Odd Ideas of People Who Should Know Better

There have been comments here recently of the electronic shift groups.

If you do not have a NEW frameset that is constructed entirely with electronic shifting on mind, the electronic group actually has more drag (less aero) than a standard manual group.

Hanging wires and batteries and the associated mounting paraphernalia for it is quite aerodynamically dirty. The new carbon fiber bikes specifically made for electronic shifting had wires and batteries internal to the frame. Even the battery is inset into the seat tube. The battery remains in place and is charged with a small external connector.

I have seen at least three people here make comments about them using stepping motors. Stepping motors have to hold their position with power so that is simply not true. They use solenoids and ratchets which only require a power surge and then can remain in place powerless.

Since this sort of shifting requires ratchets they are open to the same sort of wear that manual shifters there is little to give them any superiority over manual shifting. It is nothing more than a gewgaw that is sold because it is new and used by racers and hence absolutely must be better than what anyone else would have.

This also brings us around to the actual aerodynamic testing that has been done on road bikes.

You can pay a huge fortune on a carbon fiber bike. And you can hear of the large benefits of a aerodynamic design. But the fact is that other than a lighter bike, the aerodynamics are essentially worthless because on the open road you neither ride in a straight direction for any significant amount of time or ride in the speed regime where any benefits wouldn't be dramatically drowned out by simply sitting a bit higher in the saddle to see ahead for possible potholes, cracks or broken glass (as much as I like tubeless they CAN be flatted with a large enough cut from a pothole or glass shard of sufficient size).

If you look at postings on youTube of the (great) Hambini you can see his analysis of the construction of most of the aero carbon bikes, many of which give me the rather awful feeling that they are made in two halves and glued together. This would perhaps also answer why many of the non-destructive failures I've seen in these bikes appear to be longitudinal cracks in the tubes - especially around the bottom bracket/tube junctions.

Though it is possible that since most of these bikes are actually made in China, that they use a common jig for drilling the holes such as the headset and the bottom bracket and the spacing of the dropouts front and rear. This can easily lead to misalignments such as he shows in his videos.

Since he commonly takes frames and forks into his local college where they have the ultrasonic testing tools he can discover voids and/or cracks which would otherwise be undetectable until it was too late to say, "OH ****!".

One of the comments he made recently (relative to youTube postings) was that the only frames he would trust were Look or Time. Personally I would add my Colnago CLX 3.0 into that category. Though I suppose that it is possible that I too have a misaligned bottom bracket and it will wear out far more rapidly than it should.

Aero carbon wheels: Hambini was laughing at himself for buying Zipp wheels that had the dots molded into them to supposedly reduce drag. He didn't seem to have a tight hold on how those speed dots work though.

The way it works is the same reason that they put them on golf balls - this breaks the airflow on the skin of the wheel (ball) and so there isn't a tight connection between the air and the hard surface of the rim. The airflow has a slowly accelerating airflow that is linear rather than the non-linear break between the hard rim surface and the open air. This tends to maintain a linear flow much longer on the rim/tire causing the breakup into turbulent flow later than would otherwise be the case.

So, I have personal experience to be able to actually test most of these theories. But you can't convince a man who just spent $3,000 on a DuraAce Di2 that he has sort of been had. Or that someone that is sitting on the most aero road bike that when he reached up to wipe his nose, that he lost the entire aerodynamic gains for an entire race.

Sure, most of this stuff most definitely does help a TT bike. Because the rider can stay down in the aero envelope. But he can't do that on a road bike and he is only fooling himself. Furthermore, the speed gains for the sports rider with an aero bike can't even be measured because he is riding in a speed regime that has virtually no aero benefits to begin with.

Say you went on the Tour of he California Alps (The Death Ride). There are seven passes if memory serves and the descents are pretty much all out balls to the walls. But a 2 mpg gain wouldn't change your average speed measurably because of how slow the climbing is.

Through all of my measurements over the last couple of years, the way I feel on a ride changes my average speed much more than any of the equipment or the 4 lbs total difference in weight from my light bike to my heavy. And weight should be a suitable way to judge changes in average speed since I've done 200,000 ft of climbing so far and the previous two years over 150,000 and the year before that 256,000. But it isn't. So don't fool yourself that a lot of money is going to improve your average speed on a ride.

Frank would average 7 mph on a $15,000 bike so why should he change from his $300 touring sled?

