[Closed] Hydraulic Shifting for MTB

TandemJeremy - Member
K.I.S.S

simple is as simple does 😆

The hydro mech is an imaginative piece of engineering providing a lightweight shifting system that performs functions that current cable actuation can't.

It may or may not filter down to consumer level bikes, who knows - but it's aimed at the cutting edge bike racing environment, not some old geezer codger cogging up a fire road.

I think imaginative engineering and people who think 'can it be done, let's have a go' should be applauded rather than derided with some hackneyed sound-byte critique.

Looking forwards, not backwards, is how new things get done........

I like the sound of the electronic gears - then I ride behind with some EMT pulse device and knock out peoples gears at will when racing them - or force them to change into a big ring combo just at the start of the hill we are about to climb, and then shoot past them 🙂

hilldodger +1

luckily TJ is not the market and the market will dictate what happens here. My money is on hydraulic shifters being ubiquitous in 10 years.

more things to bleed...

'can it be done, let's have a go'

ive got 1x10 di2 on my mtb, works perfect, its the future, once trickle down tech makes it more affordable (its never going to be cheap, or replace cables in lower end models) it will be for common

k-edge are pushing it most at the moment

[url= http://www.ki2bike.com/ ]here[/url]

Junkyard
should we not give some thought to if it is worth doing?

'We' can decide if it's worth spending our money on but if someone wants to invent or develop something (as long as it's not overtly destructive) then I think it should be encouraged 🙂

can i do it rather than should i do it may not always be the correct approach see the Sinclair C5 for example.

Sure, many 'bright ideas' crash and burn, but I'm sure the C5 stimulated peoples imagination and probably encouraged other budding engineers to 'have a go'....

TurnerGuy - Member

more things to bleed...

Claims to be a sealed maintenance free system, anyway I reckon it's easier and quicker to bleed a hydro line than change a cable.
Plus it's more eco friendly as all you need is a few ml of oil rather than a few metres of braided wire, plastic outer and rubber grommets...

yes can see your point

Zero cable friction? I bet it shifts as crisp as a November morning!

Junkyard - Member

yes can see your point

How jolly damn civil of you old chap 😉

I can see others are more conservative and cautious but ideas give me brain-wood.
I don't apologise, I'm a full-on technophile & love new ideas and ways of thinking, always will.......

Zero cable friction? I bet it shifts as crisp as a November morning!

Reckon so 🙂

I also like the fact it can adapt between 1/2/3 x 8/9/10 speed easily, only needing to change the rear wheel and chain/chainrings, what's that - about 10 minutes work 8)

I got no problem with people having ago at doing stuff. As you say - its folk who try stuff that leads to advances.

toys19 - Member
My money is on hydraulic shifters being ubiquitous in 10 years.

Well its more than 5 years old already. Not snowflakes chance of it being anything than an expensive to for technophiles

Well its more than 5 years old already. Not snowflakes chance of it being anything than an expensive to for technophiles

yes TJ we all know how much you know about engineering/industry/product development/marketing.

Life is full of people who want to put new ideas down and be generaly negative about new technology and progression

I think the idea of hydro shifting has good potential to make it onto mainstream mountain bikes 🙂

I wanted them back in 1996 when Scott Fyfe did some. Gutted then never made it over here.

this isnt new technology, im sure i can remember something like this way back in the early 90s.
i reckon if it was made reliable and light people would buy it.
think about it, a cable works perfect when its new, but if its winter you will notice after a week (regular/daily use) that the shifting performance has degraded.
if it was a similar price to, say, xt/xtr i would probably buy it, at that price level it would be worth having for the reduced maintenance.
obviously, there are downsides, it would be more time consuming to change a shifter or mech for example.
however, it sounds like electric is already happening.
bring it on, i say.

Frankers - Member
Life is full of people who want to put new ideas down and be generaly negative about new technology and progression

How pathetic sounding..... I must be drunk, sorry

Cable shifting works perfectly well. What advantage hydraulic gives I cannot see. More complex, finer tolerances needed extra weight

Cable shifting doesn't work perfectly, it goes out of whack all the time, it's really badly effected by mud and water and it requires quite a bit of force with dexterity (inside the shifter). Hydro IS the way forward but no-one has made a solution yet that can out-sell (and so establish a decent market) shimano/SRAM mass produced tat.
There's absolutely no reason at all for hydro to be heavier than cable, none at all. The lower (than brake) pressures seen in the shifter would mean cyl walls could be thinner, hoses could be ultra-fine and don't need to be metal-walled or braided, they can be super-light plastic hoses like magura HS33 type.

