6 ms·

So... a generator, an electric motor, few microcontrollers, bunch of sensors, a battery with it's own management circuits, wires, a bunch of code running on eve

So... a generator, an electric motor, few microcontrollers, bunch of sensors, a battery with it's own management circuits, wires, a bunch of code running on everything... is supposed to be "less complicated" than a chain and two (sometimes more) sprockets? Or did I misunderstand the press release?

colordrops 4y ago
Your phone is way more complicated than your bike and the hardware probably fails less often.
- rilezg 4y ago
  Idk, if you tried to use your phone as a bike I bet it would fail pretty quickly.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    I don't get your argument. What I'm saying is that complexity isn't necessarily directly correlated to reliability.
    - rilezg 4y ago
      Sure, but a hammer is both simpler and much more reliable than a phone. My point is that it is meaningless to compare items with completely different functions (I would say apples and oranges, but it is more like apples and rocks).
- Steltek 4y ago
  My phone doesn't sit out in the sun/rain/snow at a bike rack and doesn't have any substantial moving parts.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    I think I didn't articulate my point well. It's that complexity isn't a 1 to 1 mapping to reliability. There is plenty of complex equipment that fits your criteria. My pool pump is full of electronics, has moving parts, sits in inclement weather, and lasts for years. There is equipment that can sit near the combustion chamber of a rocket experiencing extreme g forces, pressure, and heat and survive. It can be engineered.
- asdff 4y ago
  I've had my bike 10 years. How can the hardware fail on a bike? Throwing it off a cliff? Meanwhile, the laundry list of hardware issues I could list on my phone probably affects every component in the stack over my decade of owning various smartphones. Each dying due to some faulty hardware issue, such as the radio giving out and dropping calls or the jacks getting loose or various other issues.
- postalrat 4y ago
  Phones tend to get pretty nice treatment compared to bikes. Bikes are constantly stepped on and rubbed against pavement. Because if something goes wrong with your phone you probably won't be able to fix it. Compared to a bike where most anything can be repaired.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    It's a single unit, you just replace it, like you would a broken gear. You can't fix a broken gear unless you weld it.
newsclues 4y ago
Far more complicated that a traditional bike. But compared to e-bikes, this avoids a lot of the complex mechanical bits. I've had this system in mind for years, I think for cargo bikes with long chains, this will be a clear winner.
dhosek 4y ago
I don’t know about you, but I pretty regularly have my chain derail on my bike (at least a few times per season). Then I end up with grease on my fingers as I fix it which can be a big inconvenience.
- analog31 4y ago
  Been there. If you're riding a 1x drivetrain, a narrow-wide chainring will greatly reduce chain drops. A conventional chainring is designed for the chain to be thrown off easily, and the front derailer keeps it there. On a 1x system, the ring can be designed differently.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    Hey thanks for this. I realized one of my bikes has been built wrong since I got it 15 years ago due to this comment.
- ramesh31 4y ago
  Wait until your chain gets ransomware
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    It's really catastrophic when the drive chain's watchdog timer has to reset it because some function went awry.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  Not really a normal thing;tTake your bicycle to a bicycle shop for diagnosis and repair. It make take a follow-up visit. Sometimes issues around dropping chains can be a bit complex to diagnose.
- IshKebab 4y ago
  If it bothers you that much the solution is a belt drive, which is still more efficient than a generator.
- 4y ago
a4isms 4y ago
Have you seen a high-end bike? The gears have batteries, electric motors, microcontrollers, and sensors. You'll also find wireless power meters, GPS, and even radar sensors for traffic on a contemporary bike. You get the idea. At the leading edge, bicycles are already extremely complicated. If we're comparing this idea to a bicycle from 2002, it's complicated. But I'm not sure that it's that complicated compared to the kind of bike you'd find in the roof rack of an Audi S4 Wagon :-)
- Steltek 4y ago
  You're describing a high-end e-bike, which is basically an e-motorcycle with less regulation. A high-end regular-bike has electronic shifting and a power meter and that's about it. And you're talking many thousands of dollars worth of road bike. It's like seeing a Ferrari or a Lambo rolling down city streets. They exist but they're rare.
  - a4isms 4y ago
    Yes, but we're discussing technology that will also be rare. It's not like these chainless electric drive systems will appear on big-box sporting goods store bicycles, so why compare it to a mass-market affordable bike's technology? I think it's reasonable to compare a leading edge technology to a leading-edge existing product. Otherwise, it's like it's 2007 and we're complaining that this newfangled iPhone thngie can run out of battery in a day, while my POTS telephone works even in a blackout. Yes, true, but apples, oranges.
  - Arainach 4y ago
    Not necessarily. Shimano Di2 electronic shifting was introduced all the way back in 2001 and has been among the standards for high-end road bikes for many years now. It has all of those components. The electric motor doesn't have to drive the wheel.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- 4y ago
sudosysgen 4y ago
Bike drivetrains can require a fair amount of maintenance. Also a normal chain derailler system requires at least four sprockets, two in the derailler, one in the wheel, and one in the bottom bracket. Anything less is likely to be less reliable. You can expect to change the chain every 5000km. In theory a fully electric drivetrain could last forever.
- asdff 4y ago
  All I do is lube mine and its been a gem for years now. People preach that there is this whole maintenance regimen and you have to be this hobbiest watchmaker to deal with bike gear ratios and such and such, yet most bikes just sit in the garage with the lube that came on them from the factory and work fine. Go to a college and see all the 50 year old 10 speeds lined up in the racks. If you have a 50 year old piece of hardware in such high use that doesn't seem like its this unreliable untrusty system to me, quite the opposite. Especially compared to like anything else in transportation, like a car that might incur thousands in repairs over its life. How many 50 year old cars are parked at the college? How many cars are even over 25? Even a skateboard is less reliable; take a skateboard out in the rain and the bearings are fouled and the deck may even warp. You can even get bike tires that make flat tires practically obsolete short of hammering in a nail because they use kevlar like a bulletproof vest. Literally bulletproof tech.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
One comparison is to e-bikes. Which often have most of that and a chain too. But also, e-bikes can let you ditch gears, which add complication. But I think the main selling point is that you can seperate the sitting/cycling position from the driven wheel in interesting ways.
- jandrese 4y ago
  The selling point might be to finally have an "automatic" bike. Standard derailleurs are basically like having a stick shift on a car. The rider has to be trained on how to use them and they will make errors like leaving the gear setting too high when going on an uphill and then being unable to downshift because they aren't turning the pedals fast enough due to the high gear ratio. This is literally just get on and start pedaling and the bike figures out the rest. It even makes e-bike controls super easy, since you can just set a speed and start pedaling and it will supply just enough juice to make up the difference. The obvious downside is that it's going to be less efficient than a chain drive, because nothing beats a chain drive. But if you basically get the benefits of an e-bike for free then the efficiency loss isn't a big deal for the rider.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    There's at least one existing hub drive ebike that uses this model. It has a single gear, you can spin the pedals backwards to engage full regen, but the secret is that its usually doing a little regen which it stores and uses to help on hills and when accelerating from a standstill.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    Lets be real, the selling point of this nonsense is that you can ride your electric motorcycle on a bike path and pretend it is a bike because it has pedals.
    - Toutouxc 4y ago
      There are lots of overpowered e-bikes with chain + gears, where the power going through the pedals is maybe 5 % of total power, and the rest is electric. This doesn't change or bring anything new to the table.

