Rohloff makes the case for Cyber Nexus

"Andre Jute" wrote...

I'm sure that for comfort cycling this system works well.

I know. I have a bike with Shimano's Cyber Nexus gruppo. It works
brilliantly.

I haven't heard the slightest argument to justify your patronizing
effort to limit the advantage of the simple Cyber Nexus type of speed-
controlled automatic gearchanging to comfort cycles. I haven't heard
the slightest argument even to begin to persuade me that the Cyber
Nexus concept isn't superior over its range to a derailleur system for
any purpose whatsoever.

I wouldn't try to persuade you of anything, I was just making it
clear the both speed and force contribute to exerted power and
that you might need high force even at very low speeds.

I'm sure you can easily imagine several occasions in which
gearchanging based on speed wouldn't be ideal...

I could be going down a long hill at high speed. I wouldn't want to
switch to a lower gear each time I slow down for a difficult bend.

I could prefer different cadences for different conditions. For example,
I like to go easy uphill but have tougher gears on the flats.

On the other hand, I might want low gears when facing a long ride uphill
in order to avoid my legs getting tired, but I might be ready for a tougher
effort when I know that the hill is going to be short.

I could be facing a short steep hill, having little force left in the
legs and willing to maintain constant speed. Normally I would
switch to a lower gear and increase cadence.. Cyber Nexus would
just compel me to slow down.

What about those people who like to get off the saddle from time
to time? The Cyber Nexus settings would be inadequate to the greater
force used on those occasions.

What if I were training the muscles in my legs and I were alternating
stretches with great efforts with others at minimal effort?

etc. etc.

If I were going shopping or on a leasurely ride, I think that all of the
above would hardly apply. The contrary would happen if I were in a
more sporty mood. This is why I mentioned comfort cycling.


I haven't heard the slightest argument even to begin to persuade me
that a Shimano Cyber Nexus type automatic system wouldn't be
superior on a Rohloff to the obstreperous Rohloff rotary control,
certainly for road use.

I never used any Rohloff, so I don't know how bad the rotary control
is, but I believe you if you say that the Cyber Nexus is better, even in
manual control I imagine.

In fact, I can't even see that the drastically cut-down Cyber Nexus
which is the Dura-Ace electronically assisted shifting for racers has
any advantage over the full Cyber Nexus -- even for racers -- except
perhaps weight, which I suspect is rather smokey argument.

Cycle racing is a sport of surges, in which stretches at medium
power alternate with other high-power high-force stretches;
this cannot be kept under control by an automatic gear, even
if its electronics were based on exerted power rather than speed.
Just to make an example, in a sprint racers produce an all-out
effort which would be unsustainable for the whole duration
of the race. Should they change the settings of the Cyber Nexus
just before sprinting? Even if they did, I doubt they would be more
efficient than with manual controls.

It is pure and simple macho bull**** to claim, as has been
repeatedly claimed here by the wannabe Lances, that a human can
shift faster than electronics,

I'm sure that, when the moment to change gear comes, Cyber
Nexus is quicker than my finger.
But electronics reacts to changes in speed, ie it necessarily lags
behind the human...
And I would talk of electro-mechanics rather than just electronics.

and the claim that on a road bike a human shifts more
appropriately than electronics is, if true at all, only temporarily
true --

only temporarily true? What does that mean?
In any case, your faith in electronics seems to be a bit too blind.
Electronics just reacts to changes in bicycle speed. Humans may
want to change according to many other factors, see above.

and we all know it, even if the usual luddites are slow to
admit it.

Experience and results are what count, feller, not machismo
posturing about the fastest shift in the West.

Exactly so. This is why other people in this thread mentioned
leaving Cyber Nexus after having used it, I guess.

Andre Jute

bye
Gennaro

On May 7, 6:46*pm, "Gennaro" wrote:
"Andre Jute" wrote...

Gennaro wrote:
I'm sure that for comfort cycling this system works well.

I know. I have a bike with Shimano's Cyber Nexus gruppo. It works
brilliantly.

I haven't heard the slightest argument to justify your patronizing
effort to limit the advantage of the simple Cyber Nexus type of speed-
controlled automatic gearchanging to comfort cycles. I haven't heard
the slightest argument even to begin to persuade me that the Cyber
Nexus concept isn't superior over its range to a derailleur system for
any purpose whatsoever.

I wouldn't try to persuade you of anything, I was just making it
clear the both speed and force contribute to exerted power and
that you might need high force even at very low speeds.

I'm sure you can easily imagine several occasions in which
gearchanging based on speed wouldn't be ideal...

Let's see if your examples are persuasive:

I could be going down a long hill at high speed. I wouldn't want to
switch to a lower gear each time I slow down for a difficult bend.

Why ever not? You'd be in the most optimal gear for accelerating after
the corner.

I could prefer different cadences for different conditions. For example,
I like to go easy uphill but have tougher gears on the flats.

Then going uphill you pedal slower and on the flat pedal faster. Cyber
Nexus will give you the gear of your heart's desire.

