Zerode's G1 downhill bike first appeared in 2010, and the refined G2 version was one of the first to bring a super slack 62.5º head angle to production. It doesn't look like the Taniwha has missed the contemporary geometry boat, with a 65º head angle, a 74.5º seat angle, and with chainstays tucked in tight, at 430mm. The 445mm reach for the large frame isn't huge, but the XL jumps to a roomy 475mm. Medium and large frames will be the first out of the mold, landing around July-
ish, with an XL and maybe a small size following shortly afterwards.
Gearbox FactsThe Taniwha's carbon frame is molded to bolt directly to the aluminum housing of its 12-speed Pinion transmission. The constant-mesh type gearbox promises years between service and, unlike a chain-drive transmission, the Pinion's matched gearsets make it possible to deliver equal steps between shifts, and a massive, 600% spread between low and high selections.
Pinion also make an 18-speed version of their gearbox, but Rob Metz upholds that it isn't necessary for AM/enduro, and stated that it also would add an extra 350 grams. Interesting to note, that Zerode have gone with a standard chain over the belt-drive found on other gearbox bikes like the
Cavalerie Anakin and the Nicolai ION-GPI.
A derailleur-style chain tensioner is installed behind the chainring to compensate for chain growth from the suspension. No gears at the rear means a lower unsprung mass for better suspension response, ensures a perfect chain line, and makes it possible to build a zero-dish rear wheel to boot.
Taniwha: Harbinger of death for the dérailleur!
Spewin'
Also, please let this be a massive commercial success. Firstly to reward this guy for his vision and hard work and secondly to put a rocket up the @r$e of all the big bike manufacturers to get them investing R&D in gearbox bikes.
1x11 is better, but the Hammerschmidt, for longer travel bikes, is a better solution than a front derailleur.
I still think that as much love as they get gearboxes won't sell well.
I'm going to learn to adapt to it full time, as I'll be putting in an order for this once publicly available
Not sure if theirs is as good as the X0 but don't knock it until you try it. It's the only reason I still ride a sram drivetrain.
I've said this about 100 times in other threads, it's an electric Pinon that I want, with the battery safely tucked away in the transmission housing, & a wireless shifter to make gear changes.
I'm talking about having, instead of a two cables rotating a cam shaft, instead connect that shaft to a servo motor, & provide space in the enclosure for the battery( pinion.eu/en/products/technology has an awesome interactive tear-away of how these transmissions function, just scroll down.)
Then you add a wireless transceiver the control circuit, & connect to that with a similar (though hopefully sleeker)version of the shifter Microshift showed off here: www.pinkbike.com/news/microshifts-11spd-electric-drivetrain-taipei-show-2016.html
Wham bam. bolt transmission to bike. charge battery. mount shifter. go ride your bike.
The reason you aren't seeing an obvious part on the other shaft for changing gears is because the cam is hidden inside of it.
edit: actually, if you look closely, theres a piece inside the shaft that looks like a small hole, with 4 arms around it. that's the cam for gear changes.
that means 38 people are dumb
If we're playing the lookey likey game, its basically a nukeproof mega with a gearbox.
Thats my 'pinion
(ba dum tss)
Road cycling is the F1 of our sport. Boring, over hyped and full of pansies.
Still. F1 sucks.
Let me start off by saying; Hell Yea!! A solid gearbox design housed in a clean frame. Gripshift aside, I’m in love. And I’m sad, because I don’t think it will last very long in our industry…
Every large, successful company is based on the capitalist idea of making a good product that requires service or replacement. This commands a consumer who has purchased a particular product to become a repeat customer, and demands brand loyalty.
Consider how much money you have spent in the past few years on a small thing, like chains. $30? $50? $200? Multiply that by the millions of riders out there, and realize what percentage of that is lining corporate pockets. They are selling you an inherently flawed design that requires you to keep giving them money. Bread and Butter.
What happens if a Great design, like this sexy Zerode, actually gains steam? It has extremely long service intervals, requires very few (external) parts, and is well protected from incidental damage. It eliminates the need for you to be in your bike shop or online every few months, or after a crash, buying products from the big Red or Blue companies.
Our Red and Blue friends will start losing sales, not a lot at first. But eventually this Great product will become more than a blip on the radar, and the threat to their profits will continue to grow until one of the big, successful companies “makes him an offer he can’t refuse”, and the great product disappears in favor of the profitable one.
See where I’m going with this?
We need to support the ever-living shit out of this company. With the help of free media (Thank You, Pinkbike) we can stand up to our external drivetrain overlords, and win.
so I hope it works out, gearboxes should be better, people complaining about weight need to think about all the advantages over carrying around an extra 500grams or however much it is, better suspension, reliability, quiet, 100% strait chain all the time=lessfriction, etc, and getting that mass off the rear wheel should mean better performance and reliability all the time. I have been on my new knolly endorphin since December and I bouht that frame expecting it to last me at least 3 years, I really do hope when it's time for a new frame gearboxes are becoming the norm. knolly with gearbox's imagin that!!!!
