Campagnolo Electronic

Jasper Janssen wrote:

I cannot see a bike without fenders being terribly useful in Finnland. It
just doesn't work in my head. Hybrids were pretty popular here for a
while, when Sturmey went bankrupt, but the new Shimano 7 gearhub basically
refilled the niche, and for the ultracheap, but not quite singlespeed
market, there's now the taiwanese 3speed Sturmeys.

I have two bikes neither of which has fenders but then I don't commute
on them. It doesn't rain all that much here, very likely less than in
Netherlands, but for a commuter bike they are still a necessity.

I don't know why, but here internal gear hubs are mostly found in only
low-end bikes. Anything above 500 euros is likely to have derailer
gearing. Also below 500 euros it looks like hybrids with low-end
derailers and cheap front suspension like RST or Suntour are marketed
and sold more than anything else.

What comes to Sturmey Archer, I don't see their hubs in any bikes sold
here.

-as

On 24 Aug 2005 20:55:03 GMT, Antti Salonen
wrote:
Jasper Janssen wrote:

I cannot see a bike without fenders being terribly useful in Finnland. It
just doesn't work in my head. Hybrids were pretty popular here for a
while, when Sturmey went bankrupt, but the new Shimano 7 gearhub basically
refilled the niche, and for the ultracheap, but not quite singlespeed
market, there's now the taiwanese 3speed Sturmeys.

I don't know why, but here internal gear hubs are mostly found in only
low-end bikes. Anything above 500 euros is likely to have derailer
gearing. Also below 500 euros it looks like hybrids with low-end
derailers and cheap front suspension like RST or Suntour are marketed
and sold more than anything else.

The suspension thing is something I see happening here. People think it'll
be more comfortable, and surprise, surprise, a $50 suspension fork doesn't
make things appreciably more comfortable. The thing with the gearhubs is
mainly that the chain can be completely hidden away, and you won't get
black pants from chain crud when you take your bike to the station or the
shop.

What comes to Sturmey Archer, I don't see their hubs in any bikes sold
here.

Well, Sturmey Archer were part of a HUGE british bicycle conglomerate that
included Raleigh and a fair few other British bicycling big name brands,
and they basically went bankrupt as a whole. The workers came in one
faithful friday and were basically told "you're fired, be off the lot 10
minutes from now or security will chase you out". They were then sold to
an investment firm that promised to continue operations, but they turned
out to be fraudsters with no money to actually *pay* for the company that
they just bought, and while they hadn't quite been found out yet proceeded
to do vigourous asset stripping (they didn't get away with much more than
all the cash reserves of both SA and the parent company, 300.000 UK pounds
or so, but still huuuuuge gaps, and without those reserves the company was
basically only debts and no profit.).

When that all came crashing down, everything stopped, all the gear was
sold for a pittance (less than 10 percent of what it was worth on the
second hand market, let alone new), and the land was used for some
university buildings. The SA intellectual property (but not the actual
drawings and stuff, I gather) and the special manufacturing jigs from SA
were bought by a Taiwanese company, and several years after production at
Nottingham ceased, the Taiwanese once again were making SA products.

In the meantime, after 2 or 3 years without new products and not even
spare parts for SA, they had obviously lost all their existing
marketshare. They're slowly regaining a bit, but only on the low end. The
Taiwanese 3-speed is cheap and just as good as the SA 3 speed ever was,
but their multi-speed hubs are not really proven yet. They have a 5 and a
new 8 out, that hopefully may give Shimano some competition.

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:g...+sturmey&hl=en


Jasper

On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 21:05:48 +0100, Zog The Undeniable
wrote:
Dave Mayer wrote:

If someone develops an efficient internally geared rear hub with about 10-15
gear choices, and it comes within 200 grams of a derailleur drivetrain, then
I'll be impressed. And then I will buy.

Er...Rohloff? OK, it costs as much as a decent bike, but if hub gears
float your boat...

If it cost maybe 400-500 or so, I'd have one. As it is, at 900-1100
euros.. Thanks, but no thanks. Not even if it lasts me a lifetime -- or to
be more exact, until it gets stolen.

Jasper

I want to have one button for **** up, and one for down.

Jasper

To **** down is the decent thing to do. It's a pain to clean ceilings.

--
Ted Bennett

Jay Beattie wrote:
"Ryan Cousineau" wrote in message
...
big snip

Knowing Dave, a thriving market on eBay . More seriously,
Rohloff hub
drives compare well with new complete high-end derailer
drivetrains, but
at a notable weight penalty and a certain efficiency penalty.
More
worryingly, there's basically no used-Rohloff market, while
used or
OEM-surplus derailer drivetrains are available very cheaply,
which is
nice.

Since a new Rohloff hub alone would cost substantially more
than the
entire price of my carefully-crafted (and race-winning) race
bike, it is
a very hard sell.

