13 ms·

Is Ford about to reinvent the bicycle derailleur?

76 points by gjvc 5y ago

kazinator 5y ago
> radical new derailleur that uses an electric current to heat up and move mouldable wires So, this is just for bicycles with massive batteries, which could as well use internal gearing of some sort. Derailleurs are finnicky. You calibrate the shifter for sure-fire upshifting with the index clicker lever, which sacrifices downshifting. When you downshift, you have to overshoot: give an extra pull to get the thing to shift, which is then retracted to the index position. Maybe this is fixed in some True Scotsman's derailleurs that cost hundreds of dollars; mine cost some $60 (which is three times more expensive already than what you see installed on the majority of bikes in the sub $1000 category). It's a road bike derailleur on a road cassette: which is going to be the best shifting combination, due to the differences in adjacent cog size being small. I'm downshifting from 12 teeth to 13, 14, 15, ... The reason shifting is imprecise is because when you move the parallelogram of a derailleur, that moves the upper wheel, called the jockey wheel. This indirectly changes the gear by moving the chain. This has to overshoot the shift position in order to work; it cannot just move from being centered over one cog to being centered over the next. The farther this jockey wheel is from the cog set, the more overshoot it needs to get the chain to jump. Whimsically speaking, we could say that shifting the chain is a bit like getting a dog to go left and right using nothing but the leash. You can play with how far the jockey wheel is from each cog to some extent. There is a "B screw" adjustment which helps with it somewhat. Mainly, the screw helps the other way: if the jockey wheel is riding too close, the screw can help get it away, but if the jockey wheel is riding far from the cassette, the screw is often ineffective in bringing it closer. Mainly, because the cogs are of different sizes, the parallelogram geometry of the derailleur has to match the cog set style; this is one reason why there are road derailleurs and others. Road bike gearing has less of a spread between high and low, so the jockey wheel tracks at a different angle from the steep spread of a mountain bike cassette. (Road bikes often have only two rings in the front also, and so there is less spread between the maximum and minimum chain length. For that reason, the derailleurs also have shorter cages. Some road derailleurs models come in two cage lengths: you choose wisely based on your system.) In general you will get much crisper shifting on a road cassette with a road derailleur because the steps in cog size are smaller. To execute a downshift, the chain has to "climb" onto a larger cog. This happens more easily if the larger one just has one or two more teeth. I think that to have an effective system that is fully electric, it would be best to control the whole relevant configuration: the frame (how exactly the derailleur is mounted), and the cassette it is used with, and probably the front derailleur also. The system will have to be able to move the derailleur quickly, and implement the proper overshoot and return. Cyclists expect fast gear changes.
supperburg 5y ago
Cycling is such a cool subculture. I keep “the Armstrong lie” playing in the background a lot. It’s just such a cool and impenetrable thing. It’s this weird artifact of wealthy suburbs like some kind of strange custom or tradition like the Japanese tea ceremony. Seemingly pointless and filled with double meanings and unspoken rules and yet nice in a way and complementary to a virtuous life.
- garyfirestorm 5y ago
  i grew up in india riding bicycle almost on a daily basis. i strongly disagree with your comment. for some of us cycling is just freedom and way of life, it has nothing to do with 'weird artifact of wealthy suburbs' or 'Japanese tea ceremony' and i didn't grow up wealthy. it got me places and let me hang out with friends. also as a kid if you wanted to go fast and didnt have motorcycle or money for gas, this was the best approach.
  - hencq 5y ago
    Same in the Netherlands. Rich, poor, young, old, everybody rides bikes as a normal way to get places. Not sure what chip the GP has on their shoulder, but it definitely doesn't match with my experience.
    - asdff 5y ago
      In most of the U.S. biking to get to places is remarkably dangerous if not outright impossible. Your average cyclist is one who drives their bike somewhere to ride like a large state park with little car traffic and smooth hilly roads, rather than a bike commuter. That sort of cyclist tends to be wealthy with all the latest gear and clad in spandex in my experience. Its a nice situation for riders like me, I got a great deal on a roadbike with dura ace components since the seller was hopping on the gravel bike craze at the time and didn't care about selling their pretty nice bike for a huge loss.
      - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
supperburg 5y ago
Seems dumb. It would take a lot of energy to heat up the wire over and over and energy is at a premium on ebikes. Especially if the chain wasn’t cooperating and more force were required which I assume would mean more heat would be required. Also that seems a little slow compared to an electromagnetic solution. The only advantage in my view is that it has fewer moving parts.
- dr_orpheus 5y ago