Compared to Horst link and short-link designs they all have various problems with either bobbing under power or stiffening up under braking.
There is literally no good reason not to make this bike an fsr. Now that the fsr patent is up I really dont get why anyone would make a faux bar any more. Single pivots with linkages are cool, I ride one myself. But why go to all the effort of extending the linkage out to the rear wheel, but then not attaching the brake to it? It blows my mind.
Other than that, I think this bike is possibly the greatest thing to happen to mtb in years.
I 'm not saying I'm a better bike designer than Rob Metz either. I'm saying I don't understand why he didn't take advantage of the fsr patents being up, in order to design a bike that works better under braking. He probably has a reason. I'd like to know what it is. Durability perhaps? Something to do with keeping the pedal feedback traits of the frame neutral? Saying "he's faster than you, so shut up" is just retarded.
any of them?
The amount of mid stroke support has absolutely nothing to do with whether its an fsr or a single pivot. You can make an fsr with no mid stroke support, you could make one with so much support it explodes your shock. The exact same is true for sp's. Same is true for stiffness. As I said before, all the things you mention are down to the skill of the designer (lever rates, wall thicknesses etc) not the layout of the frame.
Who is "we" by the way?
There are ways the single pivots perform better, and there are ways the split pivots and FSR's perform better. However there is one trait all the sp's share, and all the split pivots and fsr's do much better at avoiding (to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the design)
Every single sp (with the caliper on the swingarm) gets much wilder on the back end when braking hard in rough terrain. Its got very little to do with the shock settings. Shock settings will affect how quickly the back end recovers sure, but moving the caliper off the swingarm will reduce the problem even happening in the first place. It's got everything to do with the fact that when you attach a brake caliper to the swing arm, the swingarms movement is hindered by the fact that it is not only trying to go up and down over bumps, its also trying to stop a wheel from rotating. Moving the caliper of of the main swingarm isolates it from this affect. Where it is moved to has a huge effect on how well it is isolated. A crap design could even magnify the effect. However, apart from pyga's there are very few crap designs out there.I really don't get why people get so confused about this, its not rocket science...
And I'm not saying single pivots suck, or you cant ride single pivots on these rougher trails. You can, and I do. However when I do, I notice that the back end can get a lot more out of shape when you are hard on the brakes. As I asked waaaaay earlier in the conversation, what is the point in not putting the brake on the linkage rather than the swingarm, when the linkage is already out there by the rear dropout just waiting to have the brake bolted to it?
That is a trail we normally ride it is over 4 miles and 90% looks like that. I may just be used to it. If you get a chance ride a Megatrail it can do it all very well.
I can also think of a number of world class riders who have had great success on fsr's, so again, the frame layout really has very little to do with how fast the bike can go. The only thing we can know for certain, is that bikes with the brake caliper on the swingarm (ie most single pivots) suffer from more brake feedback than bikes with the brake isolated from the swingarm (eg all fsr's) and therefor cant keep the rear tyre as planted to the floor, when on the brakes.
In a big full-stop working to do as much braking as possible with the front wheel can minimize the lost traction in the rear- the slackening bike will let you load the front end more. Otherwise yeah, that's where single pivots fall down compared to more sophisticated designs.
Personally, i see it as just part of the personality of the bike. There are much bigger compromises frequently made on bikes, but they're usually not so easy to predict and look for as the single pivot = inferior braking grip issue. Some trails its a big issue, but often the problem is the rider is riding their brakes. Sometimes do it myself.
I completely agree. As I tried to make clear a few posts back, when I said this:
"When you attach a brake caliper to the swing arm, the swing arms movement is hindered....Moving the caliper off of the main swing arm isolates it from this affect. Where it is moved to has a huge effect on how well it is isolated. A crap design could even magnify the effect. However, apart from pyga's there are very few crap designs out there."
I would never suggest that the caliper was just bolted to the swing arm without any further thought going into the design.
Given that you seem to understand how this all works, I don't really understand why you made this point:
" A quick look at the linkage suggests Rob Metz is after a roughly pedalling neutral and braking neutral (i.e. 100% AS and 100% AR) response from this bike"
You have pointed out yourself that as a single pivot, this bike will be anything but "braking neutral" then go on to say that he was going for a braking neutral design. I'm confused...
I want to make clear at this point that I am not trying to say that 100% AR (geometry neutral under braking) is the best. A lot of riders think a somewhat lower AR and the slightly extensive tendency that follows from it works better in most circumstances. Antonio Osuna, who has conducted experimental simulations on this, maintains that traction under braking is better served by a lowish AR strategy - see linkagedesign.blogspot.com.es/2014/06/brake-squat-traction-wm.html . He maintains that a high AR strategy gives rise to sharper variations in force at the rear contact patch increasing the tendency for grip to suddenly let go while braking. Interestingly, the shape of the AR curve and not just the level of AR has an impact on the effective wheel rate under braking - see www.i-tracksuspension.com/suspensiontheory2.html . A rising AR curve over the range of travel might have the traction benefits of a lower AR bike when braking over smaller irregular terrain while being fairly geometry neutral even when braking over big stuff, which granted will only be necessary in the most extreme circumstances.