colordrops 4y ago

Your phone is way more complicated than your bike and the hardware probably fails less often.

rilezg 4y ago
Idk, if you tried to use your phone as a bike I bet it would fail pretty quickly.
- colordrops 4y ago
  I don't get your argument. What I'm saying is that complexity isn't necessarily directly correlated to reliability.
  - rilezg 4y ago
    Sure, but a hammer is both simpler and much more reliable than a phone. My point is that it is meaningless to compare items with completely different functions (I would say apples and oranges, but it is more like apples and rocks).
Steltek 4y ago
My phone doesn't sit out in the sun/rain/snow at a bike rack and doesn't have any substantial moving parts.
- colordrops 4y ago
  I think I didn't articulate my point well. It's that complexity isn't a 1 to 1 mapping to reliability. There is plenty of complex equipment that fits your criteria. My pool pump is full of electronics, has moving parts, sits in inclement weather, and lasts for years. There is equipment that can sit near the combustion chamber of a rocket experiencing extreme g forces, pressure, and heat and survive. It can be engineered.
asdff 4y ago
I've had my bike 10 years. How can the hardware fail on a bike? Throwing it off a cliff? Meanwhile, the laundry list of hardware issues I could list on my phone probably affects every component in the stack over my decade of owning various smartphones. Each dying due to some faulty hardware issue, such as the radio giving out and dropping calls or the jacks getting loose or various other issues.
postalrat 4y ago
Phones tend to get pretty nice treatment compared to bikes. Bikes are constantly stepped on and rubbed against pavement. Because if something goes wrong with your phone you probably won't be able to fix it. Compared to a bike where most anything can be repaired.
- colordrops 4y ago
  It's a single unit, you just replace it, like you would a broken gear. You can't fix a broken gear unless you weld it.

newsclues 4y ago

Far more complicated that a traditional bike. But compared to e-bikes, this avoids a lot of the complex mechanical bits. I've had this system in mind for years, I think for cargo bikes with long chains, this will be a clear winner.

dhosek 4y ago

I don’t know about you, but I pretty regularly have my chain derail on my bike (at least a few times per season). Then I end up with grease on my fingers as I fix it which can be a big inconvenience.

