Dear The Mountain Bike Industry,

Given the fact that you were so keen to respond to the demand for 650b wheels that you decided to kill off the 26″ size, I’d like to tell you that we all want gearbox bikes now.

We are all sick of using steam age technology that snaps off if you come near a rock or gets dragged into the rear wheel if you bend your hanger even slighly. It has no place on an offroad bicycle.

Please kill off the derailleur on mountain bikes for 2015.

Regards,

The Mountain Bike Consuming Public

Who died and made you king president of the MTB consuming pubic?

I don’t want a gearbox bike, and they are available if you want one. Heavy and likely to cost more overall… no thanks, I considered it and decided against it.
I as a member of the MTB consuming public just want them to stop killing off old decent products (ie: 9 speed of a decent spec level, I don’t want alivio kit)

We’ve had them for ages:

+1, and we don’t need an excessive range of gears like the 14 spd rohloff, a 9 or 10 spd range will be more than enough and make it light, preferbly retrofit so we don’t need new frames either, twistgrip or flappy shifters option as well.

A hub build option or gearbox option would be nice. I’m not fussed bout’ getting the moon-on-a-stick upgrade but if it’s cheap enough then i may decide it’s worth it.

Ta, I look forward to this for 2015….i’d be quite happy to be a beta-teser for the 2014 season, email in profile.

Did you not know the bicycle industry have already solved this one, and called it singlespeed, no gearboxes, no shifters, very light, perfect imaginary shifting everytime.

^ +1

I have no interest in having a gearbox bike. I’ve never bent a mech hanger or mech.

Heavy, and all in one lump..
Not home serviceable, unless you’re a Tefalhead..
More expensive..
Not as adaptable, ie’ 3x.. 2x.. 1x…whatever..
And try and find a whatchamacallit gearbox thrunion widget in the arsehole of nowhere….
If you think about it, the gears we have now are a work of genius, if you set em up properly…

why cant the alfino get located at the bottom bracket?, would that give us a whole host of benefits?

Torque. They don’t like it.

There are shed loads of gearbox bikes out there.

This gets trotted out every few months

9 speed is unlikely to be much lighter than 14 / 18 / whatever

You will need a new frame or you’ll be compromising more than you’re gaining

Most gearboxes cost about the same as xtr

Most gearboxes weigh little more than standard gears and make better use of sprung / unsprung mass

I’ve been riding an alfine off road for well over 2 years now and it has most of the benefits you want but you’ll moan that’s too heavy / inefficient / some other excuse

im not sick of derailluers. with the introduction of clutch mechs and now these funny chainrings a gearbox system has got to go a looong way to beat it.

I’d like to tell you that we all want gearboxes now. I’m more than happy with my dérailleurs, thanks v much

Never snapped a mech hanger, never damaged a mech, proven lightweight tech that works well for it’s intended purpose

I’ve absolutely no need for a lump of weight in the middle of my rear wheel thanks, please continue to make bikes with dérailleurs.

Thanks, the normal people

Yeah, no one likes choice

matt bowns will build you anything you want round a gearbox bike

hes building one for his shop at the moment round a pinnion

Never snapped a mech hanger, never damaged a mech, proven lightweight tech that works well for it’s intended purpose
I’ve absolutely no need for a lump of weight in the middle of my rear wheel thanks, please continue to make bikes with dérailleurs.
Thanks, the normal people

I’ve had mechs explode, hangers bend, gears freeze, gears clog with mud. Fit for purpose on road bikes, things that are out getting covered in shit all the time not so much.
Wouldn’t want a hub mounted one though, realistically they’d be limited to the DH world for a while I reckon.

Thanks, people who ride 😉

with the introduction of clutch mechs and now these funny chainrings a gearbox system has got to go a looong way to beat it.

True. Take that set up, make as compact as poss, stick it in a central box – like Honda did. Has to be better than planetary gears. I only want 5-10 wide range gears, not 20+ with small jumps.

Gearboxes. Yes please. How’s the Pinion panning out anyone?