On the other hand, I might want low gears when facing a long ride uphill
in order to avoid my legs getting tired, but I might be ready for a tougher
effort when I know that the hill is going to be short.

In either case you merely pedal as your legs dictate and the
electronics will put you in the correct gear. I have a hill like that,
where in the second half on cool days when I can see the top I speed
up and the electronics actually select a higher gear though the
incline is still the same. I was amused to see that with the Rohloff I
do the same thing, but a hundred yards later.

I could be facing a short steep hill, having little force left in the
legs and willing to maintain constant speed. Normally I would
switch to a lower gear and increase cadence.. Cyber Nexus would
just compel me to slow down.

No. I have this one too. It is what Cyber Nexus is great at, switching
down and letting your cadence pick up. It matches your desired effort
to the gear required. Your cadence increases but the box doesn't
change up.

What about those people who like to get off the saddle from time
to time? The Cyber Nexus settings would be inadequate to the greater
force used on those occasions.

I have no experience of getting off the saddle, and no theory either.
But I suspect you would simply speed through the gears and when you
reached the highest gear would be able to accelerate only by applying
greater force through a higher cadence.

What if I were training the muscles in my legs and I were alternating
stretches with great efforts with others at minimal effort?

Then you click a switch and take over manual control of the Cyber
Nexus gearbox. The same answer suffices for all the situations above
-- and below:

etc. etc.

If I were going shopping or on a leasurely ride, I think that all of the
above would hardly apply. The contrary would happen if I were in a
more sporty mood. This is why I mentioned comfort cycling.

This is why the Cyber Nexus has a manual control mode.

I haven't heard the slightest argument even to begin to persuade me
that a Shimano Cyber Nexus type automatic system wouldn't be
superior on a Rohloff to the obstreperous Rohloff rotary control,
certainly for road use.

I never used any Rohloff, so I don't know how bad the rotary control
is,

Probably not as bad as you think from listening to me because I've
come years of the smooth Shimano Nexus premium and the Cyber Nexus
controls. It is like stepping out of BMW into a truck, even if the
truck is a Volvo with perfectly good controls for the horneyhanded.
For example, my LBS, who didn't supply the bike, operates the Rohloff
gear control for the first time at a warranty check he's doing, and
comments on how smooth it is (meaning compared to the derailleur
systems he sells).

but I believe you if you say that the Cyber Nexus is better, even in
manual control I imagine.

Well, there's a big difference between turning a very stiff control
and clicking a tumber switch. For the record. the Cyber Nexus doesn't
have a manual control at all, in the sense of a cable directly
connected to the gearbox. What Cyber Nexus has is electronically
assisted gearchanges under manual control. The rider decides when the
shift happens but the electronics make the shift. That is exactly what
the Dura-Ace electronically assisted shifting does too; it is merely a
cut-down Cyber Nexus system with battery rather than dynohub power.

In fact, I can't even see that the drastically cut-down Cyber Nexus
which is the Dura-Ace electronically assisted shifting for racers has
any advantage over the full Cyber Nexus -- even for racers -- except
perhaps weight, which I suspect is rather smokey argument.

Cycle racing is a sport of surges, in which stretches at medium
power alternate with other high-power high-force stretches;
this cannot be kept under control by an automatic gear, even
if its electronics were based on exerted power rather than speed.
Just to make an example, in a sprint racers produce an all-out
effort which would be unsustainable for the whole duration
of the race. Should they change the settings of the Cyber Nexus
just before sprinting? Even if they did, I doubt they would be more
efficient than with manual controls.

That sounds reasonable. But I remember that when I turned up at a
track with a Ford over 20ft long with an pushrod engine over seven
litres and an automatic gearbox, people laughed and made jokes about
the Porsche Spyder in which they were used to seeing me being tucked
into the boot. And the better-mannered even sounded reasonable about
why I couldn't win. But, right after my lawyers persuaded the blazers
that the rules said a production car and mine was most assuredly a
production car with certified, sworn, notarized production numbers, I
did win, and kept winning, among other reasons because I was never in
the wrong gear, even if I went through tyres like liquorice sticks.

It is pure and simple macho bull**** to claim, as has been
repeatedly claimed here by the wannabe Lances, that a human can
shift faster than electronics,

I'm sure that, when the moment to change gear comes, Cyber
Nexus is quicker than my finger.
But electronics reacts to changes in speed, ie it necessarily lags
behind the human...

I've heard a lot about intelligent human anticipation. It sounds good
until you ask what actually happens. And what actually happens is that
the human, in anticipation, switches out of the optimum gear
(presuming he had the smarts to be in it in the first instance) yards
before it is necessary, and in that space, in a less than optimal
gear, loses fractions of a second, or a second. Changing too early is
as bad from an efficiency viewpoint as hanging on to the wrong cogs
too long. Both cost time.

And I would talk of electro-mechanics rather than just electronics.

