gear Transmission first created in the 1980s by inventor Royce Husted. Husted introduced his own bicycle -- the Yankee -- shortly before NordicTrack procured the rights to market it under their name. The new gear system never quite caught on and little was heard about it in the ensuing years. NordicTrack declared bankruptcy in 1998 and was subsequently purchased by ICON Health & Fitness.
There's a noticeable scarcity of information on the internet about this chapter in the history of bicycle development, so I'm posting this NordicTrack promotional video showing the Radial Gear Transmission and Rim Band Brake in action. For historical purposes only!
Yeah, 2 specific sized chainrings actually... a 36 & a 38Its already been done decades ago in a production bicycle. Radial gears do have the advantage of efficiency over gearboxes but on modern full suspension designs most are optimized around a specified sized chainring which is another important consideration - you would need to add a pulley for the specific ideal chainline to be on par with a gearbox in that respect. -
Its already been done decades ago in a production bicycle. Radial gears do have the advantage of efficiency over gearboxes but on modern full suspension designs most are optimized around a specified sized chainring which is another important consideration - you would need to add a pulley for the specific ideal chainline to be on par with a gearbox in that respect. -
The OP youtube video at 3:45 he mentions development work on another segmented chainring design more comparable to the Husted 9 speed segmented chainring with the radial transmission with 10 or 11 speeds.Yeah, 2 specific sized chainrings actually... a 36 & a 38
this is bad on a DH bike, but actually really great on a trail bike (or all-marketing term, whatever works for you). Imagine being able to tune your anti-squat with a simple shift! It's easy, it's called a single pivot and the appropriate sized chainring.on modern full suspension designs most are optimized around a specified sized chainring which is another important consideration
It would be more simple to have no rear derailleur/cassette (just a tensioner) and 9-11 speeds up front. Similar to a gearbox DH setup without a rear derailleur. I think its reasonable to assume the front ring could expand and contract enough to provide a spread comparable to a single ring and cassette.Wouldn't touch it on a DH bike though, just don't need the complication.
The industry and people in general are very resistant to huge shifts from the norm, read the article on Husted. Husted's transmission is the only example of radial gearing I've ever heard of. Certainly more promising than the planetary gear front ring system (Hammerschmidt) made popular by Sunbeam Bicycles (UK) in 1903! And I don't think radial transmissions would be more unreliable than the more complex modern rear derailleurs w/large thin cassettes and weaker chains:My view on this is that if there were a good, workable solution using gear segments or expanding segments, it would be out there already. Really smart folks have been designing better bikes for a looong time. I suspect this idea has already been wrung through the wringer, so unless there is some kind of new idea or new tech that suddenly makes this idea worthwhile, then I think its days are numbered...
Stuart Brown agrees. Brown is the West Coast editor for Popular Science magazine, where they received more than 10,000 inquiries on the Yankee after he wrote a brief article on it.
``The bicycle industry in the United States, and even worldwide, has been completely asleep for many years, and why these people failed to adopt his transmission, I don`t understand. None of them saw this as a marketing coup. This is a fundamentally new invention. It`s better than what exists,`` said Brown.
Greg Byron, president of the Chicago Area Bicycle Dealers Association, disagrees with Brown.
``The bicycle industry is very responsive and trying to make bicycles more user friendly,`` said Byron, who said he isn`t familiar with the Yankee bicycle.
Officials of Schwinn Bicycle Co. also disagree. ``We certainly aren`t designing bikes that we don`t think suit a consumer need. I don`t agree with him on that. He`s just taken a different approach to try to meet the same needs,`` said Marc Mullen, engineering manager of Schwinn. ``He`s definitely got a lot of things incorporated into this design that are founded in fact and has achieved a lot of the objectives he set out to do. We certainly admire his entrepreneurial spirit.``
But John Kukoda, senior editor for technical issues at Bicycling magazine, agrees with Brown that the bicycling industry has been ignoring the needs of recreational riders.