The great Hambini is talking about wheels. He mentions that he is getting letters from bike company lawyers for speaking his mind. But though he looks young he isn't and he has specialized in aerodynamics and if he says something is crap it is.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...1&&FORM=VDRVRV

This guys videos are significant to people who think that spending a lot of money for bikes and equipment gives you more speed. And I'm not saying that just because he showed that my Chinese wheels were some of the lowest drag wheels available.

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 1:22:06 AM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
There have been comments here recently of the electronic shift groups.

If you do not have a NEW frameset that is constructed entirely with electronic shifting on mind, the electronic group actually has more drag (less aero) than a standard manual group.

Hanging wires and batteries and the associated mounting paraphernalia for it is quite aerodynamically dirty. The new carbon fiber bikes specifically made for electronic shifting had wires and batteries internal to the frame.. Even the battery is inset into the seat tube. The battery remains in place and is charged with a small external connector.

I have seen at least three people here make comments about them using stepping motors. Stepping motors have to hold their position with power so that is simply not true. They use solenoids and ratchets which only require a power surge and then can remain in place powerless.

I was wrong about the stepper motor but they also don't use solenoids and ratchets. It is a simple DC motor. See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAW5DvLSkak&t=1380s

From 22 min on a guy disassembles a Di2 RD.

Lou

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 10:44:21 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 1:22:06 AM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
There have been comments here recently of the electronic shift groups.

If you do not have a NEW frameset that is constructed entirely with electronic shifting on mind, the electronic group actually has more drag (less aero) than a standard manual group.

Hanging wires and batteries and the associated mounting paraphernalia for it is quite aerodynamically dirty. The new carbon fiber bikes specifically made for electronic shifting had wires and batteries internal to the frame. Even the battery is inset into the seat tube. The battery remains in place and is charged with a small external connector.

I have seen at least three people here make comments about them using stepping motors. Stepping motors have to hold their position with power so that is simply not true. They use solenoids and ratchets which only require a power surge and then can remain in place powerless.

I was wrong about the stepper motor but they also don't use solenoids and ratchets. It is a simple DC motor. See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAW5DvLSkak&t=1380s

From 22 min on a guy disassembles a Di2 RD.

Lou

That sort of mechanism cannot be very reliable without quite a bit of current draw. That sort of surprises me since I could do a better job than that with my eyes closed. I didn't do a lot of minimum power design but enough to see that isn't a good means of accomplishing a job like that. Though I could probably come up with a better way than solenoids and a ratchet I think that it would be both more accurate than that and use less power.

Whenever you are forced to drive against springs you are saying that power isn't limited.

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 11:12:55 AM UTC-8, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 10:44:21 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 1:22:06 AM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
There have been comments here recently of the electronic shift groups..

If you do not have a NEW frameset that is constructed entirely with electronic shifting on mind, the electronic group actually has more drag (less aero) than a standard manual group.

Hanging wires and batteries and the associated mounting paraphernalia for it is quite aerodynamically dirty. The new carbon fiber bikes specifically made for electronic shifting had wires and batteries internal to the frame. Even the battery is inset into the seat tube. The battery remains in place and is charged with a small external connector.

I have seen at least three people here make comments about them using stepping motors. Stepping motors have to hold their position with power so that is simply not true. They use solenoids and ratchets which only require a power surge and then can remain in place powerless.

I was wrong about the stepper motor but they also don't use solenoids and ratchets. It is a simple DC motor. See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAW5DvLSkak&t=1380s

From 22 min on a guy disassembles a Di2 RD.

Lou

That sort of mechanism cannot be very reliable without quite a bit of current draw. That sort of surprises me since I could do a better job than that with my eyes closed. I didn't do a lot of minimum power design but enough to see that isn't a good means of accomplishing a job like that. Though I could probably come up with a better way than solenoids and a ratchet I think that it would be both more accurate than that and use less power.

Whenever you are forced to drive against springs you are saying that power isn't limited.

Just thinking about it I can think of a much better method than the solenoids as well. It even eliminates the ratchet. You would use the same electric motor but it would only be powered during a shift.

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 8:12:55 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 10:44:21 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 1:22:06 AM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
There have been comments here recently of the electronic shift groups..

If you do not have a NEW frameset that is constructed entirely with electronic shifting on mind, the electronic group actually has more drag (less aero) than a standard manual group.

Hanging wires and batteries and the associated mounting paraphernalia for it is quite aerodynamically dirty. The new carbon fiber bikes specifically made for electronic shifting had wires and batteries internal to the frame. Even the battery is inset into the seat tube. The battery remains in place and is charged with a small external connector.