  Additionally it sounds like they are planning on using some energy to maintain the heat in the wire: "Heat would continue to be supplied to the operational wire periodically but not constantly in order for it to maintain its heated state and keep the chain guide in position. The system would be operated by "an electric current generator installable in a pedal crankset of the bicycle" Although I imagine they could get around this with some sort of toggle spring mechanism to hold it in place.
mkopec 5y ago
I imagine adjusting this would be a total nightmare compared to a simple barrel adjuster in a Bowden cable system.
JoeAltmaier 5y ago
Cool idea. Bad patent description though: “bicycle derailleur apparatus for controlling bicycle speed.” Its controls torque actually. Speed depends entirely upon force applied, external road conditions and whatnot.
ISL 5y ago
Upvoting because thoughtful uses of shape-memory alloys don't get enough love.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Nitinol is cool
  - el_benhameen 5y ago
    My son just had a nitinol plug placed in a small heart defect via a catheter. The mesh deforms to fit in the catheter at ambient temperatures, and then reforms to the plug shape at body temperature. And they’re hand-woven by Peruvian women because of the complexity of the design. Absolutely mind-blowing stuff!
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      Wow. That's beautiful. Thanks for letting us know about a real-world use for nitinol.
    - Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
      I wish your son all the best. I thought efficient air-conditioning using Nitinol[1] was exciting, With boring static titanium implants fusing my C1-C3 I find your son's nitinol plug in the heart weaved by the Peruvian women mind blowing. Where can I learn more about that tech? [1] https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/07/21/a-new-green-air-conditioning-system-manages-without-nasty-gases https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/07/21/...
      - el_benhameen 5y ago
        Thank you! He's doing great. Instead of a monthslong recovery from open heart surgery, he walked out of the hospital the next day and was back at school the following week. It was a relatively small defect, so the operation was really just to lower his lifetime risk of endocarditis. I seem to have misremembered the country--it's Bolivia, not Peru. My apologies to the very talented weavers. Interesting article about it here: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-32076070 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-32076070
floren 5y ago
"Oh great," I thought, "Now my bicycle needs a battery." Then I remembered that ebikes are getting extremely popular these days... I also remembered how much I hate dealing with cables on my bicycle. It would be very cool to see one of these in action.
- fiftyacorn 5y ago
  Most decent road bikes have electric gearing these days
- bowmessage 5y ago
  No mention of a battery, only a generator in the crankset. Maybe a simple capacitor would suffice.
- n8cpdx 5y ago
  I had a brief stint as a bike owner and the whole culture around it is maddening. If I want a car, I go to a dealership and I can find a bunch of packages and customizations and there's a dealer to help. The cars have all sorts of technology and it's well integrated. You don't have to buy a car and decide if you want the bright headlights or the bad headlights and then pay extra to have them installed. There's so much that a bike should/could have: automatic emergency braking, turn signals, automatic lighting, regenerative braking, gps/anti theft tracking, speedometor, rear radar, etc. You can get most of those things, but then you have to install them all, there's no standard, each has to be charged separately. Bike nerds ask about your derailleur and nonsense about tires and how the bike should be totally custom, and how turn signals are a stupid idea because you can just balance one-handed while waving and mirrors are bad because you can just look over your shoulder and it's all just a lot. And then they have the nerve to ask why more people don't bike? Why don't more people bike? Because the entire biking community, culture, and market is built around making it hard and dangerous. Edit: my point is that the biking community should embrace electronics/batteries since they're necessary for safety lights anyway, and use that as the foundation to build an integrated consumer product. If you want the world to switch to biking (I do) you can't treat it as a hobbyist market. Car manufacturers figured this out long ago.
  - 5y ago
nynx 5y ago
It hurts innovation that something this simple is able to be patented.
- garyfirestorm 5y ago
  if it were that simple we wouldnt have heard about it for the first time in 2021 right?
  - nynx 5y ago
    Something taking a while for someone to think of it doesn't mean that only one organization should be allowed to make it. It took hundreds of thousands of years for people to come up with the wheel. The concept of the wheel isn't patented.
    - function_seven 5y ago
      Patentability has nothing to do with complexity. It's about novelty. If the wheel were invented today, it absolutely would be patented. And for 20 years or whatever, the genius that solved that particular problem would reap well-deserved rewards for such a clever solution. As far as this invention is concerned, I don't know enough about bicycling to know if this is something that's been considered and discarded before, or if literally nobody else has thought of it. Either way, I think that makes it patentable. Either everyone else decided it wasn't worth it—and therefore nothing of value is being locked away by this patent—or they couldn't figure it out and therefore this is a novel invention for which the inventors should be rewarded for their R&D time.