Nah, you can forget that distinction. The change is instant. The CPU
decides and the stepper motor executes, zero perceptible delay. This
isn't your grand-dad's robotics, this is 2009.

and the claim that on a road bike a human shifts more
appropriately than electronics is, if true at all, only temporarily
true --

only temporarily true? What does that mean?

It means that if it is true, which you believe and I don't (and I have
just demonstrated above why it is untrue), it remains true only until
the electronics catch up to measuring force as well, or whatever you
want measured. There is no intrinsic reason that an electronic control
on a bike can't have a menu from which you choose the parameters to be
measured, and assign them varying weights, in your particular desired
gearchange. Any good HRM/bike computer, say the Ciclosport HAC4,
already includes enough measuring and calculation power.

On the other hand, it might be enough just to put the desired force
control, in the current Cyber Nexus fitted under the downtube with the
CPU, on a wheelie or a lever or a toggle under your thumb for on the
fly adjustment, perhaps with some pre-programmed performance maps
(they could be effort maps but needn't be).

Did I mention that three effort maps are already under the rider's
thumb on the Cyber Nexus: L for very relaxed or Little Old Lady, D for
normal drive, Ds for sporting which also locks out the lowest gear
and drops you straight into second for those leg muscle exercises you
mention, and switches up to higher gears a lot faster (this is my
normal mode, with the desired effort set only one of the eight notches
from the highest).

There is no reason on earth you shouldn't have many more programmes
each of which puts the shift points, even for individual gears, at
particular desired points. After all, you already remember a lot of
esoteric info about which crankwheel and which sprocket you're on, and
what the ratio is, for each of the two dozen or so gears of your
derailleur bike... You do remember all that stuff, don't you, Gennaro?
Because if you don't, if you forget it even once a month, then you
*need* full-auto Cyber Nexus.

In any case, your faith in electronics seems to be a bit too blind.
Electronics just reacts to changes in bicycle speed.

That's enough in my version of the Cyber Nexus for me, possibly not
for you, though I haven't seen a single insuperable example except the
out-of-the-seat force argument where my own lack of specific knowledge
is the barrier, not the force (sorry!) of your argument.

Humans may
want to change according to many other factors,

Humans may want to do a lot of irrational things. Whether they should
be allowed to pretend they change gear better than electronics can is
a matter to be decided by team managers once the policy decision is
taken that efficiency is what counts, not what "humans may want".

Humans may
want to change according to many other factors, see above.

See above about electronics being able to measure and react to
whatever you want your gearbox to react to.

and we all know it, even if the usual luddites are slow to
admit it.

Experience and results are what count, feller, not machismo
posturing about the fastest shift in the West.

Exactly so. This is why other people in this thread mentioned
leaving Cyber Nexus after having used it, I guess.

You must be guessing, because I don't remember anyone in this thread
or on this board, except me, with any experience of the Cyber Nexus/
Nexave/Dura-Ace types of autoshift or manually controlled electronic
shifting.

***

I confidently forecast that in a couple of years Shimano will charge
racers a *huge* premium for putting the full auto back on the Dura-Ace
gruppo they cut down from a gruppo that first appeared around 2003 on
a luxurious touring/commuting Koga-Miyata, the Excellence, which had
the full-auto Cyber Nexus system working, and by all accounts
brilliantly, on a full derailleur system.

Let's see that again: "In a couple of years Shimano will charge racers
a *huge* premium for putting the full auto back on the Dura-Ace
gruppo." Serve the insular buggers right for not knowing what's good
when it first comes out.

Andre Jute
Visit Andre's books at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/THE%20WRITER'S%20HOUSE.html

On May 7, 3:40*pm, Andre Jute wrote:

I haven't heard the slightest argument to justify your patronizing
effort to limit the advantage of the simple Cyber Nexus type of speed-
controlled automatic gearchanging to comfort cycles. I haven't heard
the slightest argument even to begin to persuade me that the Cyber
Nexus concept isn't superior over its range to a derailleur system for
any purpose whatsoever.

Depends on your criteria for what's superior, but--
Imagine it deciding to do the 7-8 shift in the middle of a power
stroke.

There is no reason on earth you shouldn't have many more programmes
each of which puts the shift points, even for individual gears, at
particular desired points. After all, you already remember a lot of
esoteric info about which crankwheel and which sprocket you're on, and
what the ratio is, for each of the two dozen or so gears of your
derailleur bike... You do remember all that stuff, don't you, Gennaro?
Because if you don't, if you forget it even once a month, then you
*need* full-auto Cyber Nexus.

People generally get along fine without remembering a chart
of the ratios, especially with today's 9-or-more speed hubs
where one shift with the rear derailleur is a smaller jump
than one shift with a Nexus internal gear hub.

This "you *need*" talk is silly. People have their own preferences.

Humans may
want to change according to many other factors,

Humans may want to do a lot of irrational things. Whether they should
be allowed to pretend they change gear better than electronics can is
a matter to be decided by team managers once the policy decision is
taken that efficiency is what counts, not what "humans may want".

