Shimano is working on a bicycle gearbox

[Braintax]

This is quite an interesting bit of bicycle tech news.

https://www.bikeradar.com/news/shimano-gearbox/

Having tried an Alfine Di2 hub gear with automatic shifting, things can only get better.

[sjg]

Interesting. I've been intrigued by the Pinion ones but not enough to spend serious money on a special frame as well as the gearbox itself.

[SamR380]

Didn't Suntour make a gearbox about 20 years ago? I guess with carbon frames and hydroforming the integration of big components is easier to manage these days.

[Braintax]

Not sure on that but most of us probably remember the Honda gearbox on its RN-01 downhill bike which was essentially a cassette/derailleur in a box — and what a neat idea it was.

[Caddyshack]

I have the Suntour 9 speed sequential in my e bike, it is a clever bit of kit and works really well. I think they are about £1500 as a standalone item. A Bloke in Germany did a rebuild video.

[Court_S]

That's potentially quite an interesting development...

In the MTB world, SRAM have really stolen a march on Shimano with their 11 and 12 speed drivetrains utilising their XD driver. Shimano were still pushing the front mech, when massive parts of the market, including OE, adopted 1x drivetrains which game more freedom of design etc.

If this is done well, it could be their chance to claw some of that advantage back.

[2gins]

Or it could be a defensive move to hold others out of the sector, to protect its dominant derailleur market position. Probably the cost of maintaining IP and disclosing some know how is more preferable to allowing SRAM to steal a march.

TBH I know nothing about cycle gearboxes, but do work in tech / engineering and know that patents are not always filed with the intention of actually making something but often to 'checkmate' an opponent.

[louiebaby]

I looked at the Pinion gearboxes a while ago, and they looked pretty neat.

I love the idea for something like the Tour Divide or similar, but the big problem remains that if it breaks, you're buggered.

When someone builds a gearbox that fits in a normal BB shell, so it can easily be put in any frame, they'll do quite well out of it.

I love the Alfine hub on my commuter for cleaning convenience vs a derailleur, but if something goes wrong I'm never more than 7 miles from home.

[2gins]

I kind of agree with that, the main appeal of cycles at least as far as the general population are concerned is 'cheap and easy'. Soon as you start adding complex mech you undermine one of the primary reasons for cycling. At present we're still talking about fun toys for specialists.

[anonymous-user]

Didn’t Honda make one in the 90s? The freewheel was on the BB in a special box so the chain was always turning if the rear wheel was turning but the rider could change gears. Honda should have used an XC bike as a base not a DH bike as the need for rear wheel travel buggered up the chain line and caused problems....

....but hell yeah, that’s rad!

[nickfrog]

louiebaby said:

When someone builds a gearbox that fits in a normal BB shell, so it can easily be put in any frame, they'll do quite well out of it.

.

Yes that would be great but it's never going to happen in the current BB sizes. It probably needs to be 4 times as big, maybe more.