- upofadown 5y ago
  Thing that can cause controlled movement. Find all the places where controlled movement is desired. Combine. Iterate. What is likely worse is that this probably isn't at all practical and does not constitute an invention. It likely came out of a general call for patentable ideas from the engineering department. Ford will never ever do anything with this. It is only useful for preventing innovation outside of Ford.
rapsacnz 5y ago
Pretty sure that this is not going to work very well - Time taken to heat a wire is probably slower than a servo motor. Energy taken to heat the wire is also likely to be more than that required by an electric motor. Also, this seems to be for a front 2 ring derailleur - which noone even uses anymore. If you tried to make this work for a modern rear derailleur, you'd need a lot of wire.
- semi-extrinsic 5y ago
  On the contrary, 2x10 bike setups are getting more common these days even for MTB, all the manufacturers offer 2x10 setups. One big advantage is that all combinations on a 2x10 are usable, whereas with a classic 3x9 you have to avoid being at high gear up front and low gear at the back, or you will be crossing the chain and damaging components / dropping chain.
  - patchorang 5y ago
    I think they were referencing mountain bikes. They are nearly all 1x now.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      .. and i still don't understand how we're all just supposed to ignore the monster chain crossing that this setup implies.
      - Kluny 5y ago
        It doesn't seem to be much of a problem on my 1x mountain bike.
      - discreteevent 5y ago
        It's less crossing than 2x at the extremes
      - semi-extrinsic 5y ago
        I run a 1x10, and there is no problem with chain crossing. The 10/11/12 speed cassettes are basically not any wider than the regular 9 speed ones, so there is no more chain crossing than what you get for the middle ring on a 3x9. The optimization is all in narrower chains and sprockets. That being said, I do run an upper chain guide to reduce probability of the chain falling off the chainring when the rear derailleur gets clogged with mud etc.
greggturkington 5y ago
One drawback being how easy today's derailleurs are to adjust and tune with simple tools. Run the cable, set the High, set the Low, and you're done. > the Ford derailleur appears to be aimed at the e-bike market ...and possibly pros? They mention Di2 in here, I don't know anyone (outside of Freds) that are riding Dura-Ace-level grouppos that actually do their own maintenance, so this probably won't be targeted to enthusiasts.
- maxekman 5y ago
  Di2 is available for other models also; Alfine internal gear hub and GRX gravel series to name a few. https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/product/component/alfine-s7050s705-di2/SG-S7051-11.html https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/product/component/alfine-s705... https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/product/component/grx-di2.html https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/product/component/grx-di2.htm... [edit: links and XT->GRX]
- wiredfool 5y ago
  DI2 is not just Dura-ace. Ultegra, GRX and XTR have it (at least, if you can get the parts). Sram has AXS all the way down to rival, which is 105 level.
- ptmcc 5y ago
  Di2 (and SRAM's equivalent AXS) has been getting aggressively trickled down the groupset line and the price has been dropping precipitously. It's a bit obscured by the ongoing supply chain issues, though. Electronic shifting will become a standard, or at least a common option, on mid-range 105/Rival bikes ($2-4k) within the next few years most likely. The same way hydraulic disc brakes have trickled down over the past several years. I still ride mechanical myself, but have friends with electronic shifting and they rave about it. It's nearly zero maintenance because it's self-adjusting. Just lube it and clean it, and replace the chain every few thousand miles. Even though electronic shifting may be "better" I still find a beautiful simplicity in the all-mechanical nature of a bicycle.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > I still ride mechanical myself Is that a term now? It is no longer that the norm a bicycle, and you have to specify if it's uses electricity. Now you specify that you ride "mechanical"? The world is changing or the e-bike sellers are doing some great marketing.
tinbad 5y ago
Not sure I understand the appeal. It’s still a derailleur, isn’t it? Lots of (higher end) bikes moved to internal hub systems like Rohloff [1] that have proven to be very reliable, maintenance free and (other than higher upfront costs) are superior to a derailleur in almost every way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohloff_Speedhub https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohloff_Speedhub
- asdff 5y ago
  It's not like derailleurs are plagued with issues or costly maintenance as it is. It takes a lot of riding to knock them far enough out of spec where its a problem, and a tuneup at a bike shop is like $25. Pay that once a year and you will have like zero problems with your bike unless you crash it badly. If its a matter of protecting the derailleur from damage like on mountain bikes, you can install a guard for a few bucks.
  - Valgrim 5y ago
    I see them useful for winter biking in the city, where corrosion and dirt is the biggest problem.
    - asdff 5y ago
