Eurobike 2012

[Kudoscycles]

Am still in the middle of looking at the new offerings from Eurobike 2012,bumped into most of the other UK sellers including Oxygen,Ebco,Hero,Green cycles. The German arms race to see who can sell the bike with the most technology is getting to be crazy.
Flecc,do you remember that we discussed a 2 speed hub with gearbox and motor combined so that you could move the peak operating torque down the rev range,this would mean you could use the lower gear to go up hills slower but with more power,the shift from low to high and visa-versa to be auto.Well,SRAM have released such a hub but one big problem,the power only kicks in at 4 kmh,even the salesman had to agree that defeated the object,I think back to the drawing board.
Ghost,Specialised have both released a pedelecs range,isn't that like the archbishop turning catholic. The Ghost bikes looked nice Bosch powered crank drives. The Specialised looked like a Bionx big diameter hub drive, Merida had some nice crank drive bikes. But none of these manufacturers were interested in the UK,in pedelecs terms we are considered third world!
My suppliers had some interesting ideas that are in prototype form that should be available spring next year.
Dave
Kudoscycles

 

[Oxygen Bicycles]

yeah, thanks for popping down Dave, was good to see you again and enjoy the show.

Andrew

 

[flecc]

Yes Dave, I did post about that SRAM motor hub and gear combined when it was announced. The major probkem for me was it's huge width, enabling only a single gear sprocket with built in freewheel. It's clearly intended to be used moped fashion, one very low rider gear to pedal off the mark and then the motor automatically doing everything after that with it's two gears, the rider unable to keep up with the one very low gear. Shopper and utility market only I think, so we still await a more practical implementation.

 

[Kudoscycles]

Fleck,sorry I did not make my posting clear. This SRAM 2 ger system is not designed for hill starts,the motor will not start until the bike is doing 4 kmh,that makes assisted hill starts impossibles. I am guessing that the whole mechanism cannot cope with standing start starts.
Dave
Kudoscycles

 

[flecc]

I did understand that Dave, hence my metioning the intended very low single rider gear which is SRAM's way of getting over that difficulty I suppose. I agree though, very unsatisfactory.