If and when automatic shifting shows a compelling advantage
in competition--and that may vary from racer to racer.
Nothing you've said convinces me that it will.

In the meantime, for those of us who aren't racing and who
aren't managed, issues of personal preference will often
outweigh the efficiency difference (if there even is any).
Some of us just prefer to select our own gears rather
than be subjected to a machine doing it.

Exactly so. This is why other people in this thread mentioned
leaving Cyber Nexus after having used it, I guess.

You must be guessing, because I don't remember anyone in this thread
or on this board, except me, with any experience of the Cyber Nexus/
Nexave/Dura-Ace types of autoshift or manually controlled electronic
shifting.

You quoted and replied to John Henderson in this thread (he gave
up on the 4-speed version).

I confidently forecast that in a couple of years Shimano will charge
racers a *huge* premium for putting the full auto back on the Dura-Ace
gruppo they cut down from a gruppo that first appeared around 2003 on
a luxurious touring/commuting Koga-Miyata, the Excellence, which had
the full-auto Cyber Nexus system working, and by all accounts
brilliantly, on a full derailleur system.

Define "a couple of years" so we know when to remind you that
you had said this. And does your prediction extend to racers
actually buying it, or just Shimano offering it at a high price?

Tom Ace

I quoted the wrong part of Andre Jute's posting at one point;
my response was intended as follows:

I haven't heard the slightest argument even to begin to persuade me
that a Shimano Cyber Nexus type automatic system wouldn't be
superior on a Rohloff to the obstreperous Rohloff rotary control,
certainly for road use.

Depends on your criteria for what's superior, but--
Imagine it deciding to do the 7-8 shift in the
middle of a power stroke.

Tom Ace

Hi,

Andre Jute wrote:
On May 7, 6:46 pm, "Gennaro" wrote:
I'm sure you can easily imagine several occasions in which
gearchanging based on speed wouldn't be ideal...

Let's see if your examples are persuasive:

I could be going down a long hill at high speed. I wouldn't want to
switch to a lower gear each time I slow down for a difficult bend.

Why ever not? You'd be in the most optimal gear for accelerating after
the corner.

This is just about the same as my argument of shifting while approaching
a corner or a hill, so I'm in the perfect gear the moment I "hit" the
hill. There are situations a human can predict what happens, while the
electron "brain" cannot.

Plus, we're talking about humans - which are not technical devices ;-)
Sometimes I just simply want a different gear just for fun ;-)

[getting up]
I have no experience of getting off the saddle, and no theory either.
But I suspect you would simply speed through the gears and when you
reached the highest gear would be able to accelerate only by applying
greater force through a higher cadence.

Well, I'm not sure this would work - getting up, you usually lose a lot
of cadence, but you gain "peak force output" - the average cyclist does
need a lower gear when getting up. You would have to press a button
"getting-up-mode"?

Then you click a switch and take over manual control of the Cyber
Nexus gearbox. The same answer suffices for all the situations above

Wait a second... Andre, be careful - you do advertise "manual override"
as a feature on an automatic gear box - that almost comes close to you
contradicting yourself ;-) OK, mostly kidding ;-)

Well, there's a big difference between turning a very stiff control
and clicking a tumber switch. For the record. the Cyber Nexus doesn't
have a manual control at all, in the sense of a cable directly
connected to the gearbox. ...

You may remember me telling you I would gladly use an electronic shifting
mech instead of bowden cables. It would enable me to distribute buttons
all over my handlebars, so I can shift no matter whether I'm on the
grips, on the extensions or whatever. Just press a button on the left to
switch down and a button on the right to shift up. Cool. Also I would
want the electro-shift take care of my gear combinations and always
select the correct next-lower or next-faster gear. Cool.

Actually I would even allow it to auto-shift if my cadence exceeds 130
or falls below 50. But as long as I'm inside these "extremes" I want to
shift myself ;-) Most of the time, anyway.

But, as we found out, the Cyber Nexus system isn't compatible with my
Non-Shimano chain shifting mech, and it ain't available retail. So to
say, Cyber Nexus is a thing of the past...

As to Dura-Ace-Electro I still haven't heard anything beyond "it
exists". No review, no user's report, nothing. And I seriously doubt it
would adapt to my combination of chainrings ;-) As far as the Shimano
manual allows, it seems to me, that you still have to control your front
and rear derailleur separately?

the human, in anticipation, switches out of the optimum gear
(presuming he had the smarts to be in it in the first instance) yards
before it is necessary, and in that space, in a less than optimal
gear, loses fractions of a second, or a second. Changing too early is
as bad from an efficiency viewpoint as hanging on to the wrong cogs
too long. Both cost time.

You mis-read me - why would I loose time, when I coast anyway just to
slow down in preparation for a turn? I'm not on a stopwatch - mostly.