Perhaps something along the lines of a CVT we saw in Daf cars of the 70’s and then shrunk into gearboxes in the 90’s would work. Build it into a unit around the BB.

That would be interesting but until it could be serviced with a hammer and a screw driver unlikely to be popular.

I would love a crank based gearbox, Ive lost count of the amount of mechs,hangars i have trashed over the years,bring it on i say,we all have choices…

Dear The Mountain Bike Industry,

I’m not bothered about gearbox bikes, develop one if you want. But you see this:

STOP IT!!

Perhaps something along the lines of a CVT we saw in Daf cars of the 70’s and then shrunk into gearboxes in the 90’s would work. Build it into a unit around the BB.

That would be interesting but until it could be serviced with a hammer and a screw driver unlikely to be popular.

don’t be surprised when you see that appear in a bike very soon…

Crank based gearbox you say?

Like a mountain drive or a Hammerschmit?

CVT has been done by at least two people but it doesn’t seem to like irregular input that our legs produce

don’t be surprised when you see that appear in a bike very soon

Nuvinci N360? Don’t know how it would manage off road but can’t see a reason it wouldn’t.

I would love a gearbox bike but one of the problems for me is. Unless you pivot around the drive axle them you still need some sort of chain tensioner on an fs. Granted you don’t have to have the drive coming from the bb and you can mount your gearbox anywhere in the front triangle so I’m not sure how much of a problem this would be.

Coincidently I’ve just spotted this

A Nicolai with a Effi gear setup & belt drive

i’m with you on that. I would love a 160mm frame that runs a crank based gearbox more for the fact that its all contained away from major dirt and muck.

http://www.srsuntour-cycling.com/index.php?screen=sh.detail&tnid=2651

As has been mentioned above I am in the process of building a demo bike for the shop around a Pinion gearbox having completed a frame with one for the Bespoked Bristol Show earlier in the year. Pictures of the first one are on our Flickr page here and here.

I must confess that despite being a big fan of ‘gears in a box’, we don’t have a final solution yet. BUT the Pinion is a lot closer than anyone else has got before. The gear range may be wider than a lot of people need, but it wouldn’t be any lighter if it had a narrower range. The bike ends up very balanced as the weight is central and low, you end up with a strong rear wheel and (on a hardtail) no issues with the chain coming off. We are still working on a full suspension design and this will be made Pinion compatible by using their tensioner which mounts to the gearbox rather than a mech hanger so you still get very good ground clearance.

I’m not sure if the red and black bike’s owner using Singletrack but I’ll see if I can prod him for a bit of real world feedback. His bike ended up about 32lbs but we are hoping our demo bike will end up a touch lighter (hopefully sub 30) without going too crazy as we should save a bit in the frame as well as the build.

If anyone has any questions feel free to email matt@18bikes.co.uk or call the shop on 01433 621111. We will update the website/twitter/facebook when the demo bike is complete

Matt

Podge, you’ve just made my day with that 🙂
Now, where’s my winning euromillions ticket?

I knew you’d like it.

We need to treat it like a divorcee’s child… You can have it week days, I’ll have it weekends & holidays

Internal cable runs would really slick that red/black baby out. Love it though.

Heavy, and all in one lump..
Not home serviceable, unless you’re a Tefalhead..
More expensive..
Not as adaptable, ie’ 3x.. 2x.. 1x…whatever..
And try and find a whatchamacallit gearbox thrunion widget in the arsehole of nowhere….
If you think about it, the gears we have now are a work of genius, if you set em up properly…

what will happen with “gearbox” bikes is that there will be an expansion of the break down of standards, at the moment, pretty much any mech, cassette and so on, will fit any bike, if companys invest in gearboxes, that will stop, cannot see any company wanting to share their designs

You know what STW, I’m fed up with the lot of you, just when I thought I’d reached my bike satisfaction nirvana another “want” is flashed before my eyes – before I discovered STW I was quite happy with a 7yr old Scott Yecorra ffs, now I will be drooling over 18bikes website for the foreseeable future 😳

podge, so what is it? (obviously a Nic)
any info?