analog31 4y ago
Been there. If you're riding a 1x drivetrain, a narrow-wide chainring will greatly reduce chain drops. A conventional chainring is designed for the chain to be thrown off easily, and the front derailer keeps it there. On a 1x system, the ring can be designed differently.
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  Hey thanks for this. I realized one of my bikes has been built wrong since I got it 15 years ago due to this comment.
ramesh31 4y ago
Wait until your chain gets ransomware
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  It's really catastrophic when the drive chain's watchdog timer has to reset it because some function went awry.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
Not really a normal thing;tTake your bicycle to a bicycle shop for diagnosis and repair. It make take a follow-up visit. Sometimes issues around dropping chains can be a bit complex to diagnose.
IshKebab 4y ago
If it bothers you that much the solution is a belt drive, which is still more efficient than a generator.
4y ago

a4isms 4y ago

Have you seen a high-end bike? The gears have batteries, electric motors, microcontrollers, and sensors. You'll also find wireless power meters, GPS, and even radar sensors for traffic on a contemporary bike. You get the idea. At the leading edge, bicycles are already extremely complicated. If we're comparing this idea to a bicycle from 2002, it's complicated. But I'm not sure that it's that complicated compared to the kind of bike you'd find in the roof rack of an Audi S4 Wagon :-)

Steltek 4y ago
You're describing a high-end e-bike, which is basically an e-motorcycle with less regulation. A high-end regular-bike has electronic shifting and a power meter and that's about it. And you're talking many thousands of dollars worth of road bike. It's like seeing a Ferrari or a Lambo rolling down city streets. They exist but they're rare.
- a4isms 4y ago
  Yes, but we're discussing technology that will also be rare. It's not like these chainless electric drive systems will appear on big-box sporting goods store bicycles, so why compare it to a mass-market affordable bike's technology? I think it's reasonable to compare a leading edge technology to a leading-edge existing product. Otherwise, it's like it's 2007 and we're complaining that this newfangled iPhone thngie can run out of battery in a day, while my POTS telephone works even in a blackout. Yes, true, but apples, oranges.
- Arainach 4y ago
  Not necessarily. Shimano Di2 electronic shifting was introduced all the way back in 2001 and has been among the standards for high-end road bikes for many years now. It has all of those components. The electric motor doesn't have to drive the wheel.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
4y ago

sudosysgen 4y ago

Bike drivetrains can require a fair amount of maintenance. Also a normal chain derailler system requires at least four sprockets, two in the derailler, one in the wheel, and one in the bottom bracket. Anything less is likely to be less reliable. You can expect to change the chain every 5000km. In theory a fully electric drivetrain could last forever.

asdff 4y ago
All I do is lube mine and its been a gem for years now. People preach that there is this whole maintenance regimen and you have to be this hobbiest watchmaker to deal with bike gear ratios and such and such, yet most bikes just sit in the garage with the lube that came on them from the factory and work fine. Go to a college and see all the 50 year old 10 speeds lined up in the racks. If you have a 50 year old piece of hardware in such high use that doesn't seem like its this unreliable untrusty system to me, quite the opposite. Especially compared to like anything else in transportation, like a car that might incur thousands in repairs over its life. How many 50 year old cars are parked at the college? How many cars are even over 25? Even a skateboard is less reliable; take a skateboard out in the rain and the bearings are fouled and the deck may even warp. You can even get bike tires that make flat tires practically obsolete short of hammering in a nail because they use kevlar like a bulletproof vest. Literally bulletproof tech.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

One comparison is to e-bikes. Which often have most of that and a chain too. But also, e-bikes can let you ditch gears, which add complication. But I think the main selling point is that you can seperate the sitting/cycling position from the driven wheel in interesting ways.

jandrese 4y ago
The selling point might be to finally have an "automatic" bike. Standard derailleurs are basically like having a stick shift on a car. The rider has to be trained on how to use them and they will make errors like leaving the gear setting too high when going on an uphill and then being unable to downshift because they aren't turning the pedals fast enough due to the high gear ratio. This is literally just get on and start pedaling and the bike figures out the rest. It even makes e-bike controls super easy, since you can just set a speed and start pedaling and it will supply just enough juice to make up the difference. The obvious downside is that it's going to be less efficient than a chain drive, because nothing beats a chain drive. But if you basically get the benefits of an e-bike for free then the efficiency loss isn't a big deal for the rider.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  There's at least one existing hub drive ebike that uses this model. It has a single gear, you can spin the pedals backwards to engage full regen, but the secret is that its usually doing a little regen which it stores and uses to help on hills and when accelerating from a standstill.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  Lets be real, the selling point of this nonsense is that you can ride your electric motorcycle on a bike path and pretend it is a bike because it has pedals.
  - Toutouxc 4y ago
    There are lots of overpowered e-bikes with chain + gears, where the power going through the pedals is maybe 5 % of total power, and the rest is electric. This doesn't change or bring anything new to the table.