      Most people who I've seen winter biking are riding some beater $100 used mountain bike into the ground during winter over a nice bike. Remove the derailleur, and there are still a lot of components all over the bike that will get fouled up with corrosion, dirt, oily sludgy snow, etc, so its better to ride something disposable during that season.
      - Valgrim 5y ago
        I agree. My personal experience is that the chain and derailleur are by far the most fragile parts of the system (disk brakes are probably quite fragile too, but regular caliper/cantilever/v-brakes are not much affected by corrosion.) but on cheap bikes, chains are easy to replace and derailleurs have a lot of tolerance. So just cleaning them regularly and oiling them is generally good enough. Some specialized winter bikes use a belt instead of a chain, but I find those too expensive, hard to service and maintain.
micro_cam 5y ago
Should just link to the Wheelbased article they cite. It is a great cite to follow for patent coverge though most stuff they cover may be not be of interest to anyone who isn't an avid mountain biker. Cycling websites poaching stories from wheelbased has become somewhat of a thing at least this one cites them. Pinkbike had a string of stories come out on patents just after they appeared on wheelbased.
zwieback 5y ago
I can sort of see the appeal of getting rid of tiny servos or solenoids but for the front derailleur it has to work super smooth to be part of an auto-shifting system like they talk about. I think other forms of gearing make more sense for auto-shift or e-bikes. I for one wouldn't want the computer to suddenly shift chain rings on me.
Accujack 5y ago
I'm thinking this is someone's daydream... or a way to make a cheap, simple, but cumbersome and imprecise shift mechanism. I can't see it being a practical product or feature of one.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
Ah nitinol. There's a term I haven't heard since Coevolution Quarterly was still in print. The "appropriate technology" crowd loved this material, but it seemed to vanish in terms of common place uses.
annoyingnoob 5y ago
In my experience with SMA materials, the speed to contract is not the same as the speed to expand (one direction will be much slower). In practice, this means that there might be a time delay from one shift to the next in a case where the material now needs to go in the opposite direction. Can you shift all the way to the top and then back down without any delays between shifts?
darkmatterrat 5y ago
As an ex-avid cyclist and have built quite a few bicycles. I've seen plenty of new chain mechanisms, new derailleurs, hub gears etc. and tbh all of them have the following problems: * Shimano is ubiquitous. You can go into almost any bike shop and get something which is Shimano compatible. * Most bike mechanics have Shimano spares on hand and know how to fix it. * Shimano gear just works together for the most part, especially if it is the older 7 and 8 speed stuff. * Shimano stuff is ridiculously reliable. I've seen bicycles that have gone for years without any proper maintenance and it keeps on working. The current designs of the derailleurs are about 40 years old at this point (I know they have been around for over a century but the current designs have been around since the 90s) and I've seen many companies attempt to re-invent and it never heard of after a few years because the current stuff we have is relatively cheap and extremely good.
dmix 5y ago
> If a big player such as Ford decided to commit to e-bike development - and it seems likely that this will happen - we can expect to see the pace of innovation shift up a gear. I could see the car companies getting into the eBike market. The biggest reason Segway failed was because it made you look goofy, not entirely for functional reasons. I just bought an eBike and I'm convinced it's going to be a massive market going forward. It's the perfect urban mobility option. No insurance required and no license, you can mount heavy high-end locks, cellphone, LCD, and other attachments/baggage without worrying too much about weight because the pedal assist is always available. Most importantly it doesn't make you look goofy or less 'manly' like the traditional European scooters do (this is just a popular cultural phenomenon that does exists here in North America, not one I'm supporting, but is very important). And the benefits of going pure electric don't need to be mentioned. Right now the only barrier is price and the designs have a long way to go. The eBike companies are finally finding a way to blend the battery into the bikes. So it fits a normal road bike style, not just the lower seat one. As lithium batteries get cheaper and better designers/manufacturers hit the market it could be huge.
- rednerrus 5y ago
  I bought a RadPower Wagon last year and it's been great. $1,500 for a bike that can get 20 miles on a charge doesn't seem out of line.
  - dmix 5y ago
    Same, I bought a bike from RadPower as well, since they are based in Canada where I am it only took 2 days to arrive. Their new RadCity Plus [1] looks good, a clear progression in design from the previous RadCity [2]. I found out you can buy https://eggrider.com/ https://eggrider.com/ and modify the computer controller settings (ie, increase the speed by overriding the governor). But otherwise I find the bike was more than fast enough. [1] https://radpowerbikes.ca/products/radcity-plus-electric-commuter-bike https://radpowerbikes.ca/products/radcity-plus-electric-comm... [2] https://radpowerbikes.ca/products/radcity-electric-commuter-bike https://radpowerbikes.ca/products/radcity-electric-commuter-...

