I’m sure someone must have picked this up but just in case, it’s quite ‘novel’:

String Chain Bicycle

This unique bike has strings instead of greasy chains.

Posted by Interesting Engineering on Friday, October 6, 2017

Courtesy of stringbike.com

It’s not really novel – like most of these “new” bike drive ideas, they reappear as soon as everyone forgets about the last time they appeared 😀

Problem with that particular system is how do you do gearing? It’d need a custom hub gear or crank gear, very expensive. And what’s the massive improvement that makes it worth the cost and hassle?

Some rowbikes use a Kevlar string system – sometimes on a spiral conical pulley to change gear. That’s a good application of the idea that’s been around for a while.

It appears to have gearing. I’m not suggesting it’s not rubbish, but it does look like they’ve found a way to do that.

Ah, that’s an improvement on earlier incarnations – but my comments still stand 😉

I’m reminded of an inventor who once wanted my help to make his revolutionary new drive system. It was fantastically complex – linkages, helical shafts, spiral gears, a nightmare to machine. I kept asking him what the advantage was, and after lots of waffle he eventually came up with one: if you pedal forwards, the bike goes forwards, but if you pedal backwards the bike still goes forwards. I convinced him that that wasn’t really the USP he thought it was…

Anyway, speaking of stupid drive systems, have we done this yet?

[video]https://youtu.be/SuqZdN5jsZI[/video]

Ha Ha Ha 😆

…”on a mission to unlock the full potential of the bicycle”

Looks like it could be a death trap on anything other than the completely flat.

aracer – Member

It appears to have gearing. I’m not suggesting it’s not rubbish, but it does look like they’ve found a way to do that. I actually thought the gearing was quite nicely done!
It belongs on a kinetic sculpture though rather than a bike I suppose.

I liked it anyway 🙂