Dear bike manufacturers, I want a gearbox bike!

Did you not know the bicycle industry have already solved this one, and called it singlespeed, no gearboxes

Yeah, you’ve got this gearbox bike idea wrapped up.

I’d love light hub gearing personally 🙁 Smaller range as above, like an Alfine Di2, but half the weight. Gear cables are rubbish.

Slightly off topic… I just followed the suntour vbox link and saw the “recall” link….

Name of product: GT, Giant and Trek Bicycles with SR Suntour Suspension Forks Units: About 17,000 Manufacturer: SR Suntour, of Taiwan and Vancouver, Wash.

Hazard: The suspension fork’s internal support tubes can break and cause the rider to lose control, fall and crash.

Incidents/Injuries: SR Suntour has received 12 reports of incidents with the suspension forks,including two injuries involving a laceration and a chipped tooth. Description: This recall involves the following GT, Giant and Trek bicycles with SR Suntour suspension forks.
“SR Suntour” and the date code are printed on the back of the fork crown.Bicycles Model / Years / Model Name / Giant / 2011-2012 / Revel 1 & Revel 1WGT / 2012 / Avalanche 4.0 & Avalanche 4.0 GTWTrek / 2012 / 3700D & 3900D

why the “chipped tooth” made me giggle I don’t know why.

TBH Gearbox MTBs do already exist (they have done for over a decade now) and are a far bigger cash vacuum than 650b could possibly ever be.

Pretty much all of the current implementations are good but do mean a new and expensive frame, and with a couple of minor exceptions these always seem to be boutique FS bikes of some sort…

What I want is a Gear box that can be retrofitted to my perfectly good HT frame, that gives me 14-16 sequential gears able to cover broadly the same range as a 2 or 3 x N derailleur based drivetrain obviously without the overlaps, I would like to be able to adjust the available ratios to suit my needs (in much the same way that you can change a cassette or rings on a conventional drive), I don’t want to need a new pair of cranks
I want it to cost no more than a basic SLX drivetrain would, weigh no more than an XT drivetrain and require no more servicing than an oil change every 6-8 months and a proper strip and clean every 24 months…

I’d like the moon on a stick and to be 2 stone lighter, some things are achievable but tricky, some things are beyond fanciful (the moon thing, not me losing weight)…

Yes it’s feasible, but TBH mechs are actually a pretty good (efficient, light weight, relatively cheap, user maintainable, adjustable and replaceable) solution to providing a variable bicycle drivetrain.

As for bad mouthing

steam age technology

… you do know how most of the leccy to generate that lovely computer your using to rant on, is generated don’t you?

Steam is still Da Shizz!

Much as I dislike the recent 650b push, I don’t think “THE BICYCLE INDUSTRY” is quite the band of evil, profiteering gits you seem to think…
The motor, fast food or high street coffee shop industries on the other hand…

why not reserve your ire for those that really deserve it…

What I want is a Gear box that can be retrofitted to my perfectly good HT frame, that gives me 14-16 sequential gears able to cover broadly the same range as a 2 or 3 x N derailleur based drivetrain obviously without the overlaps, I would like to be able to adjust the available ratios to suit my needs (in much the same way that you can change a cassette or rings on a conventional drive), I don’t want to need a new pair of cranks
I want it to cost no more than a basic SLX drivetrain would, weigh no more than an XT drivetrain and require no more servicing than an oil change every 6-8 months and a proper strip and clean every 24 months…

Second-hand rohloff and get used to the different weight balance. Sorted.

A gearbox is also a solution for the low suspension pivot problem. Conventional bikes need a low pivot to overcome chain growth and this means that rear wheel travel is essentially vertical or vertical and forward. There’s a line of thought that more rearward travel (like your forks) works a lot better. Zerode say that’s the main reason they use a gearbox. I’ve got one and it eats bumps.