How the Common Bike Is Poised for a High-Tech Reinvention

Well, this will be interesting.

Electronic shifters sound like a pain. It will weigh more, I suspect, and the idea of recharging a battery is not convenient.

Belt drive sounds interesting, but I would suspect that this is not going to work with a multi-speed bike well because the belt appears wider than a conventional chain. So, a compact sprocket design is going to be difficult if not impossible.

I have a Trek with a chain. It is over 10 years old and I have not performed much (if any) maintenance to the chain and it still works great. Probably last another 10 years if I lube it more.

I know that engines that use a chain have better transfer efficiencies than a belt. I am thinking that the chain on a bike would also be better, so for racing applications the belt may not have an advantage.

Why would I be compelled to switch to a belt?

Lastly, the CVT transmission sounds neat. However, I usually do not have an issue with trying to find a gear that I do not already have.

The selling point for me would be simplification over an existing gear pack. It seems that the CVT does away with the derailer and probably some of the issues of derailer faults due to misalignment. If that is true it may be a more reliable alternative that is simple to operate. I would give that a thumbs up.

My old Trek has had zero failures so far, so I can't see this as a nagging problem for me.

However, how much more will this cost me for this small advantage? What about reliability? Weight?

Okay, I got sucked into this blog entry because I was expecting something that would revolutionize the bike industry. However, these "improvements" do not look like something that will be implemented in the average bike and it is questionable if they have a real advantage for the racing bike, so it seems like more hype than a real leap in reinventing technology.

You must have missed the intro tag where it said From Gizmodo.

It seems like every Gizmodo article that has been linked here on CR4 over the past few months has been poorly documented, poorly written, a regurgitation of old news, or puff pieces full of hype.

How about string bike?

http://www.stringbike.com/principle-of-operation