Even after careful consideration designers will seek to realise different suspension qualities with their bikes. The mention of Yeti above was meant to be illustrative. The SB5, for example, has a very flat AR curve at around 100% AR across the travel range, like this bike (allowing judgement by eye of the Taniwha mightn't be entirely accurate). It will exhibit quite similar braking characteristics to this bike too. That is something that is a given based on the AR curve itself and the fact that the Yeti formally has a floating brake (the rear triangle floating on two short links) is not a point of difference here.
That doesn't mean that one wouldn't prefer the Yeti, most of the time, to a standard single pivot with 100% AR. The Yeti manages chain growth in a much more sophisticated way allowing 100% AS over the crucial range of travel where pedalling is likely to occur, i.e. the pedalling zone, while being able to rapidly reduce AS deeper into travel mitigating chain growth to some extent and with it pedal feedback and excessive interference of chain tension in the operation of the suspension. So if you ride a Yeti you get a bike that exhibits great geometry stability under both acceleration and deceleration but whose rider must be sparing with the brakes and have certain skills to move body weight around to maximise traction in this situation. I think the Taniwha by its use of a gearbox and large front cog and small rear cog may well be able to mitigate the chain growth that so often interferes with and hinders the intended operation of the suspension of high AS single pivots i.e. by reducing bump compliance and consequently adversely affecting traction when pedalling through rough terrain. The Taniwha might end up feeling more like a Yeti, in some important respects, than other kinematically similar single pivots. I certainly hope it does.
pinion.eu/en/5-years-guarantee
www.bikeradar.com/mtb/news/article/nicolai-ion-gpi-the-gearbox-mtb-of-the-future-46472
3 months to sell off and buy some new bits to built this beauty up
30ish might not be that far off. I would guess 30 to 34ish depending on the build kit and the quality of the carbon used (e.g. comparable to Nomad C vs CC).
Can't wait to hear more about the bike, though! I bet it descends and corners like a dream, but I'm sure you'll feel a little extra weight climbing.
Pinion gearboxes range from 2200g/4.85lbs to 2700g/5.95 lbs, but a gearbox also negates the need for a cassette. You'll still need a shifter, chainring, rear cog, and some sort of chain tension device to allow for chain growth as the suspension compresses. Lets assume the chain tension device weighs half as much as a rear derailleur. So if your cassette weighs 350g and your derailleir is 300g, then you save 350g + 150g or 500g and add 2200-2700g for the gearbox. You can probably also save a little weight by using a smaller chain ring, but you're not entirely eliminating the rear cassette because you still need one small cog so I think it mostly evens out in that regard. That means you're looking at adding 1700g/3.75lbs to 2200g/4.85lbs to your build kit by switching to a gearbox drivetrain.
Obviously this is a very rough estimate. I do think 30ish is probably on the lower end of what we can expect, though, considering a top spec Nomad CC with carbon rims weighs around 26 lbs. But maybe if you neg prop me enough it'll make the bike lighter.
Can you run an oval ring on this rig with that chain tensioner?
Also, does the chainring have a special interface to fit on the Pinion?
The front center must weigh more than a conventional bike I guess? I'm curious how it affects handling.
Keep it up Zerode!
PS - will you guys have the bike at Sea Otter?
I am still riding my Keewee Cromo 8 that Rob designed and built in the late 90s. Its still an awesome bike.
www.nicolai-bicycles.com/shop/index.php/bike/ion-gpi-pro.html
How does the system efficiency compare ? What is the weight ? C'mon bro
www.cyclingabout.com/pinion-18s-gearbox-the-future-for-bike-touring
P1.12 = 2350g
Cassette = 400gr
Rear Derailleur = 300g
BB = 120g
or is this too much geekdom?
----------------------------------------------
cranks xtr 32t ............616g
bb xtr .........................60g
XG-1199 Cassette ..... 268g
xtr rear Derailleur .......226g
------------------------------------------------
weight penalty ........... 1180g (2.6 pounds)
cranks xt 36-26t .......718g
bb xt .........................82g
XT-11-42 cassette .... 447g
xt rear derailleur .......275g
xt front derailleur .......136g
xt front shifter ...........132g
------------------------------------------------
weight penalty ........... 560g (1.2 pounds)
Pinion has 2 cables so I didn't count fr. derr cable.
It could also be said that a simple ss rear hub would be lighter than a standard rear hub and a dishless wheel would be lighter at the same strength. Let's speculate that would throw in another 200g.
"No it's not his face, it's totally different... Look... I drew a mustache on it.. see!"
2) Even it if does get taken out, it still has less risk of mashing your spokes and destroying your rear wheel.
3) After reading about this awesome, innovative new bike that's the first thing you comment on???