76 points by gjvc 5y ago

> radical new derailleur that uses an electric current to heat up and move mouldable wires So, this is just for bicycles with massive batteries, which could as well use internal gearing of some sort. Derailleurs are finnicky. You calibrate the shifter for sure-fire upshifting with the index clicker lever, which sacrifices downshifting. When you downshift, you have to overshoot: give an extra pull to get the thing to shift, which is then retracted to the index position. Maybe this is fixed in some True Scotsman's derailleurs that cost hundreds of dollars; mine cost some $60 (which is three times more expensive already than what you see installed on the majority of bikes in the sub $1000 category). It's a road bike derailleur on a road cassette: which is going to be the best shifting combination, due to the differences in adjacent cog size being small. I'm downshifting from 12 teeth to 13, 14, 15, ... The reason shifting is imprecise is because when you move the parallelogram of a derailleur, that moves the upper wheel, called the jockey wheel. This indirectly changes the gear by moving the chain. This has to overshoot the shift position in order to work; it cannot just move from being centered over one cog to being centered over the next. The farther this jockey wheel is from the cog set, the more overshoot it needs to get the chain to jump. Whimsically speaking, we could say that shifting the chain is a bit like getting a dog to go left and right using nothing but the leash. You can play with how far the jockey wheel is from each cog to some extent. There is a "B screw" adjustment which helps with it somewhat. Mainly, the screw helps the other way: if the jockey wheel is riding too close, the screw can help get it away, but if the jockey wheel is riding far from the cassette, the screw is often ineffective in bringing it closer. Mainly, because the cogs are of different sizes, the parallelogram geometry of the derailleur has to match the cog set style; this is one reason why there are road derailleurs and others. Road bike gearing has less of a spread between high and low, so the jockey wheel tracks at a different angle from the steep spread of a mountain bike cassette. (Road bikes often have only two rings in the front also, and so there is less spread between the maximum and minimum chain length. For that reason, the derailleurs also have shorter cages. Some road derailleurs models come in two cage lengths: you choose wisely based on your system.) In general you will get much crisper shifting on a road cassette with a road derailleur because the steps in cog size are smaller. To execute a downshift, the chain has to "climb" onto a larger cog. This happens more easily if the larger one just has one or two more teeth. I think that to have an effective system that is fully electric, it would be best to control the whole relevant configuration: the frame (how exactly the derailleur is mounted), and the cassette it is used with, and probably the front derailleur also. The system will have to be able to move the derailleur quickly, and implement the proper overshoot and return. Cyclists expect fast gear changes.

supperburg 5y ago

Cycling is such a cool subculture. I keep “the Armstrong lie” playing in the background a lot. It’s just such a cool and impenetrable thing. It’s this weird artifact of wealthy suburbs like some kind of strange custom or tradition like the Japanese tea ceremony. Seemingly pointless and filled with double meanings and unspoken rules and yet nice in a way and complementary to a virtuous life.

garyfirestorm 5y ago
i grew up in india riding bicycle almost on a daily basis. i strongly disagree with your comment. for some of us cycling is just freedom and way of life, it has nothing to do with 'weird artifact of wealthy suburbs' or 'Japanese tea ceremony' and i didn't grow up wealthy. it got me places and let me hang out with friends. also as a kid if you wanted to go fast and didnt have motorcycle or money for gas, this was the best approach.
- hencq 5y ago
  Same in the Netherlands. Rich, poor, young, old, everybody rides bikes as a normal way to get places. Not sure what chip the GP has on their shoulder, but it definitely doesn't match with my experience.
  - asdff 5y ago
    In most of the U.S. biking to get to places is remarkably dangerous if not outright impossible. Your average cyclist is one who drives their bike somewhere to ride like a large state park with little car traffic and smooth hilly roads, rather than a bike commuter. That sort of cyclist tends to be wealthy with all the latest gear and clad in spandex in my experience. Its a nice situation for riders like me, I got a great deal on a roadbike with dura ace components since the seller was hopping on the gravel bike craze at the time and didn't care about selling their pretty nice bike for a huge loss.
    - JoeAltmaier 5y ago

supperburg 5y ago

Seems dumb. It would take a lot of energy to heat up the wire over and over and energy is at a premium on ebikes. Especially if the chain wasn’t cooperating and more force were required which I assume would mean more heat would be required. Also that seems a little slow compared to an electromagnetic solution. The only advantage in my view is that it has fewer moving parts.

dr_orpheus 5y ago
Additionally it sounds like they are planning on using some energy to maintain the heat in the wire: "Heat would continue to be supplied to the operational wire periodically but not constantly in order for it to maintain its heated state and keep the chain guide in position. The system would be operated by "an electric current generator installable in a pedal crankset of the bicycle" Although I imagine they could get around this with some sort of toggle spring mechanism to hold it in place.

mkopec 5y ago

I imagine adjusting this would be a total nightmare compared to a simple barrel adjuster in a Bowden cable system.

