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TECH NEWS
Video: CeramicSpeed’s Driven concept can now change gears wirelessly and work under load + there’s a mountain bike version too
Eurobike gets underway today, and probably the biggest news will be the unveiling of the latest development of the CeramicSpeed Drive drive shaft that we saw this time last year, with 1.6 million of you watching our YouTube video showing the early prototype.
Undeterred by the technical challenges and online scepticism, the company has continued working on the project, focusing it says on rideability and shiftability. The concept it showed a year ago was not intended to carry load or shift gears, just that the 99% efficient drivetrain could be achieved by stepping away from the current love affair with the derailleur.
It was recently tested in the wind tunnel with Specialized helping to test it on a Venge aero road bike. Data shared suggest it is faster than a conventional groupset.
CeramicSpeed has been testing the new Driven concept on a velodrome, where a singlespeed prototype was able to sustain loads involved with being pedalled up to 45kph. That’s an impressive achievement, but gear changing seems a bigger problem, but one the company reckons it has solved.
It has developed a fixed front pinion with a split rear pinion that can be electronically shifted via wireless control. This patent-pending system can change gear even under load, claims the company.
The system works thanks to a split pinion. The pinion has been split along its centre creating two halves, with each half able to move independently to perform a gear change. A self-aligning “Torque Decoupler” means the system can shift anywhere on the rear cog and shifts happen within one rotation of the driveshaft.
“The rear split-pinion is a novel method of changing gears, even under rider load. With this rear split-pinion, shift speed has the potential to outperform a traditional electronic drivetrain,” explains Project Lead and CeramicSpeed’s CTO, Jason Smith.
“It’s been so impressive to see how far our small team of engineers has come in such as short space of time,” he adds. “When we were at Eurobike last year, we knew that rideability and shiftability were soon to become a priority. It seemed like the entire bike industry wanted Driven to shift and we had a theory on how we could do it, but by the time Eurobike came around, we had yet to commit to the challenge. However, within a short period of time, and thanks to support from the University of Colorado’s Mechanical Engineering Department, we nailed it. The Driven shifting challenge was solved.”
That’s not all, the company has even developed a mountain bike version. At Eurobike this week it will unveil a mountain bike Driven concept to show it is able to work on a full-suspension bike.
With such rapid development seemingly overcoming some of the clear hurdles present a year ago when it was first unveiled, can the company really take the Drive all the way from concept to a full production product that you can buy and fit it to your bike? Proof of concept is one thing, but manufacturing it on a large scale and offering it at a competitive price point is a whole other challenge.
More on this soon as the team over in Germany will be taking a closer look.
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
Latest Comments
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Tiny sprockets. Progress is good !
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23 comments
This. Is an answer to the question for even company that made a more efficient chain. Chain oil bigger pull Etc. How to make a bike retrain more efficient this is a possible solution. To that question. It progress
I have another question. What does this all mean?
Comments on this on Facebook say it can cope with power input of up to 200w, so this should be perfect for me.
This has zero interest for me. A solution to a problem that didn’t exist. It’s been a year since it was first revealed and only now can it change gear. Sorry but that’s the very least it needed to do. Have you seen how complex the set up is. Just another expensive marketing ploy. I can’t see it ever making production unless it’s to transfer the drive from an e motor to the rear hub. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the chain and sprocket setup. It works and works bloody well.
Sounds like a critique of the development of the present derailleur system, which, from the earliest ideas of shifting the chain between cogs somewhere around the turn of the century, took until 1964 before Suntour came up with something we would recognise today - according to wikipedia. And another 21 years before we got indexing.
So I reckon these guys are doing OK.
Yeah but it’s a bit like inventing a new replacement for the wheel, quoting it’s super efficient and cheats the wind and it’s the future but not figuring out how to make it roll first. It’s still an answer to a question no one asked.
Like the microwave oven.
I just feel it’s not innovation to move forward, only to find a use for their own product.
"This has zero interest for me."
Despite having "zero interest" you read the article and took the trouble to post your thoughts on it. I would say that that shows some interest wouldn't you?
You have a fair point, but see I’m apparently one of those annoying people that have read about it, seeen the videos but skipped straight past the article just to post my views online saying I don’t like it. And will probably waste too much of my time responding to comments about the comment of which I said I had little interest in the subject.
I feel I’ve learned something about myself today.
As is often the case, I find the comments more interesting than the article and spend more of my life that I should commenting on the comments. I think we have all learnt something about me today too!
I think riderX has it the wrong way round, concept is the easy bit, a survey of old patents demonstrates this, lots and lots of creative concepts that failed to make the hard road to practical utility. Landing a rocket first stage back on its launch pad was an easy concept, the very hard part was actially achieving it.
I think it might be point 2 people are "griping" about.
So much negativity on the internet... who knew? I feel few here have ever developed a new concept from scratch. Without prior art you are really breaking new grounds. You can't solve everything at once, rather you need to sovle the biggest feasiblity questions first:
After than you work on the smaller more managable issues such as can it take 2000 watts from a sprinter, can you ride in the rain, how do you bring it to production, how do you reduce the cost, etc.
Everyone here is griping about small issues that are reasonably straight forward to address. The hardest work (a proofed concept) has already been demonstrated. I have to give a hand to the small team of engineers at Ceramic Speed, great work!
Gears keep your cadence within a restricted range despite varying conditions. At the very instant when you change gear, your cadence must also change – unless your road speed alters in the instant it takes to change gears by the same % as the difference between the two gears. What the video shows is like putting the bike on the stand, turning the pedals at a constant speed while shifting gear. In those conditions, the road – or rather wheel – speed can jump, because there's no load.
If they showed a vide of someone actually riding, with the wheel propelling the bike, that would mean something.
What the video shows is a 3D render of the system, not a working system in use. When they get it working on the stand (at the moment it's not) we'll get some vid of it
The video is not particularly convincing though. The gear wheel shifts from cog to cog, but the cranks turn at a constant cadence.
Perhaps peted76 has a point though: they're chasing the wrong market (perhaps because it's the only way to make it a commercial success?). The technology seems more suited to workaday utility bikes, grannybikes, cargo bikes, than racing bling.
I thought that was the point of using gears - keep a constant cadence despite the changing demands.
How do you come to that conclusion?
The current system of chain & cog gears started with having to dismount and flip your rear wheel around to select the 'other' gear. Derailleurs started out being rod and lever operated - they had to reach behind to operate the control rod attached to the seat stay. A few more decades before Campagnolo came up with the parallelogram derailleur mechanism. And so on. And still we put up with the mechanical insensitivity of bending the chain line.
So give these guy a chance, they have made amazing progress in a few years, in the face of much derision.
Looks good, but I bet it's going to be disgustingly expensive
I'm loving the innovation however despite it being fitted to carbon superbikes, I can't see this being an everyday groupset for the common man just yet.. I would like to see this innovation encased properly, if this was encased could it offer some benefits over the internal wheel hub roholff design (for example, loads more gears)?
I agree - the whole thing could be enclosed to keep dirt away from the moving parts. Also, yes - innovation is always good, even if ultimately it ends up being uneconomic or not as good as the thing it's trying to replace.