I think the real deal, long term, will probably be the Shimano
Nexus 8,
which has a reasonable range of gears and reasonable
performance for
less than one third the price of a Rohloff. The old 7-speed
version is
slightly cheaper again.

for the US$250 the primo hub (plus shifter) would set you back,
I could
make a pretty nifty US$300 super-commuter: take a road frame
with
horizontal dropouts, add Nexus 8 and chainguard, budget for
fenders and
a front dual-pivot brake with good pads. Yes, I can probably
find an
appropriate base bike for $10. Little maintenance, not too much
money,
fairly light, and way cool.

http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/rohloff.html
http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/shimano-nexus.html

The SRAM Spectro 7 is also nice, but a bit more than a Nexus 7
and a bit
less than a Nexus 8:

http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/sram.html

That said, this putative super-commuter is competing with the
near-free
lightly-used old road bikes that are thick on the ground most
places.
You have to really like cleanliness, low maintenance, and
unfussy
shifting to pay the premium for a hub-shifting bike.

Maybe next year,

I would really consider one of these things if it had STI type
shifting or a shifter that was compatible with drop bars and if
it were quick release. The last thing I want to do during the
winter is stand around in the rain, wrenching on my real wheel so
I can fix a flat -- and I get a fair amount of flats in the rain
due to glass and the lubricating effect of rain water. And I
can't do a Tom Nakashima two-minute patch job because those
stick-um patches just don't stick in the rain. -- Jay Beattie.

The rapid-fire shifter for the Nexus 7 can be fitted on drop bars
without much problem. Mine is mounted near the center of the bar -
right next to where the bar diameter flares for the stem. I have the
lever pointing up, so a sweep of the hand to the left downshifts, and
to the right upshifts. I can shift with either hand. Maybe not as
nice as STI, but I find it easy and convenient. I also like being able
to shift while stopped.

As for tire changes, removing a Nexus 7 wheel is pretty easy -
disconnect the shift cable (it quick releases by prying it out with a
screwdriver), and loosen the locknuts. No biggie. Hardly longer than
removing the front wheel, where you have to spin the quick release to
clear the lawyer lips. Putting the wheel back in isn't much harder -
just make sure the shift indicators are lined up by adjusting the cable
tension adjuster.

Later,
Mark Muller

Bob De Jonge wrote:
Hi Ron - glad to comment here----
I use a 12-inch scale to judge chain wear. I put the zero centered on a
link pin. Then I look at the 12-inch mark. If the mark is tangent to
or off that link pin, the chain is done.


That would be about 1/16th inch I'd say... pretty standard.

Wax is dry,
and does not attract dust. Plus, when you wax it, you clean it at the
same time.

Wondering what your actual procedure is... you don't clean it before
putting it in the wax? How many times do you reuse the same wax?

Anyway, when I do get caught in the rain, I wax the chain right away.
The wax does not protect well against the water.

I tend to ride in the rain a fair amount... lots of little rains.
Lately I've been using spray furniture wax (like Pledge) to lube my
chain... just spray it on a rag and wipe the chain. I was polishing the
rest of the bike with it one day and thought I'd see what it did on the
chain. I didn't expect it to work very well... but it does! So far my
SRAM 9spd chain, which has been lubed this way for 3,000 miles, has
worn no more than 1/32inch, which seems like better life than I got
with Protech or plain oil. I do it almost every time I ride (75 miles
or less), mostly so that different parts of the chain will get randomly
saturated. It never gets squeaky in the rain or rusts. I wash and dry
(with a fan) the bike after I've been in rain, then wipe it with the
wax. It hasn't been cleaned otherwise.

I was thinking it might be a good to combine the two... use wax like
you do, then refresh with furniture wax/polish to extend the
intervals... but actually, I don't have any incentive to change what
I'm doing now... yet. I'll see how much longer this chain lasts. I
haven't been in any big storms lately either... that might alter my
results.

I think the moral of the story, based on all the discussions about
chain lube here, is that there are many methods and substances that
will work ok. But clean, cheap, easy, and long-lasting all sound good
to me!

BTW I've been using some generic stuff called "Kleen Guard"... about $1
per can at Walmart.

Bob De Jonge wrote:

Anyway, when I do get caught in the rain, I wax the chain right away.

You can tell you don't live in the UK! If I did that I'd never ride in the
winter.

Over here I know a lot of people who have tried wax and they have all gone
back to oil. Light teflon bsaed lube for the summer, heavy oil for the winter.

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune PGP/GPG Key: http://www.clune.org/pubkey.txt
The struggle of people against power is the struggle
of memory against forgetting - Milan Kundera

Hi Ron,
Some replies.....

Wax is dry,
and does not attract dust. Plus, when you wax it, you clean it at the
same time.