It means that if it is true, which you believe and I don't (and I have
just demonstrated above why it is untrue), it remains true only until
the electronics catch up to measuring force as well, or whatever you
want measured. There is no intrinsic reason that an electronic control

How can you measure "want" and "will"?

on a bike can't have a menu from which you choose the parameters to be
measured, and assign them varying weights, in your particular desired
gearchange. Any good HRM/bike computer, say the Ciclosport HAC4,
already includes enough measuring and calculation power.

Sure it does, but you create a different problem: right now, the human
is employed to choose a gear he/she likes. Once you measure everything
and put the electronics in charge, the human will spend the same time
setting up, re-configureing and overriding the electronics. It doesn't
get any easier (at least not in the high-performance section). It just
gets more indirect - and that is not necessary.

For comfort cycling, I do think Cyber Nexus is great, but it's too
geek-ish and too rare and too expensive for the people who would profit
most from it. My parents, for example, would profit from a full-auto
shifting. But they would rather get a single-speed bike so they don't
have the complexity of shifting at all (Don't ask, I've been trying to
persuade them to a simple 7-gear hub and they find it too complicated...)...

On the other hand, it might be enough just to put the desired force
control, in the current Cyber Nexus fitted under the downtube with the
CPU, on a wheelie or a lever or a toggle under your thumb for on the
fly adjustment, perhaps with some pre-programmed performance maps
(they could be effort maps but needn't be).

You'd spend so much time with the adjustment, it would be simpler to
just put an "up" and a "down" button there instead of
"auto-manual-autoadjust.param1-autoadjust.param2...." keyboards?

There is no reason on earth you shouldn't have many more programmes

Yes, there is: complexity. of. using. it.

Humans may want to do a lot of irrational things. Whether they should

Humans are irrational and I do enjoy it. I'm not a robot.

Let's end this argument - it's been based upon personal preference for
quite a time... There's a lot to do to improve bicycle shifting
mechanisms, but I wouldn't want to address auto-shifting as long as a
Shimano chainring doesn't fit a Shimano crank. Let's work out the basics
before we go to "level 2" ;-)

Ciao...

PS: I just had the chainring thingy..

On May 8, 5:34*am, Tom Ace wrote:
On May 7, 3:40*pm, Andre Jute wrote:

I haven't heard the slightest argument to justify your patronizing
effort to limit the advantage of the simple Cyber Nexus type of speed-
controlled automatic gearchanging to comfort cycles. I haven't heard
the slightest argument even to begin to persuade me that the Cyber
Nexus concept isn't superior over its range to a derailleur system for
any purpose whatsoever.

Depends on your criteria for what's superior, but--
Imagine it deciding to do the 7-8 shift in the middle of a power
stroke.

Eh? Of course the Cyber Nexus shifts into top gear on a power stroke
(except if it is coasting downhill). Unless the bicycle is
accelerating, the electronic gubbins won't shift up.

If I were a racer likely to rise out of the seat on the pedals, which
is what you're addressing, I'd be more concerned with a box with a
built-in glitch like the Rohloff 7-8 shift dropping me 11th gear.

There is no reason on earth you shouldn't have many more programmes
each of which puts the shift points, even for individual gears, at
particular desired points. After all, you already remember a lot of
esoteric info about which crankwheel and which sprocket you're on, and
what the ratio is, for each of the two dozen or so gears of your
derailleur bike... You do remember all that stuff, don't you, Gennaro?
Because if you don't, if you forget it even once a month, then you
*need* full-auto Cyber Nexus.

People generally get along fine without remembering a chart
of the ratios, especially with today's 9-or-more speed hubs
where one shift with the rear derailleur is a smaller jump
than one shift with a Nexus internal gear hub.

This "you *need*" talk is silly. *People have their own preferences.

Smartest thing's been said in this entire thread: "People have their
own preferences." I agree. But others have been trying to baffle me
with science, and the speed of their shifts, and their superior road-
anticipation and whatnot, when the only thing driving their choice was
personal preference.

Humans may
want to change according to many other factors,

Humans may want to do a lot of irrational things. Whether they should
be allowed to pretend they change gear better than electronics can is
a matter to be decided by team managers once the policy decision is
taken that efficiency is what counts, not what "humans may want".

If and when automatic shifting shows a compelling advantage
in competition--and that may vary from racer to racer.
Nothing you've said convinces me that it will.

Okay.

In the meantime, for those of us who aren't racing and who
aren't managed, issues of personal preference will often
outweigh the efficiency difference (if there even is any).

Agreed. And that is as it should be. But the reason this thread is
still alive is because arguments of preference have been cloaked as
arguments of efficiency.

Some of us just prefer to select our own gears rather
than be subjected to a machine doing it.

Okay. But it is an argument I've heard before in automobiles, and all
those guys now drive autoboxes.

Exactly so. This is why other people in this thread mentioned
leaving Cyber Nexus after having used it, I guess.

You must be guessing, because I don't remember anyone in this thread
or on this board, except me, with any experience of the Cyber Nexus/
Nexave/Dura-Ace types of autoshift or manually controlled electronic
shifting.

