patches Posted February 9, 2012 Posted February 9, 2012 Nige: two chains, both around the rear pivot point = zero chain growth. if it's not yet DH-tough, i'm sure some engineering pencil sharpening will fix that too. wasnt the Honda G-Cross team's g'box just a derailleur-in-a-box? a very expensive derailleur in a carbon fibre box. Only the Honda guys were aloowed to work on it. After every race the gearbox was removed from the bike. I'm not sure how accurate the reports i read ma be, but apparently those bikes were $70 000 machines. 30-odd of that was the gearbox. As for the hub idea... I guess if one wanted to go for something a little more up-market over the shimano citybike/tourer hub... they could put a Rohloff on.
patches Posted February 9, 2012 Posted February 9, 2012 I read up some more... the cost of around $70 000 does seem right... keeping in mind that only a handfull of these bikes were made and only for the G-Cross team... so all the RnD cost gets split bewteen just 4 bikes or so. Also, the first generation had some fancy custom gearing system. But it proved too complex and expensive... so they switched to the derailleur-in-a-box design.
PeterWest Posted February 9, 2012 Posted February 9, 2012 Fun fact: Thise Showa forks on those bikes cost 3 times more than Ricky Carmicheals MX Showa...
nolipoli Posted February 9, 2012 Posted February 9, 2012 Nicolai have been making bikes with the Rolhoff speed hub for years. Sadly they are way out of my budget.
jimmy hardtail Posted February 9, 2012 Posted February 9, 2012 I am gonna be building my own gearbox bike one of these days. Cromoly frame . The hardest part so far is finding the frame material. Now if only someone could donate a rohloff hub...
nigelhicks Posted February 10, 2012 Posted February 10, 2012 Nige: two chains, both around the rear pivot point = zero chain growth. if it's not yet DH-tough, i'm sure some engineering pencil sharpening will fix that too. wasnt the Honda G-Cross team's g'box just a derailleur-in-a-box? AAH i didnt know it was on the main pivot .... ya as far as i know the honda was a 7spd modded road derailleur ... the only thing id say i like about the gearbox is how honda set it up that you can change gears without pedalling ... thats clever! Otherwise - im old school and still not a fan
patches Posted February 10, 2012 Posted February 10, 2012 AAH i didnt know it was on the main pivot .... ya as far as i know the honda was a 7spd modded road derailleur ... the only thing id say i like about the gearbox is how honda set it up that you can change gears without pedalling ... thats clever! Otherwise - im old school and still not a fan Yup, they designed it in such a way that the chain is always rotating, even when the bike is "free wheeling", hence the ability to change gears without pedaling. As you said... Clever!
patches Posted February 10, 2012 Posted February 10, 2012 Nicolai have been making bikes with the Rolhoff speed hub for years. Sadly they are way out of my budget. that Nicolai is real purdee It aint no Rohloff, but if you want an affordable gearbox bike, www.obike.co.za is selling a GT IT 1 (which uses a Nexus hub system), new for R15 000. That's with a Fox 40, Saint Cranks, Hope brakes etc.
nolipoli Posted February 11, 2012 Posted February 11, 2012 That Gt was apparently not a great bike. I actually have a nexus hub floating around somewhere. I always wanted to build a frame around it, but never had the time.
Hairy Posted February 13, 2012 Author Posted February 13, 2012 Reply from Rob the creator of the bike below Hi Thanks for your email... To date I haven’t sold any frames to South Africa, I had a couple of queries but no sales yet. I will look into a distributor once I have my second run of frames ready for sale. Hopefully then we can get some bikes there for people to see and ride. I have sold the first 100 frames, had lots of great feedback and a few of the boys doing well in National races. I’ll have a few riders on the world cup circuit this year, none of the big money guys but some that are capable of turning some heads... There is some good info on my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=268432873226070&id=119706528098706#!/zerodebikes I have an AM bike that I made for myself but there are a few challenges in the design of the AM that don’t exist in the DH. These moslty relate to the 11spd Alfine hub which has a bulkier body and is more difficult to modify than the 8. I am working through the design but it will be some time off. I am just a one man band at this stage so it’s a lot of work! I totally believe in the product, hopefully one day the world will believe too!
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