Wondering what your actual procedure is... you don't clean it before
putting it in the wax? How many times do you reuse the same wax?
I never throw it away - I keep using it. Recall that as you add wax to the
chain, some goes out of the wax can. You just mix up a bit more as you get
low. Now, the cleaning part -- No, the waxing doubles as the cleaning,
that's the nice thing. Every so often I use a suspended magnet hung into
the liquid wax (just after waxing a chain), which attracts the metal
particles. There is usually a big glob on the magnet, so I know there is a
metallic powder coming out of the wax. Then, every so often again, and not
AS often, I just scrape the bottom off the wax. That gets rid of the dirt
in there. But, the downside is it gets rid of your PTFE too, which falls to
the bottom of the wax when liquid. So, judgement is needed as to when and
how often you scrape the bottom.

Anyway, when I do get caught in the rain, I wax the chain right away.
The wax does not protect well against the water.

I tend to ride in the rain a fair amount... lots of little rains.
Lately I've been using spray furniture wax (like Pledge) to lube my
chain... just spray it on a rag and wipe the chain. I was polishing the
rest of the bike with it one day and thought I'd see what it did on the
chain. I didn't expect it to work very well... but it does! So far my
SRAM 9spd chain, which has been lubed this way for 3,000 miles, has
worn no more than 1/32inch, which seems like better life than I got
with Protech or plain oil. I do it almost every time I ride (75 miles
or less), mostly so that different parts of the chain will get randomly
saturated. It never gets squeaky in the rain or rusts. I wash and dry
(with a fan) the bike after I've been in rain, then wipe it with the
wax. It hasn't been cleaned otherwise.

Hey-interesting. That is for sure the bad point of the wax - it doesn't
protect from the rain as well as grease or oil. A comment regarding the guy
from the UK - yup, understand. If I rode in the rain all the time I would
need to use grease or oil, no doubt. So, situations vary....

I was thinking it might be a good to combine the two... use wax like
you do, then refresh with furniture wax/polish to extend the
intervals... but actually, I don't have any incentive to change what
I'm doing now... yet. I'll see how much longer this chain lasts. I
haven't been in any big storms lately either... that might alter my
results.

interesting, not sure, but worth some experimentation. My procedure is 20+
years old, so this old dog probably won't change, but then again, I may just
try that Pledge thing in between -- I like shiny clean stuff on my bikes!


I think the moral of the story, based on all the discussions about
chain lube here, is that there are many methods and substances that
will work ok. But clean, cheap, easy, and long-lasting all sound good
to me!

BTW I've been using some generic stuff called "Kleen Guard"... about $1
per can at Walmart.

Yup, just my 2¢ throughout here -- just relating my experiences for possible
benefit of some people out there - especially those thinking 5000 miles from
a chain is good!
I'll tell you when & why I went to wax, though ------
I was riding one nice summer day, many years ago, out to the beach. I did a
lap through the lot there, and wa looping back out to head back home, when I
noticed aweful noises and feeling from the gears and chain. I looked down,
and the chain wax absolutely COATED with sand. The wind had blown sand into
the air, and the oily chain was like flypaper, holding on to it all. That
was the WORST 20 miles back home IN MY LIFE. It was terrible. I
immediately set about a plan to make sure that did not happen again, which
is how I migrated to waxing. Extrapolating that story out-one can visualize
all the small dust particles in the air we cannot see doing the same thing
as the beach sand. I few miles down the road your chain has these particles
grinding away between the pins & links, and at your nice soft aluminum
chainrings. I really believe this is the cause of premature wear on cogs &
rings. And again, I have never replaced a cog or ring.
You know --- another story on that. Over the years I tend to use one or two
cogs way more than others -- 17 & 16 tooth. So, I was thinking they may be
getting worn. I did this about 5 or so years ago. I bought a new 17t cog.
When I went to replace it, the tooth profile on the old one looked just like
the new one. So, I took them both into work where we had an optical
comparator. I compared them at 10X and seriously, the barely perceived
difference could be attributed to manufacturing tolerances. So, I put the
old one back on and I still have a spare 17t cog.

Anyway, have fun and keep that chain shiny with that Pledge!

C.H. Luu wrote:
Not counting grams, but how much will this entire system weight? It's
gotta have a pretty decent battery to power all the actuators and the
actuators have to bear some weight. Will probably not need anything on
par with an HID lighting system but will still need something that can
last on a long ride.

What the was the logic behind going electric (reliability, efficiency)?
Mavic's Mektronic did gain much acceptance in the peleton and with
mainstream riders.

Claude

Doubt it's any better in any regard, just 'whizbang' I would say
Mektronic and the previous Zap gained some acceptance but the failure
rate was high and was generally considered a miserable failure, for
both.

In article ,
says...


Didn't Mavic also experiment with electronic derailleurs? I remember the
bikes
on the neutral service cars, during the (now defunct) Trans Canada Tour back
in
1999, had Mavic electronic derailleurs on them.

Mavic Zap was the first. It died pretty quickly. It cost an arm and a leg.
Then they came out with the wireless version. It cost two arms and leg. It
too died shortly there after.
---------------
Alex