``The bike industry is conservative and slow to change. You would think that something like this would be real easy to sell to them, but it`s so outside the norm of what they`re geared up to sell at bike shops that it is probably more trouble than it`s worth to them,`` said Kukoda, who wrote an article on the Yankee bike for a recent issue of Bicycling.
Brown further slams the bicycling industry by saying that they suffer from what he calls the NIH (Not In-House) syndrome.
``It`s a lack of openness for something coming over the transom,`` he said. ``In other words, `If it`s such a good invention, we would have thought it up.``
That's true for evolutionary change and this technology emerged before the Internet Age which has greatly added propagation. The niche he was after was not a prime target for the cycling industry. Truly revolutionary technology often fails or fails on the first introduction/iteration.I disagree that the industry is slow to change or adopt new tech. If there is something out there that is a genuine improvement, then that will sell bikes, and bike companies will jump on it. Problem is a lot of so called improvements aren't genuine, and require some kind of trade off (i.e. gearboxes).
I'd just like to say, from one geek to another, I salute you.That's true for evolutionary change and this technology emerged before the Internet Age which has greatly added propagation. The niche he was after was not a prime target for the cycling industry.
Significant changes in technology (truly innovative/revolutionary products) or ideas always have significant obstacles, switching costs, and other barriers to adoption for a variety of reasons. PDAs didn't see mass-market adoption until modern smartphones about 25 years later. In computers legacy x86 and DOS compatibility have held back technology - it has taken decades for the far superior *nix kernel based solutions to gain mass adoption (and in a similar vein there may be better mobile OS like webOS, WP8, etc but superior technology alone isn't the key to adoption). Many revolutionary ideas in computers have been done before but it takes the marketing genius, like Apple, to yield industry adoption (UNIX-like mass market OS, mp3 players, smartphones, tablets, etc)
The cycling industry is not a first-rate/efficient/professional industry either compared to IT, automotive, appliances, etc.
Changing from a fossil fuel based (or even a car-based one in the US) society makes complete sense but infrastructure, politics, etc are huge hurdles. Many industries these days purposely design and favor less reliable solutions or product lifecycles - its not in their interests to make a solution that last forever or obsoletes the norm.
In sciences the classic book on this negative pervasiveness of the norm: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
wiki said:In 1990 the Japanese bike component manufacturer SunTour introduced the Browning Electronic AccuShift Transmission (SunTour BEAST) - a triple chainset system for mountain bikes in which one quarter of the circle is hinged along a radius. During shifting, this segment is pushed sideways by a relay operated mechanism like a railroad switch and picks up the chain that is currently running on the next cog.
My father owned a Yankee with a radial transmission and I've ridden it numerous times. Actually the only way to expand the segmented chainring to a larger gear was to shift while pedaling - it provides the force necessary to expand the radial gear (the load is momentarily used for shifting). Downshifting required you to pedal backward in which case the drivetrain was not loaded and could be accomplished while stopped too. It does not use a conventional shifter but I am certain you could shift down/contract the radial gear under load with a revised design.I do not believe in radial transmission becuase howerver it is solved it is not a round sprocket anymore and it will never be posiible to change gears under load.
That's definitely where I need an 8lb chainring.Obviously in times of 1x11 this product might stay a niche product, but in places like the alps where you have to deal with steep climbs this system might be a good idea.
Especially for desk jockeys like me.
It's actually not that bad. The engineer/inventor dude claims weights like this:That's definitely where I need an 8lb chainring.
- crank with chainrings (or segments of) with aluminum axle - 496 g
DefinitelySo his cranks, with that chainring contraption on them are only 71 grams heavier than a pair of Next Sl w/28t Cinch chainring? Seems legit...
This thread reminds me...
Whatever happened to the hammerschmidt? Is that thing still a thing?
The cool kids were talking about it a few years ago and with all the 1Xsomething setups people are riding these days you'd think it would be pretty popular.