JoeAltmaier 5y ago

Cool idea. Bad patent description though: “bicycle derailleur apparatus for controlling bicycle speed.” Its controls torque actually. Speed depends entirely upon force applied, external road conditions and whatnot.

ISL 5y ago

Upvoting because thoughtful uses of shape-memory alloys don't get enough love.

giantg2 5y ago
Nitinol is cool
- el_benhameen 5y ago
  My son just had a nitinol plug placed in a small heart defect via a catheter. The mesh deforms to fit in the catheter at ambient temperatures, and then reforms to the plug shape at body temperature. And they’re hand-woven by Peruvian women because of the complexity of the design. Absolutely mind-blowing stuff!
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    Wow. That's beautiful. Thanks for letting us know about a real-world use for nitinol.
  - Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
    I wish your son all the best. I thought efficient air-conditioning using Nitinol[1] was exciting, With boring static titanium implants fusing my C1-C3 I find your son's nitinol plug in the heart weaved by the Peruvian women mind blowing. Where can I learn more about that tech? [1] https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/07/21/a-new-green-air-conditioning-system-manages-without-nasty-gases https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/07/21/...
    - el_benhameen 5y ago
      Thank you! He's doing great. Instead of a monthslong recovery from open heart surgery, he walked out of the hospital the next day and was back at school the following week. It was a relatively small defect, so the operation was really just to lower his lifetime risk of endocarditis. I seem to have misremembered the country--it's Bolivia, not Peru. My apologies to the very talented weavers. Interesting article about it here: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-32076070 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-32076070

floren 5y ago

"Oh great," I thought, "Now my bicycle needs a battery." Then I remembered that ebikes are getting extremely popular these days... I also remembered how much I hate dealing with cables on my bicycle. It would be very cool to see one of these in action.

fiftyacorn 5y ago
Most decent road bikes have electric gearing these days
bowmessage 5y ago
No mention of a battery, only a generator in the crankset. Maybe a simple capacitor would suffice.
n8cpdx 5y ago
I had a brief stint as a bike owner and the whole culture around it is maddening. If I want a car, I go to a dealership and I can find a bunch of packages and customizations and there's a dealer to help. The cars have all sorts of technology and it's well integrated. You don't have to buy a car and decide if you want the bright headlights or the bad headlights and then pay extra to have them installed. There's so much that a bike should/could have: automatic emergency braking, turn signals, automatic lighting, regenerative braking, gps/anti theft tracking, speedometor, rear radar, etc. You can get most of those things, but then you have to install them all, there's no standard, each has to be charged separately. Bike nerds ask about your derailleur and nonsense about tires and how the bike should be totally custom, and how turn signals are a stupid idea because you can just balance one-handed while waving and mirrors are bad because you can just look over your shoulder and it's all just a lot. And then they have the nerve to ask why more people don't bike? Why don't more people bike? Because the entire biking community, culture, and market is built around making it hard and dangerous. Edit: my point is that the biking community should embrace electronics/batteries since they're necessary for safety lights anyway, and use that as the foundation to build an integrated consumer product. If you want the world to switch to biking (I do) you can't treat it as a hobbyist market. Car manufacturers figured this out long ago.
- 5y ago

nynx 5y ago

It hurts innovation that something this simple is able to be patented.

garyfirestorm 5y ago
if it were that simple we wouldnt have heard about it for the first time in 2021 right?
- nynx 5y ago
  Something taking a while for someone to think of it doesn't mean that only one organization should be allowed to make it. It took hundreds of thousands of years for people to come up with the wheel. The concept of the wheel isn't patented.
  - function_seven 5y ago
    Patentability has nothing to do with complexity. It's about novelty. If the wheel were invented today, it absolutely would be patented. And for 20 years or whatever, the genius that solved that particular problem would reap well-deserved rewards for such a clever solution. As far as this invention is concerned, I don't know enough about bicycling to know if this is something that's been considered and discarded before, or if literally nobody else has thought of it. Either way, I think that makes it patentable. Either everyone else decided it wasn't worth it—and therefore nothing of value is being locked away by this patent—or they couldn't figure it out and therefore this is a novel invention for which the inventors should be rewarded for their R&D time.
upofadown 5y ago
Thing that can cause controlled movement. Find all the places where controlled movement is desired. Combine. Iterate. What is likely worse is that this probably isn't at all practical and does not constitute an invention. It likely came out of a general call for patentable ideas from the engineering department. Ford will never ever do anything with this. It is only useful for preventing innovation outside of Ford.