You quoted and replied to John Henderson in this thread (he gave
up on the 4-speed version).

Ah, yes. Sorry. I wasn't attempting to mislead anyone. I'd just
forgotten. But the 4-speed is ur-technology compared to the 8 speed
Cyber Nexus. A fair test would be if someone bought the Koga-Miyata
Excellence (derailleur with Cyber Nexus autoshifting) and then traded
it in on a manual derailleur bike. Can you imagine how unlikely that
is?

I confidently forecast that in a couple of years Shimano will charge
racers a *huge* premium for putting the full auto back on the Dura-Ace
gruppo they cut down from a gruppo that first appeared around 2003 on
a luxurious touring/commuting Koga-Miyata, the Excellence, which had
the full-auto Cyber Nexus system working, and by all accounts
brilliantly, on a full derailleur system.

Define "a couple of years" so we know when to remind you that
you had said this. *

Within five years. Perhaps someone knows or is interested in
researching (and has the catalogues to do it) how long Shimano allows
for a gruppo to establish itself before it either upgrade/extends or
kills it. Sheldon would have know instantly how long the period should
be.

And does your prediction extend to racers
actually buying it, or just Shimano offering it at a high price?

However, my forecast of the arrival of a full-auto Dura-Ace
"Supasmova" depends on the electronically assisted but not full-auto
Dura-Ace selling well enough to warrant Shimano launching the more
sophisticated model. But yes, if we arrive there, I think racers
accustomed to the concept of electronics via the cut-down Dura-Ace may
well buy the full-auto. It only takes one demonstration of a top-100
rider consistently improving his performance with the full autoshift
for fashion to take hold. Those legends whose Christian names
(Europeans have Christian names; only Americans are so politically
correct that they have first names) Jobst drops so casually were all
the beneficiaries of fashions they started -- by first demonstrating
that a technological advantage was also a sporting advantage.

However, if I were the bicycle bicycle racing authorities, who have
failed for years in one of their primary functions, keeping the cost
of racing down, I would make a start in recovering my lost credibility
by banning carbon fiber and electronics and enforcing the ban
rigorously (and I'd severely punish those aero cheats who've been
thumbing their noses at the rules for years and years and years until
they've come to presume it as their right to flout the rules). ---
I've made a separate thread for those who want to discuss the ideas in
the previous sentence. --- If that happens, I don't see Shimano
launching full-auto Dura-Ace merely for sports riders, especially
since it has already failed to capture a significant market in comfort/
commuter bikes, and the hub-gear Cyber Nexus full-auto is barely alive
in a high-end niche that can't possibly have the numbers to make much
profit, and in the current economic climate is unlikely to grow.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Bicycles at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/...20CYCLING.html

Bernhard Agthe wrote:

Let's end this argument - it's been based upon personal preference for
quite a time...

I'll let you have the last word then.

Andre Jute
The acme of amiability -- and anyway the sun is shining and my bike is
waiting!

On May 8, 1:43*pm, Bernhard Agthe wrote:
Hi,

Andre Jute wrote:
On May 7, 6:46 pm, "Gennaro" wrote:
I'm sure you can easily imagine several occasions in which
gearchanging based on speed wouldn't be ideal...

Let's see if your examples are persuasive:

I could be going down a long hill at high speed. I wouldn't want to
switch to a lower gear each time I slow down for a difficult bend.

Why ever not? You'd be in the most optimal gear for accelerating after
the corner.

This is just about the same as my argument of shifting while approaching
a corner or a hill, so I'm in the perfect gear the moment I "hit" the
hill. There are situations a human can predict what happens, while the
electron "brain" cannot.

Plus, we're talking about humans - which are not technical devices ;-)
Sometimes I just simply want a different gear just for fun ;-)

[getting up]

I have no experience of getting off the saddle, and no theory either.
But I suspect you would simply speed through the gears and when you
reached the highest gear would be able to accelerate only by applying
greater force through a higher cadence.

Well, I'm not sure this would work - getting up, you usually lose a lot
of cadence, but you gain "peak force output" - the average cyclist does
need a lower gear when getting up. You would have to press a button
"getting-up-mode"?

Then you click a switch and take over manual control of the Cyber
Nexus gearbox. The same answer suffices for all the situations above

Wait a second... Andre, be careful - you do advertise "manual override"
as a feature on an automatic gear box - that almost comes close to you
contradicting yourself ;-) OK, mostly kidding ;-)

Well, there's a big difference between turning a very stiff control
and clicking a tumber switch. For the record. the Cyber Nexus doesn't
have a manual control at all, in the sense of a cable directly
connected to the gearbox. ...

You may remember me telling you I would gladly use an electronic shifting
mech instead of bowden cables. It would enable me to distribute buttons
all over my handlebars, so I can shift no matter whether I'm on the
grips, on the extensions or whatever. Just press a button on the left to
switch down and a button on the right to shift up. Cool. Also I would
want the electro-shift take care of my gear combinations and always
select the correct next-lower or next-faster gear. Cool.