I did once draw up a full retro-fitting solution for shimano shifters but it was bulky and would have been knocked off, it needs to be made as part of the kit, not retrofitting, but it would have proved the operational point that the shifting would be smoother, more precise and long lasting goodness.

more things to bleed...

Surely hydro is a backward step??
Hydro works for brakes well as it is an analogue setup. Remember 'feel'?

Gears are digital. There is only a set number of positions to shift to.
Electronic must be the way forward. 789or 10 speed is no more than a firmware flash.
An electronic system can switch gears faster, and because the system does not use Bowden cables and can calibrate itself, it should require less maintenance.
Although that said the development has been very slow -SRAM had a system in 1994

For rohloff: http://thelazyrando.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/electronic-rohloff-shifter/

Shimano di2 is getting "tested" by the roadies, once it's proven (and the price comes down)
And Once they bring out the alfine 11 kit, I'm in 😉

Campag electronic is being tested too. Seems pretty reliable so far

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/race-tech-campagnolo-electronic-at-tour-of-flanders-29779/

I think KISS is a useful rule of thumb but doesn't bear repetition as a mantra of wisdom. Humans like complexity - as individuals, we're complex, and relationships multiply that exponentially 🙂 Cables are subject to stretching, stiction, seizing and splitting, and I've welcomed their replacement for brakes (a much more safety critical application in which the excel)

The trouble as I see it is that cables are good enough for gears, where they were marginal for brakes, and any alternative system would struggle to achieve the market share needed to achieve affordability 🙁

SRAM 1:1 with full length outer. 3 years. replace the inner annualy, clean it every 3 months. No mis-shifting. Until derailleurs are dead, this will be the pinnacle.

I can't really see the point in this, I'm afraid. It still doesn't overcome the fundamental problems of an exposed geartrain: their vulnerability to the elements, rocks, falls. All it may do is make shifting more precise, with less requirement for adjustment, and with (perhaps) less shifter and mech force needed. The vulnerabilities are still there, only now at greater cost if you take some damage.

Hub gears are, to my mind, a much better answer. All that needs to happen is that the weight needs to come down.

And the efficiency to improve. The reason we still run chain driven gears is because nothing else matches it for efficiency. It's difficult to ignore the drag in a gear box when you've only got human power to drive it.

TBH, I find that well installed xtr cables work well enough for me in pretty much all conditions so I'm not particularly interested in electronic or hydraulic systems. I seem to go through rear mechs quite frequently thanks to some questionable line choices and crashes. Anything that costs more than an X7 mech is a bit too much for me.

I would like to see more research going into things like this though: http://www.pinion.eu/en/

Seems like the most sensible place for the gears to me.

minor point for those thinking there are better systems, bikes have been around a while and there very few new ideas, it is all refinements of existing ideas. We use derailleurs because they work, chain drive because it is efficient, cables because they are cheap and reliable.

I really fail to understand how some people can have so much trouble getting a piece of cable to pull a mech left and right. Why were exposed cables developed, because they actually help shifting performance by reducing the flex and length change inherent in the cable outers. Look at how cable outers are made, Brakes are spiral wrapped for flexibility and gear cables are a bunch of wires running the length of the cable outer with a very slight spiral.

Derailleurs do have downsides, which is why Sachs, Sturney Archer and laterly Shimano have done work on hub gears. But they are heavy, they are less efficient, there is not a huge amount you can do to get round that. Tools for the job.

I disagree with the term "heavy".
Where is the evidence?

I disagree with the term "heavy".

take a price point, what is the weight of a derailleur set up, what is the weight of a hub gear set up.

compared to cables I see hydro gears as a huge improvement.

But the benefits of electronic shifting are massive - simple button presses, automatic ratio selection etc etc. when you are at one end of the cassette and need to shift to a different chainring the system can select the next ratio for you without you having to think about it and it should do it cleanly without the risk of a clunky change.

cables because they are cheap and reliable

Cables are NOT reliable. They gunk up in the mud and wet, and need maintenance. If you have not had this happen to you then you are blessed, it happens to everyone else.

when you are at one end of the cassette and need to shift to a different chainring the system can select the next ratio for you without you having to think about it

That doesn't sound good. I don't want it changing rings without me expecting it, could cause all sorts of issues.

