Mountain bike design has come a great distance in recent times. From modified BMX rides that had been first taken off-road and loopy creations just like the Slingshot that was ridden within the late ‘80s, to the beastly electric monsters you see out on the trails today. Along the way, bike builders experimented with all kinds of tech to try and make their rides faster, lighter, and more reliable. And never one to shy away from dabbling in different sectors, automaker Honda even tried its hand at mountain bike design.
In case you missed it:
Back in the early 2000s, Honda began experimenting with gearbox design on downhill mountain bikes, which up until that point had used the same rear derailleur and gears that you still see on most bikes to this day. But for its first foray into mountain bikes, the automaker decided to draw on what it already knew, so took something from the car world and down-sized it for biking.
As such, Honda’s first downhill mountain bike was fitted with a sort of repeatedly variable transmission, or CVT. Now, the design of those gearboxes has been damaged down by Cycling About, and they’re fascinating.
As with each CVT you discover within the automotive world, the gearboxes allowed riders to successfully select from an infinite variety of gears between two set factors. To do that, the experimental gearbox used a camshaft and a sequence of levers to alter the drive ratio.
G/O Media might get a fee
HEALTHIER HAIR
Augustinus Bader Hair Revitalizing Complex
Improve your hair at this time
The Hair Revitalizing Complex was examined by way of double blind trial to check these taking it to these on a placebo. Those on the complement had been discovered to have elevated their hair rely by 56%, hair shine by 100%, and a 98% discount in hair harm when in comparison with these taking the placebo. If these are the outcomes you’re in search of, you will get a one-month provide (30 days) for simply $130.
The benefit of this was that shifting was nearly instantaneous and also you had a lot much less threat of skipping a gear or battling a grating chain such as you would possibly with a badly-tuned derailleur. The bins had been regarded as extra environment friendly as effectively and, by Honda’s second-generation mannequin, they had been additionally pretty compact – which means that riders would profit from higher floor clearance when navigating significantly gnarly routes.
But sadly, these CVTs had been simply prototypes and Honda not often had the prospect to race them in anger and actually present what the tech might do. However, Honda had one other trick up its sleeve, which was unveiled in 2004 when it entered a group within the Mountain Bike World Cup.
For its first race-spec bike, dubbed the RN-01 G-Cross, Honda had one other secret gearbox. According to patents that had been made public years later, the third experimental shifter was extra like a “Derailleur in a Box” design, as Cycling About explains:
“The solution was a derailleur-in-a-box: a 7-speed gear system that used the same components as a regular drivetrain, but was all sealed away from the elements.
“The gearbox worked by transferring pedal power into a sprocket located on the crank spindle. When this sprocket turned, it would drive the internal chain onto a small cassette where the gear ratio was selected. The cassette then directly drove the external sprocket, which went on to drive the rear wheel.”
Although the gearboxes weren’t as groundbreaking as Honda’s first two makes an attempt, they nonetheless allowed riders to shift with out pedaling, which meant riders might higher put together for tight corners or difficult sections in a race. They had been additionally extra dependable and fewer prone to break whereas out on the paths.
But they’re maybe extra well-known purely due to the secrecy that surrounded them through the competitors years. According to Cycling About, Honda took unimaginable steps to maintain its designs secret. All the work that was finished on the gearbox was carried out in secret and the components had been by no means saved with the remainder of the bike. Instead, engineers would usually maintain the transmissions hidden away of their resort rooms whereas they weren’t wanted in races.
Then, as soon as Honda disbanded its G-Cross group, the corporate even went as far as to destroy all its prototype gearboxes, in keeping with Bike Radar. It’s possibly due to these steps that the progressive transmissions had been by no means mass-produced for normal riders like me and also you.
Source: jalopnik.com