rapsacnz 5y ago

Pretty sure that this is not going to work very well - Time taken to heat a wire is probably slower than a servo motor. Energy taken to heat the wire is also likely to be more than that required by an electric motor. Also, this seems to be for a front 2 ring derailleur - which noone even uses anymore. If you tried to make this work for a modern rear derailleur, you'd need a lot of wire.

semi-extrinsic 5y ago
On the contrary, 2x10 bike setups are getting more common these days even for MTB, all the manufacturers offer 2x10 setups. One big advantage is that all combinations on a 2x10 are usable, whereas with a classic 3x9 you have to avoid being at high gear up front and low gear at the back, or you will be crossing the chain and damaging components / dropping chain.
- patchorang 5y ago
  I think they were referencing mountain bikes. They are nearly all 1x now.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    .. and i still don't understand how we're all just supposed to ignore the monster chain crossing that this setup implies.
    - Kluny 5y ago
      It doesn't seem to be much of a problem on my 1x mountain bike.
    - discreteevent 5y ago
      It's less crossing than 2x at the extremes
    - semi-extrinsic 5y ago
      I run a 1x10, and there is no problem with chain crossing. The 10/11/12 speed cassettes are basically not any wider than the regular 9 speed ones, so there is no more chain crossing than what you get for the middle ring on a 3x9. The optimization is all in narrower chains and sprockets. That being said, I do run an upper chain guide to reduce probability of the chain falling off the chainring when the rear derailleur gets clogged with mud etc.

greggturkington 5y ago

One drawback being how easy today's derailleurs are to adjust and tune with simple tools. Run the cable, set the High, set the Low, and you're done. > the Ford derailleur appears to be aimed at the e-bike market ...and possibly pros? They mention Di2 in here, I don't know anyone (outside of Freds) that are riding Dura-Ace-level grouppos that actually do their own maintenance, so this probably won't be targeted to enthusiasts.

maxekman 5y ago
Di2 is available for other models also; Alfine internal gear hub and GRX gravel series to name a few. https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/product/component/alfine-s7050s705-di2/SG-S7051-11.html https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/product/component/alfine-s705... https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/product/component/grx-di2.html https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/product/component/grx-di2.htm... [edit: links and XT->GRX]
wiredfool 5y ago
DI2 is not just Dura-ace. Ultegra, GRX and XTR have it (at least, if you can get the parts). Sram has AXS all the way down to rival, which is 105 level.
ptmcc 5y ago
Di2 (and SRAM's equivalent AXS) has been getting aggressively trickled down the groupset line and the price has been dropping precipitously. It's a bit obscured by the ongoing supply chain issues, though. Electronic shifting will become a standard, or at least a common option, on mid-range 105/Rival bikes ($2-4k) within the next few years most likely. The same way hydraulic disc brakes have trickled down over the past several years. I still ride mechanical myself, but have friends with electronic shifting and they rave about it. It's nearly zero maintenance because it's self-adjusting. Just lube it and clean it, and replace the chain every few thousand miles. Even though electronic shifting may be "better" I still find a beautiful simplicity in the all-mechanical nature of a bicycle.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > I still ride mechanical myself Is that a term now? It is no longer that the norm a bicycle, and you have to specify if it's uses electricity. Now you specify that you ride "mechanical"? The world is changing or the e-bike sellers are doing some great marketing.

tinbad 5y ago

Not sure I understand the appeal. It’s still a derailleur, isn’t it? Lots of (higher end) bikes moved to internal hub systems like Rohloff [1] that have proven to be very reliable, maintenance free and (other than higher upfront costs) are superior to a derailleur in almost every way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohloff_Speedhub https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohloff_Speedhub

asdff 5y ago
It's not like derailleurs are plagued with issues or costly maintenance as it is. It takes a lot of riding to knock them far enough out of spec where its a problem, and a tuneup at a bike shop is like $25. Pay that once a year and you will have like zero problems with your bike unless you crash it badly. If its a matter of protecting the derailleur from damage like on mountain bikes, you can install a guard for a few bucks.
- Valgrim 5y ago
  I see them useful for winter biking in the city, where corrosion and dirt is the biggest problem.
  - asdff 5y ago
    Most people who I've seen winter biking are riding some beater $100 used mountain bike into the ground during winter over a nice bike. Remove the derailleur, and there are still a lot of components all over the bike that will get fouled up with corrosion, dirt, oily sludgy snow, etc, so its better to ride something disposable during that season.
    - Valgrim 5y ago
      I agree. My personal experience is that the chain and derailleur are by far the most fragile parts of the system (disk brakes are probably quite fragile too, but regular caliper/cantilever/v-brakes are not much affected by corrosion.) but on cheap bikes, chains are easy to replace and derailleurs have a lot of tolerance. So just cleaning them regularly and oiling them is generally good enough. Some specialized winter bikes use a belt instead of a chain, but I find those too expensive, hard to service and maintain.