Actually I would even allow it to auto-shift if my cadence exceeds 130
or falls below 50. But as long as I'm inside these "extremes" I want to
shift myself ;-) Most of the time, anyway.

But, as we found out, the Cyber Nexus system isn't compatible with my
Non-Shimano chain shifting mech, and it ain't available retail. So to
say, Cyber Nexus is a thing of the past...

As to Dura-Ace-Electro I still haven't heard anything beyond "it
exists". No review, no user's report, nothing. And I seriously doubt it
would adapt to my combination of chainrings ;-) As far as the Shimano
manual allows, it seems to me, that you still have to control your front
and rear derailleur separately?

the human, in anticipation, switches out of the optimum gear
(presuming he had the smarts to be in it in the first instance) yards
before it is necessary, and in that space, in a less than optimal
gear, loses fractions of a second, or a second. Changing too early is
as bad from an efficiency viewpoint as hanging on to the wrong cogs
too long. Both cost time.

You mis-read me - why would I loose time, when I coast anyway just to
slow down in preparation for a turn? I'm not on a stopwatch - mostly.

It means that if it is true, which you believe and I don't (and I have
just demonstrated above why it is untrue), it remains true only until
the electronics catch up to measuring force as well, or whatever you
want measured. There is no intrinsic reason that an electronic control

How can you measure "want" and "will"?

on a bike can't have a menu from which you choose the parameters to be
measured, and assign them varying weights, in your particular desired
gearchange. Any good HRM/bike computer, say the Ciclosport HAC4,
already includes enough measuring and calculation power.

Sure it does, but you create a different problem: right now, the human
is employed to choose a gear he/she likes. Once you measure everything
and put the electronics in charge, the human will spend the same time
setting up, re-configureing and overriding the electronics. It doesn't
get any easier (at least not in the high-performance section). It just
gets more indirect - and that is not necessary.

For comfort cycling, I do think Cyber Nexus is great, but it's too
geek-ish and too rare and too expensive for the people who would profit
most from it. My parents, for example, would profit from a full-auto
shifting. But they would rather get a single-speed bike so they don't
have the complexity of shifting at all (Don't ask, I've been trying to
persuade them to a simple 7-gear hub and they find it too complicated...)....

On the other hand, it might be enough just to put the desired force
control, in the current Cyber Nexus fitted under the downtube with the
CPU, on a wheelie or a lever or a toggle under your thumb for on the
fly adjustment, perhaps with some pre-programmed performance maps
(they could be effort maps but needn't be).

You'd spend so much time with the adjustment, it would be simpler to
just put an "up" and a "down" button there instead of
"auto-manual-autoadjust.param1-autoadjust.param2...." keyboards?

There is no reason on earth you shouldn't have many more programmes

Yes, there is: complexity. of. using. it.

Humans may want to do a lot of irrational things. Whether they should

Humans are irrational and I do enjoy it. I'm not a robot.

Let's end this argument - it's been based upon personal preference for
quite a time... There's a lot to do to improve bicycle shifting
mechanisms, but I wouldn't want to address auto-shifting as long as a
Shimano chainring doesn't fit a Shimano crank. Let's work out the basics
before we go to "level 2" ;-)

Ciao...

PS: I just had the chainring thingy..

On May 8, 5:40*am, Tom Ace wrote:
I quoted the wrong part of Andre Jute's posting *at one point;
my response was intended as follows:

I haven't heard the slightest argument even to begin to persuade me
that a Shimano Cyber Nexus type automatic system wouldn't be
superior on a Rohloff to the obstreperous Rohloff rotary control,
certainly for road use.

Depends on your criteria for what's superior, but--
Imagine it deciding to do the 7-8 shift in the
middle of a power stroke.

....and dropping you into 11th? That is a problem of the Rohloff box
design, not of the Cyber Nexus type electronic shift. But yes, I can
see how that could be discombobulating if you were out of the saddle
and up on the pedals.

Window of opportunity to ride. Ciao.

Andre Jute
"The brain of an engineer is a delicate instrument which must be
protected against the unevenness of the ground." -- Wifredo-Pelayo
Ricart Medina
"Not to mention the crash gearboxes Ricart loved." -- Andre Jute

On Fri, 8 May 2009 06:06:36 -0700 (PDT), Andre Jute wrote:

On May 8, 5:34*am, Tom Ace wrote:
On May 7, 3:40*pm, Andre Jute wrote:

I haven't heard the slightest argument to justify your patronizing
effort to limit the advantage of the simple Cyber Nexus type of speed-
controlled automatic gearchanging to comfort cycles. I haven't heard
the slightest argument even to begin to persuade me that the Cyber
Nexus concept isn't superior over its range to a derailleur system for
any purpose whatsoever.

Depends on your criteria for what's superior, but--
Imagine it deciding to do the 7-8 shift in the middle of a power
stroke.