I have seen at least three people here make comments about them using stepping motors. Stepping motors have to hold their position with power so that is simply not true. They use solenoids and ratchets which only require a power surge and then can remain in place powerless.

I was wrong about the stepper motor but they also don't use solenoids and ratchets. It is a simple DC motor. See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAW5DvLSkak&t=1380s

From 22 min on a guy disassembles a Di2 RD.

Lou

That sort of mechanism cannot be very reliable without quite a bit of current draw.

Looks like a pretty standard solution for positioning to me. Small motor, encoder and large gear ratio (small high rev motor).

That sort of surprises me since I could do a better job than that with my eyes closed.

Of coarse.

I didn't do a lot of minimum power design but enough to see that isn't a good means of accomplishing a job like that.

Power isn't the problem

Though I could probably come up with a better way than solenoids and a ratchet I think that it would be both more accurate than that and use less power.

Practice proofs that accuracy isn't the problem either.

Whenever you are forced to drive against springs you are saying that power isn't limited.

Again power isn't the problem.


Lou

On 29/11/19 7:30 am, wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 8:12:55 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 10:44:21 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 1:22:06 AM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
There have been comments here recently of the electronic shift groups.

If you do not have a NEW frameset that is constructed entirely with electronic shifting on mind, the electronic group actually has more drag (less aero) than a standard manual group.

Hanging wires and batteries and the associated mounting paraphernalia for it is quite aerodynamically dirty. The new carbon fiber bikes specifically made for electronic shifting had wires and batteries internal to the frame. Even the battery is inset into the seat tube. The battery remains in place and is charged with a small external connector.

I have seen at least three people here make comments about them using stepping motors. Stepping motors have to hold their position with power so that is simply not true. They use solenoids and ratchets which only require a power surge and then can remain in place powerless.

I was wrong about the stepper motor but they also don't use solenoids and ratchets. It is a simple DC motor. See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAW5DvLSkak&t=1380s

From 22 min on a guy disassembles a Di2 RD.

Lou

That sort of mechanism cannot be very reliable without quite a bit of current draw.

Looks like a pretty standard solution for positioning to me. Small motor, encoder and large gear ratio (small high rev motor).

That sort of surprises me since I could do a better job than that with my eyes closed.

Of coarse.

I didn't do a lot of minimum power design but enough to see that isn't a good means of accomplishing a job like that.

Power isn't the problem

Though I could probably come up with a better way than solenoids and a ratchet I think that it would be both more accurate than that and use less power.

Practice proofs that accuracy isn't the problem either.

Whenever you are forced to drive against springs you are saying that power isn't limited.

Again power isn't the problem.


Agree. It looked perhaps like the motor had a worm gear on the output
shaft? Also mentioned here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_gear-shifting_system#Implementation

Once it has moved to the new location it doesn't require energy to hold
that position.


--
JS

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 1:55:56 PM UTC-8, James wrote:
On 29/11/19 7:30 am, wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 8:12:55 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 10:44:21 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 1:22:06 AM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
There have been comments here recently of the electronic shift groups.

If you do not have a NEW frameset that is constructed entirely with electronic shifting on mind, the electronic group actually has more drag (less aero) than a standard manual group.

Hanging wires and batteries and the associated mounting paraphernalia for it is quite aerodynamically dirty. The new carbon fiber bikes specifically made for electronic shifting had wires and batteries internal to the frame. Even the battery is inset into the seat tube. The battery remains in place and is charged with a small external connector.

I have seen at least three people here make comments about them using stepping motors. Stepping motors have to hold their position with power so that is simply not true. They use solenoids and ratchets which only require a power surge and then can remain in place powerless.

I was wrong about the stepper motor but they also don't use solenoids and ratchets. It is a simple DC motor. See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAW5DvLSkak&t=1380s

From 22 min on a guy disassembles a Di2 RD.

Lou

That sort of mechanism cannot be very reliable without quite a bit of current draw.

Looks like a pretty standard solution for positioning to me. Small motor, encoder and large gear ratio (small high rev motor).

That sort of surprises me since I could do a better job than that with my eyes closed.

Of coarse.

I didn't do a lot of minimum power design but enough to see that isn't a good means of accomplishing a job like that.

Power isn't the problem

Though I could probably come up with a better way than solenoids and a ratchet I think that it would be both more accurate than that and use less power.

Practice proofs that accuracy isn't the problem either.

Whenever you are forced to drive against springs you are saying that power isn't limited.

