Cycling through North London yesterday evening I cam up behind a bike which looked normal initially except for an odd box covering the drive side dropout and (so I thought) the sprocket. I peered at this little box for a bit, thought 'Uhh?' then went to pass the guy and as I moved out and saw more I realised the bike was SHAFT DRIVEN!! It was really neat! it had normal crank arms but no chain ring. The BB on the frame looked modified (a bit bigger/longer) and the shaft must have been INSIDE the chainstay as it was completely hidden. The 'box' at the dropout must have contained more gearing to transfer the drive to the hub. The hub looked like a Nexus/Alfine sort of thing. The result was I guess, a 7 speed bike with all gearing and drive COMPLETELY CONTAINED! It looked really neat. Unfortunatley just as I realsied what I was looking at the rider and bike turned off so I didn't get a chance to ask about it. I guess it is someone's homebrew (but very very well done), perhaps an engineering apprentice's project or the like, but maybe it is a manufacturers prototype....doubt it though. I'd love to know more. How heavy is it? How easy does the rear wheel come out the frame? how does it feel to ride? How robust and durable is it? All I know is Wow, it looked really neat!
Anybody else seen this bike or know anything about it? Was it another STWer I saw? The rest of the bike I didn't take much notice of but I think it was a cream coloured frame and other than the lack of a chain it looked like a standard flat bar commuter bike, or maybe one of the many fakenger bikes around town these days. Rider was male, probably in his early thirties, with a close shaven head. Bike was spotted a little north of the Pentonville road at about 17:45 so could be a regular commuter? Any one else seen it?
You should have asked him who's the cat who won't cop out, when there's danger all about.. ahem. 🙂
Shame you didnt get any pics - been waiting a long long time for someone to start tinkering with shaft drives. It'll be interesting to see if a workable off road version is possible.
Did the shaft drive setup look like the setup on this thing?
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[url= http://www.leelikesbikes.com/Stories/110304b/ ]He's a complicated man, and no-one understands him but his woman...[/url]
Ant??
Stato, JTD, yeah very similar. It could posibly have been one of those, maybe the zero cycle alhtough I think things looked slightly differnt at both the dropout and the BB, but then I only saw it for a moment.
Really neat looking thing. Can you imagine, pair it wiht a hammerschidtt too and get 14 gears, all internal, all away from the crud.
cant see pics but....................
There was a homebrew company making them for DJ bikes a while back. There was obvioulsy some drag but no snapped chains.
The hire bikes in Reading are shaft driven. Never seen anyone using one though.
Why bother, when you can easily get 3k miles out of a roadie chain and cassette?
Click the link! They've been around for a while but haven't really caught on due to the weight and the poor mechanical efficiency.
Ah thanks Ant, your second post explains more! Yes it ws that sort of thing and the set up at BB and chainstay looked pretty similar. The set up on the dropout I saw last night loked more homebrew - I intially thoght the 'box' was some ugly tinplate chain cover, but definatley that sort of thing.
Why do it? My reaction to seeing it was it looked neat and in general gears last longer than chains and sprockets, especially if the chain is subject to grit and grime and the gearboxes are sealed. Of course the actual success of the thing would depend on the design and engineering and anyone pushing it as a concept has a lot of 'traditinal bike' development to catch up on so I doubt it will be better than a chain for a while.
I saw one of those 2 wheel drive bikes in for service in my LBS last year. that's got a shaft drive to the front wheel.
Yeah those Christini all wheel drive things have been around for a while. They were doing a full-on DH model at one stage I think, but seem to ahve cut back to just two basic types.
http://christinibicycles.com/bikes.php
And Neil, you need to brush up on your knowledge of blaxploitation films! (Word "need" used in a very subjective sense)
you see loads in munich. can't see that many advantages over a normal bike though.
a half decent chain can cope with quite a lot of abuse, esp when used with alfine hub.
Anyone who's watched the Canadian series ReGenesis would have see the lead character David regularly riding a shaft-drive mountain bike around Toronto last series. I googled it and came up with Zero Bikes, who seem to do a fair range of bikes. While some on here are rather disparaging about them they make the perfect low-maintenance city bike, with no exposed drive train at all. Even better than a belt-drive. Ok, they might be a bit heavier, but compared to yer average Halfords commuter special I would imagine the Zero comes in somewhat lighter, as well as better shifting with the Nexus 'box.
Clicked on this link expecting it to be a take-off of the thread above about some bloke getting excited at having seen the santa cruz van ("Wow - I've just seen Shaft riding a bike!") Now pretty disappointed.
