On Friday, November 17, 2017 at 5:18:59 PM UTC, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, November 17, 2017 at 8:40:18 AM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
When did you last see a shaft drive bicycle? That one failed in the market, again, recently, this time by inadequate engineering (plastic gears! -- Jesus wept). I predicted that it would happen; it was such an obvious case of the marketing department and the cost-accountants overriding the engineers, not always a bad thing for poorer consumers than the ones I generally appeal to but in this case disastrous. However, a shaft drive light enough and durable enough for bicycles isn't rocket science, so, if a shaft drive is possible, and offers all the advantages of the Gates Drive without requiring a split frame and in addition is aesthetically superior, why don't we see shaft drives buzzing around on all sides?

I see racks filled with shaft-drive bikes every day. http://www.galmlaw.com/wp-content/up...1/Biketown.jpg https://www.biketownpdx.com/how-it-works/meet-the-bike

If the shared bike racks in my nearest city were ever that full, I'd conclude the scheme has failed.
http://coolmainpress.com/ajwriting/p...-and-limerick/

Gates Belts would make sense in a rental fleet or a fleet left outdoors since there would be no issue of chain rusting -- and they would produce a much lighter bike than shaft-drive. The Biketown bikes weigh 59lbs -- but you can still catch air! https://vimeo.com/180757631 (the Lumberyard is an indoor bike stunt track in east PDX).

Yes, it occurred to me after sending my reply that you're responding to, without time to send another note because I had to go pick up a Black Forest Gateau for a birthday party, that the Gates Drive's fate, like the fate of many recent perfectly well-engineered innovations (I own one, Shimano's full-auto plus active suspension Di2), rests in the first instance not on consumers but on the willingness of manufacturers (hereinafter OEMs) to risk a line or a corner of one on some trick component. But, in the end, that separation is only one or two degrees, and the consumer, spending his own money, decides what survives and does not.

It all comes down to horses for courses versus churning the consumer market with the supposed latest and greatest. Some odd-ball things are good for some consumers (including institutional consumers) while others are just useless marketing ploys. I think Gates Belts, discs and a few other things fall into both camps.

Spot on, Professor.

Andre Jute
Fifty cents each way never hurt anyone's reputation for surpassing wisdom.