Again power isn't the problem.


Agree. It looked perhaps like the motor had a worm gear on the output
shaft? Also mentioned here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_gear-shifting_system#Implementation

Once it has moved to the new location it doesn't require energy to hold
that position.


--
JS


I agree that a worm screw would be a better idea, but remember that this is in a vibration prone device and worm screws will move under those conditions especially if they are working against springs.

I thought of a way to handle it pretty easily though I certainly wouldn't outline it since it is patentable.

On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 12:30:39 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 8:12:55 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 10:44:21 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 1:22:06 AM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
There have been comments here recently of the electronic shift groups.

If you do not have a NEW frameset that is constructed entirely with electronic shifting on mind, the electronic group actually has more drag (less aero) than a standard manual group.

Hanging wires and batteries and the associated mounting paraphernalia for it is quite aerodynamically dirty. The new carbon fiber bikes specifically made for electronic shifting had wires and batteries internal to the frame. Even the battery is inset into the seat tube. The battery remains in place and is charged with a small external connector.

I have seen at least three people here make comments about them using stepping motors. Stepping motors have to hold their position with power so that is simply not true. They use solenoids and ratchets which only require a power surge and then can remain in place powerless.

I was wrong about the stepper motor but they also don't use solenoids and ratchets. It is a simple DC motor. See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAW5DvLSkak&t=1380s

From 22 min on a guy disassembles a Di2 RD.

Lou

That sort of mechanism cannot be very reliable without quite a bit of current draw.

Looks like a pretty standard solution for positioning to me. Small motor, encoder and large gear ratio (small high rev motor).

That sort of surprises me since I could do a better job than that with my eyes closed.

Of coarse.

I didn't do a lot of minimum power design but enough to see that isn't a good means of accomplishing a job like that.

Power isn't the problem

Though I could probably come up with a better way than solenoids and a ratchet I think that it would be both more accurate than that and use less power.

Practice proofs that accuracy isn't the problem either.

Whenever you are forced to drive against springs you are saying that power isn't limited.

Again power isn't the problem.


Lou

Power is a problem whether you think so or not. I've already seen two failures from supposedly totally recharged batteries and I only know one guy that owns a set and only a couple of young guys that ride on the same routes I do.

On 11/29/2019 6:33 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 1:55:56 PM UTC-8, James wrote:
On 29/11/19 7:30 am, wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 8:12:55 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 10:44:21 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 1:22:06 AM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
There have been comments here recently of the electronic shift groups.

If you do not have a NEW frameset that is constructed entirely with electronic shifting on mind, the electronic group actually has more drag (less aero) than a standard manual group.

Hanging wires and batteries and the associated mounting paraphernalia for it is quite aerodynamically dirty. The new carbon fiber bikes specifically made for electronic shifting had wires and batteries internal to the frame. Even the battery is inset into the seat tube. The battery remains in place and is charged with a small external connector.

I have seen at least three people here make comments about them using stepping motors. Stepping motors have to hold their position with power so that is simply not true. They use solenoids and ratchets which only require a power surge and then can remain in place powerless.

I was wrong about the stepper motor but they also don't use solenoids and ratchets. It is a simple DC motor. See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAW5DvLSkak&t=1380s

From 22 min on a guy disassembles a Di2 RD.

Lou

That sort of mechanism cannot be very reliable without quite a bit of current draw.

Looks like a pretty standard solution for positioning to me. Small motor, encoder and large gear ratio (small high rev motor).

That sort of surprises me since I could do a better job than that with my eyes closed.

Of coarse.

I didn't do a lot of minimum power design but enough to see that isn't a good means of accomplishing a job like that.

Power isn't the problem

Though I could probably come up with a better way than solenoids and a ratchet I think that it would be both more accurate than that and use less power.

Practice proofs that accuracy isn't the problem either.

Whenever you are forced to drive against springs you are saying that power isn't limited.

Again power isn't the problem.


Agree. It looked perhaps like the motor had a worm gear on the output
shaft? Also mentioned here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_gear-shifting_system#Implementation

Once it has moved to the new location it doesn't require energy to hold
that position.


--
JS


I agree that a worm screw would be a better idea, but remember that this is in a vibration prone device and worm screws will move under those conditions especially if they are working against springs.

I thought of a way to handle it pretty easily though I certainly wouldn't outline it since it is patentable.


Review the original Mavic Mektronic design. Likely expired
patents by now and quite clever. With today's manufacturing
materials and techniques and electronics, could be great.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971