micro_cam 5y ago

Should just link to the Wheelbased article they cite. It is a great cite to follow for patent coverge though most stuff they cover may be not be of interest to anyone who isn't an avid mountain biker. Cycling websites poaching stories from wheelbased has become somewhat of a thing at least this one cites them. Pinkbike had a string of stories come out on patents just after they appeared on wheelbased.

zwieback 5y ago

I can sort of see the appeal of getting rid of tiny servos or solenoids but for the front derailleur it has to work super smooth to be part of an auto-shifting system like they talk about. I think other forms of gearing make more sense for auto-shift or e-bikes. I for one wouldn't want the computer to suddenly shift chain rings on me.

Accujack 5y ago

I'm thinking this is someone's daydream... or a way to make a cheap, simple, but cumbersome and imprecise shift mechanism. I can't see it being a practical product or feature of one.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

Ah nitinol. There's a term I haven't heard since Coevolution Quarterly was still in print. The "appropriate technology" crowd loved this material, but it seemed to vanish in terms of common place uses.

annoyingnoob 5y ago

In my experience with SMA materials, the speed to contract is not the same as the speed to expand (one direction will be much slower). In practice, this means that there might be a time delay from one shift to the next in a case where the material now needs to go in the opposite direction. Can you shift all the way to the top and then back down without any delays between shifts?

darkmatterrat 5y ago

As an ex-avid cyclist and have built quite a few bicycles. I've seen plenty of new chain mechanisms, new derailleurs, hub gears etc. and tbh all of them have the following problems: * Shimano is ubiquitous. You can go into almost any bike shop and get something which is Shimano compatible. * Most bike mechanics have Shimano spares on hand and know how to fix it. * Shimano gear just works together for the most part, especially if it is the older 7 and 8 speed stuff. * Shimano stuff is ridiculously reliable. I've seen bicycles that have gone for years without any proper maintenance and it keeps on working. The current designs of the derailleurs are about 40 years old at this point (I know they have been around for over a century but the current designs have been around since the 90s) and I've seen many companies attempt to re-invent and it never heard of after a few years because the current stuff we have is relatively cheap and extremely good.

dmix 5y ago

> If a big player such as Ford decided to commit to e-bike development - and it seems likely that this will happen - we can expect to see the pace of innovation shift up a gear. I could see the car companies getting into the eBike market. The biggest reason Segway failed was because it made you look goofy, not entirely for functional reasons. I just bought an eBike and I'm convinced it's going to be a massive market going forward. It's the perfect urban mobility option. No insurance required and no license, you can mount heavy high-end locks, cellphone, LCD, and other attachments/baggage without worrying too much about weight because the pedal assist is always available. Most importantly it doesn't make you look goofy or less 'manly' like the traditional European scooters do (this is just a popular cultural phenomenon that does exists here in North America, not one I'm supporting, but is very important). And the benefits of going pure electric don't need to be mentioned. Right now the only barrier is price and the designs have a long way to go. The eBike companies are finally finding a way to blend the battery into the bikes. So it fits a normal road bike style, not just the lower seat one. As lithium batteries get cheaper and better designers/manufacturers hit the market it could be huge.

rednerrus 5y ago
I bought a RadPower Wagon last year and it's been great. $1,500 for a bike that can get 20 miles on a charge doesn't seem out of line.
- dmix 5y ago
  Same, I bought a bike from RadPower as well, since they are based in Canada where I am it only took 2 days to arrive. Their new RadCity Plus [1] looks good, a clear progression in design from the previous RadCity [2]. I found out you can buy https://eggrider.com/ https://eggrider.com/ and modify the computer controller settings (ie, increase the speed by overriding the governor). But otherwise I find the bike was more than fast enough. [1] https://radpowerbikes.ca/products/radcity-plus-electric-commuter-bike https://radpowerbikes.ca/products/radcity-plus-electric-comm... [2] https://radpowerbikes.ca/products/radcity-electric-commuter-bike https://radpowerbikes.ca/products/radcity-electric-commuter-...