[Closed] 18 speed gearbox

Looks interesting, but I guess the devil will be the details, weight, efficiency, reliability, speed of shifting, etc.
Liked the no miss-shift guarantee though.

How the **** am I going to put that in me frame?

It looks smaller than the Rohloff based frame gearboxs built into Nicolai full sus bikes etc. So perhaps it may be a lighter option . Sounds good in theory.

Looks most interesting.

Wonder who'll be the frame maker to adopt it?

Very cool - want!

Please let it be amazing and acceptable weight and bought out by Shimano and released!

Any of our bike shop/industry members heard any rumours of which bike companies might be getting involved with Pinion ?

that looks the bolx... much smaller that other products out there...

now that looks very interesting... wonder when we'll see it in some production frames? You'd think Nicolai might be the first to market with something (perhaps?) Or are Pinion going to be making their own branded bikes?

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Looks good, but I'm suspicious of anything that claims to be that good but has so little detailed information on the website.

Rohloff have a minimum gear ratio to avoid putting too much torque through the hub.
If this has got the gearbox directly on the cranks, it will need to be stronger. With more gears as well, it's unlikely to be lighter.

Why no pictures of the left hand side ?
Why no pictures of the shifter ? Looks like a Rohloff style twistgrip & two cables in that picture above.

Looks like a 'normal' gearbox after all - http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=WO&NR=2010072397A1&KC=A1&FT=D&date=20100701&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_gb

I think this is thefirst bike to feature it:
http://www.endorfinbikes.de/

Looks like a good idea and less weight than the G-boxx, well it appears that way at least.

Interesting.

its very different from an alfine or rohloff as its a normal gearbox like a motorcycle one but with three shafts rather than a epicyclic like an old auto car. should make it more efficient and lower loadings.

Looks good

Exciting news, maybe decent transmissions are coming our way...

looks ace

but you will have to have some sort of derailer or chain tensioner on for FS bikes though

Why no pictures of the left hand side ?

There's a picture of the LHS on the Endorfin site, but the gear change mechanism seems to be in the way of the crank. Very strange.

Wow, now I really like that. The Endorfin with it fitted looks ace. Will be really interesting to find out some details.

What does appeal is they claim a 634% gear range with even 11.5% ratio steps. My rohloff has 526% range over 14 gears with 13.6% steps. The gaps have always seemed just a bit too big, but this would seem to reduce that. And sort out the weight ballance issue at the same time.

I wonder what it'll cost!!

There's a picture of the LHS on the Endorfin site, but the gear change mechanism seems to be in the way of the crank. Very strange.

I thought this too!

You're right,you know.
Is it just the perspective, or is that crank not going to turn ? 😕
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If you click on "Original Document" in the link above, there's a load of exploded diagrams on the last few pages.
Looks to be a mixture of conventional and epicyclic gears.

It will probably cost a bit though.

was talking to some german journos earlier this year about nicolai and suntours gboxx program, it seems that getting these types of boxes mass produced to get the costs down is a major obstacle so it ens up being a german "engineered" product with the costs to match

Wonder if it would be possible to build a brake into it assuming its running a fixed rear hub? Do away with another part of the bike.......

Braking via the chain? Doesn't sound good!

And didn't Honda try miniturising a mototrbike gearbox but give up when it weighed a metric ton and went back to dereileurs in a box?

Wonder how it co-ordinates the gear change, platetary/epicyclic gears you can just flick a switch but these are going to need a bit more finesse?

634% gear ratio? I doubt I'd be using the extremes of that at all - one end would be for climbing vertical walls and the other for spinning pedals very slowly down a gert big hill. Fewer gears and lighter for the win.

Looks very neat though.

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MidlandTrailquestsGraham raised the most interesting point, that the gear teeth will have to take twice the load of those in hub gears, which given the size of the unit might me there are some pretty small margins for error there.

22-34 to 44-11 is 611% so they've just mimiked a tripple chainset and 11-34.

Presubably its engineerd as 2*3*3 so the alternative lightweight model would only shed 1 shaft (so minimal weight) but becomes a 6 speed.

Good point - if it's the same as a motorbike gearbox, it'll need a clutch no?

Ah, OK. 😳 I still don't think I'd use the big ring top ratios though.

No need for a clutch, just back off the pedal pressure slightly when shifting, same as a Rohloff I would imagine.

Incidently, did anyone else spot the Rohloff dropout on that Endorfin ?
That raises the interesting possibility of an 18 x 14, or 252 speed transmission. 😀

252 speed transmission

😯

No, you can shift a motorbike without the clutch, its doesnt do it any good nececeraly, but it does work.

I do firmly believe that gearbox bikes (whether this one or another one) are the way of the future. This looks (and I realise it's just "looks" at this stage) like a big step forward over that gopping Honda thing above.

My Rohloff is fine @ 526% - just wish they'd hurry up & use some Ti parts to get the weight down before they lose the battle to Shimano.
But mass centralisation is the way to go with maybe 12-14 gears & 550% range & get under the weight of an XT drive system.

Looks heavy to me, lots of internals, must be much heavier than a current XTR/X0 setup? But, at least someone is trying, leads to future innovation etc 8)

Weight is not such an issue when it's at the centre of the bike and set low in the frame.
The rear wheel will be nice and light and that counts for a lot.

If it was a similar price and weight to a Rohloff I would be interested, providing I could also buy a frame for it that I liked at a reasonable price.

Presumably thats the smallest/most compact we're ever going to see? So hopefully it might get addopted as a 'standard'?

You'd hope so. You could argue that a Rohloff dropout is a standard too, yet for how long they have been out (OEM type 1&2 dropouts) there are still only a handfull of frames available. This would totally change the game as it would need new jigs, tubesets, machining work etc etc.

I imagine Nicolai will accomodate it, maybe Alutech. I cant see it ever really catching on with the BIG 'American' brands.

Edited to say I hope they left enough width to fit a belt drive chainring in there!

Trek have a belt drive commuter?

I think there'll be an element of everyone saying:

"I'll buy it.............when the MK2 comes out"

Just so many litle parts to go horribly wrong, at least with a mech its well understood, and if it fails going singlespeed is no big deal.

The gear box cable entry needs more work to my eye - being so close to the crank arm and the path of the pedalling foot could expose it to damage and being a prestige part it's not going to be something you can take to your LBS and get fixed in a jiffy. I quite like the idea though.

thisisnotaspoon - Presumably thats the smallest/most compact we're ever going to see?

i hope not, i'd like to see something alfine sized built into an oversized bb, would be easy for all frame manufacturers to adapt their current range, would be more conventional looking and in my opinion be more pleasing on the eye.

on saying that, this looks like a step in the right direction though i'd prefer a rapid fire shifter and single cable (or two cables within one outer???) 🙂