Hmm, I wonder how long it'll be until somebody invents an 'automatic derailleur'(?) system... It will of course be useless and we'll have much the same response to it but I'm sure some people will buy them for the 'look at what I can afford' side 😕

Mrmo: I asked for evidence. In the absence of any supporting your argument I submit this:
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/stu-mcgroos-lets-put-this-alfine-weight-issue-to-bed-once-and-for-all-thread

I've already designed the automatic. It uses one of those infinitely variable hub gears that someone's invented (something to do with ball bearings inside) and a torque sensor to keep the pedalling speed within a user-defined range.

Why doesn't someone just stick the gearbox from a DAF on a bike? All problems solved.

molgrips - Member
I've already designed the automatic. It uses one of those infinitely variable hub gears that someone's invented (something to do with ball bearings inside) and a torque sensor to keep the pedalling speed within a user-defined range.

Hmmm, I thought about that infinitely variable gears too. They used to have them on very old motorbikes when they still used some weird belt with a massive rim on the back wheel. Bit surprised the whole idea never caught on more with bikes; then again... 🙂

Scooters have variable gearing in a similar manner to the DAF - its very simple as its a pure mechanical system and could be adapted to MTBs

Electronic is the way forward for shifting, not hydro.

You can put electronic shifters anywhere, have more than one button for shifts, battery life is months, the system is lightweight, easy to install/adjust and reliable.

The next big thing will be electronically adjustable shocks, oil that changes viscosity when an electric current is put through it. Cannondale have already used electronic lockouts. Easy one push buttons, no force needed to move a sticky cable via a shifter unit.

Proflex tried the piezo shock thing as well. Had wheelie bins out back full of knackered shocks.

ok Crotchrocket as the example you have given is B****ks i will be fuller.

I said price comparison

wiggle list an Alfine 11 at £430 and list the shifter at £65, so that is £495 for a hub, two derailleurs, two chainrings, two shifters and a cassette. I trust that makes sense?

Road.cc have an article where they claimed to have weighed the hub and sundries and come to 1744grams, they do mention that Shimano are claiming 1590grams

Now for £500 i can get some fairly high-end kit i think you would agree.

According to wiggle.

XT front mech £35, rear mech £70, Cassette £65, Shifters £100, and the rear hub is £45 Chainrings, as you would be using the middle with the alfine i feel the correct balance is struck by quoting the inner and outer only. So XT inner £15 and outer £80 that comes to a grand total of £410. So i still have £90 to spend.

i could get a far lighter hub than the XT and still be within budget, a few ti and alu bolts. XT chainrings are obscenely expensive TA or Middleburn would be alot cheaper and would let me stretch the budget further.

Now for weight, According to the weights published by Shimano, Front derailleur is 152g, rear 227, cassette 256, shifters 255 and rear hub 411grams. i can't find a chainring weight quoted, but that lot comes in at 1301grams. for arguments sake i will assume two chainrings are around 100grama so yes quoted v actual but still 300grams lighter. and if we look at quote v quote then 200 grams lighter.

So to summarize you can save £90 and save more than 200grams in weight by running an XT drivechain as compared to an Alfine 11.

As i said earlier look at the price and the weight and then make a comparison on that.

and further, i decided to read a bit more of that thread and someone else comes along and says the bikes they converted from derailleurs to Hub gears gained between 200 and 300grams. Which ties in to what i just said.

If you want to use hub gears fine, do so, but they are at this time heavier and less efficient than derailleurs.

CBA 🙄

You asked for evidence i have given you the evidence, it is even in the thread you quoted to me. Hub gears are heavier at a price point and that is what i said earlier.

Had a look on the Madison site and Alfine 8 and shifter is around £250. and a bikemagic article is quoting a weight of 1590grams, so what can i buy for that, bearing in mind the gear range can be replicated with a single ring up front.

For me the issue with hub gears is not the weight, but the weight distribution. Esp on FS, less of a problem on HT.

One day I'll have a belt drive hub geared bike 🙂

I would be interested in finding out more about the drag issues on hub gears. Anyone heard anything about dyno tests on the alfine compared to conventional set-ups?