Eh? Of course the Cyber Nexus shifts into top gear on a power stroke
(except if it is coasting downhill). Unless the bicycle is
accelerating, the electronic gubbins won't shift up.

If I were a racer likely to rise out of the seat on the pedals, which
is what you're addressing, I'd be more concerned with a box with a
built-in glitch like the Rohloff 7-8 shift dropping me 11th gear.

It isn't only racers who need to and should be getting out of the saddle.

People generally get along fine without remembering a chart
of the ratios, especially with today's 9-or-more speed hubs
where one shift with the rear derailleur is a smaller jump
than one shift with a Nexus internal gear hub.

This "you *need*" talk is silly. *People have their own preferences.

Smartest thing's been said in this entire thread: "People have their
own preferences." I agree. But others have been trying to baffle me
with science, and the speed of their shifts, and their superior road-
anticipation and whatnot, when the only thing driving their choice was
personal preference.

Aren't you the one who's been going on about the importance of absolute
efficiency in gear selection and changes. The bottom line is that any reasonably
skilled rider can be in exactly the right gear at all times.

In the meantime, for those of us who aren't racing and who
aren't managed, issues of personal preference will often
outweigh the efficiency difference (if there even is any).

Agreed. And that is as it should be. But the reason this thread is
still alive is because arguments of preference have been cloaked as
arguments of efficiency.

It is you who started with that.

And does your prediction extend to racers
actually buying it, or just Shimano offering it at a high price?

However, my forecast of the arrival of a full-auto Dura-Ace
"Supasmova" depends on the electronically assisted but not full-auto
Dura-Ace selling well enough to warrant Shimano launching the more
sophisticated model. But yes, if we arrive there, I think racers
accustomed to the concept of electronics via the cut-down Dura-Ace may
well buy the full-auto. It only takes one demonstration of a top-100
rider consistently improving his performance with the full autoshift
for fashion to take hold. Those legends whose Christian names
(Europeans have Christian names; only Americans are so politically
correct that they have first names) Jobst drops so casually were all
the beneficiaries of fashions they started -- by first demonstrating
that a technological advantage was also a sporting advantage.

I'm pretty sure that full-auto on competitive derailleur bikes is a non-starter.
Because of the overlap in the various combinations front/rear and the
convenience and flexibility of selecting gears for oneself, there's no way that
an electronic system is going to out think the rider. The usual problem is not
one of figuring out which combination produces the next higher or lower gear and
then achieving it.

However, if I were the bicycle bicycle racing authorities, who have
failed for years in one of their primary functions, keeping the cost
of racing down, I would make a start in recovering my lost credibility
by banning carbon fiber and electronics and enforcing the ban
rigorously (and I'd severely punish those aero cheats who've been
thumbing their noses at the rules for years and years and years until
they've come to presume it as their right to flout the rules). ---
I've made a separate thread for those who want to discuss the ideas in
the previous sentence. --- If that happens, I don't see Shimano
launching full-auto Dura-Ace merely for sports riders, especially
since it has already failed to capture a significant market in comfort/
commuter bikes, and the hub-gear Cyber Nexus full-auto is barely alive
in a high-end niche that can't possibly have the numbers to make much
profit, and in the current economic climate is unlikely to grow.

Actually, the emergence of the expensive race bike is so recent that containing
hardware costs has never been a part of the sanctioning body's brief. Even now
it simply isn't an issue. At every level below the fully sponsored teams in the
pro tour you'll see $1000 bikes doing as well as any other. To the extent that
bleeding edge technology is wicked expensive, the manufacturers are entirely
happy. It costs them a few dozen units in sponsorship to sell a great many of
those precious bits to upper middle class racers and triathletes. As for the kid
coming up, he's going to buy a $250 frame on the internet, slap last years
Ultegra or some remaindered Campy group on it and keep beating those guys until
someone else starts paying for his bikes.

Don't know what you mean by "aero cheats." As the International Man of Mystery
and Motorsport you claim, you must be familiar with the inevitable push and pull
of engineer vs rule maker. This has been going on in cycling for a couple of
decades now. The only problem seems, IMO, that the UCI tends to move slowly and
clumsily. As if it didn't notice what the riders were doing and then abruptly
introducing a rule interpretation and enforcing it on the day of tech
inspection.

In article
,
Andre Jute wrote:

On May 8, 5:34*am, Tom Ace wrote:

People generally get along fine without remembering a chart
of the ratios, especially with today's 9-or-more speed hubs
where one shift with the rear derailleur is a smaller jump
than one shift with a Nexus internal gear hub.

This "you *need*" talk is silly. *People have their own preferences.

Smartest thing's been said in this entire thread: "People have their
own preferences." I agree. But others have been trying to baffle me
with science, and the speed of their shifts, and their superior road-
anticipation and whatnot, when the only thing driving their choice was
personal preference.

Because someone expresses their preferences and reasons for their
preferences strongly and without qualification is no reason to
infer that that person is unaware that he expresses personal preference.

--
Michael Press