Video: The Ochain Chainring Spider Promises Chainless Performance
PRESS RELEASE: Ochain.bike
Ochain is a new brand born to let you experience new riding possibilities. We want you to have chainless feeling on your bike... With your chain on.
Ochain with E-thirteen direct mount setup
 | When everyting started it was September 2014, I was staring at the monitor, watching the UCI WorldCup in Hafjell, just like a typical downhill rider and fan. When Mulally had his incredible chainless ride, my inner nerd and engineer started to ruminate “What sort of advantage could come from this situation for the rider or for his bike?” One year later, nearly the same thing happened again in front of me, with Aaron Gwin winning in Leogang: Chainless. |
Ochain is an active spider, fully mechanical and fitting most cranksets on the market thanks to the use of the most commonly used direct mount chainring standards.
Ochain automatically isolates the transmission from suspension when needed, resulting in the absence of pedal kickback. This allows smoother and comfortable riding, great braking performance, tyre and rim preservation and much more. Ochain engages the chainring steadily while pedaling, thus making the transmission similar to the standard one.
| Compromise must be expected as contemporary mountain bikes are inevitably a byproduct: pedal kickback is one of the consequences, affecting rear suspension performance, despite the best engineers’ efforts. Considering the setup possibilities, there is no “right” or “wrong”, but the need for a real understanding of what makes things flow at their best. |
Ochain has been developed with the help of UCI World Cup downhill riders like Loris Revelli and Simone Medici and is currently being tested by some others big names in mtb, but we can't reveal who they are...
Use and performance:
Should you just throw out of the window your 120 points of engagement hub? Absolutely not, on the contrary. With Ochain you can decide how many degrees (by replacing our elastomers) always maintaining a smooth and silent pedal engagement.
Ochain is a new component for mtb setups. One can decide whether to use it in its different configurations or not; we are eager to see how the mtb world will receive it.
Ochain can be used from your downhill machine to your low travel trail bike, from enduro race bike to XC race full bike. See our first on-field suggestions in the chart below:
Compatibility:
Ochain is located in a formerly unoccupied area of the bike where there isn't tons of space available. We contrived to reduce the component size in order to fit most standard mtb frames, like the biggest carbon frames with a BB30 pressfit standard. As for a downhill chainguide, there are some products that have to be adjusted in order to be used with Ochain.
Ochain is 52mm chainline Boost only (we are working on superboost standard) and requires a bdc 104 chainring standard. Fit from 30t to 36t chainrings on market.
Sram, Raceface, Ethirteen and Ingrid are available for both models.We are working to add other standards, available soon on our webstore.
Prices and availability:
• Ochain Nero is offered at 298€ (including Titanium Nuts +VAT)
• We are offering our customers the opportunity to purchase Ochain as well as Ochain Titanium Nut and Carbon-Ti chainrings as a ready-to-ride kit. Discover all versions on “ochain.bike/product”.
• Ochain should have been available on our website in Europe starting from March 2020, but unfortunaly this new situation of the coronavirus has forced us to temporarily stop production. We plan to reopen the store from June 2020. Pre-orders available on our webshop .
More info about Ochain and where to buy:
Ochain shop: www.ochain.bike/ochain-products
Ochain information: www.ochain.bike/technical-support
• Ochain Nero is offered at 298€ (including Titanium Nuts +VAT)
• We are offering our customers the opportunity to purchase Ochain as well as Ochain Titanium Nut and Carbon-Ti chainrings as a ready-to-ride kit. Discover all versions on “ochain.bike/product”.
• Ochain should have been available on our website in Europe starting from March 2020, but unfortunaly this new situation of the coronavirus has forced us to temporarily stop production. We plan to reopen the store from June 2020. Pre-orders available on our webshop .
More info about Ochain and where to buy:
Ochain shop: www.ochain.bike/ochain-products
Ochain information: www.ochain.bike/technical-support
Ochain kit with Titanium nuts and Carbon-Ti chainring
If this newsletter has made you willing to ride your mtb in a chainless version, we suggest you should make a quick test: remove your chain!
Must Read This Week
279 Comments
"Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-chainless"
David Bowie
Loaded like an O-Chain
Flyin' like an airplane
Feelin' like a space brain
One more time tonight
-Boost Axle Rose
You say...
I talk so all the time...
Tso... chain.
Hot Tub Time Machine.
@greener1:
It should be noted, that while Clapton is known for it, it was not Clapton's song. He licensed it from JJ Cale, as well as other songs: After the Midnight, Everything will be alright, They call me the breeze. Clapton made it famous though, as JJ Cale was never long for the spotlight.
Quoted in an interview he was asked does it ever make him upset that Clapton is famous and rich in part from a lot of his songs. Cale responded: "I make our pretty damn good from the royalty checks and can still go to the grocery store without the paparazzi."
Im a huge fan of JJ Cale, he's got some cool licks to him and in part inspired me to learn guitar. Just a little rock and roll trivia for ya all.
More to the point, "she don't lie..ochain" comment is gold.
"IIIIIIIIIII'mmm gooooooing through chainnnnsssses"
Eric Clapton, another similar tune is with ozzy:
black sabbath - sweet leaf
Hoah boy that's rough.
Having said all of that, please hear me when I say That Video Sucks and it's hurting your case.
If you replaced my XT hub with an Industry Nine Hydra, you'd have only 0.5degrees between POEs, which results in a lot less variation than with the XT hub. Now add this O-Chain device and suddenly you have consistent forgiveness. The hub is consistently engaging right away and the O-Chain has a consistent amount of travel before engaging. If we imagine the rotation on the O-Chain is 10 degrees, then we've recreated the maximum forgiveness in the XT hub, but without any chance of it being less than 10 degrees.
I'm not saying I care. I'm perfectly happy with my reliable old XT hub. I'm just saying that I could see why, if this mattered to someone, a high POE hub plus this device would be better than a low-POE hub without this device.
Gentlemen, you're both correct! One addition to Fix-the-Spade's thinking, though: the rider will not initiate pedaling during a kickback event, as it would be a big impact, so the Ochain device would be at its neutral position when the rider initiates pedaling. This means Ochain with a fast engaging hub produces a more predictable engagement. Whether this is better than simply having faster engagement - possibly at the expense of occasional, minor kickback - is an open question ... or just saving money, weight, and complexity by replacing the Ochain with a hub with slow engagement and dealing with the inconsistency of the rotation prior to engagement.
What people does not seem to understand is that when rolling, the travel-induced rotation of the rear hub has to exceed the rotational velocity difference between the freehub and the hub. I did some quick maths and a 100mm bump at only 10km/h (heavy hit/slow speed = worst case scenario) wil generate a rotatonal velocity almost 5 times smaller than the allready rolling freehub (this is even with the assumption of a 0 degree engagement hub). Ergo, the rotation induced from the travel will never get fast enough to exceed the speed difference between the hub and freehub. IT DOES NOT WORK
When pedaling on rough ground, the elastomer is fully compressed anyway, and the system behaves as if it was not there.
Super heavy hits with close to zero speed (bender sender), could benefit from this. Or if you prefer diving into rock guardens with your rear wheel locked.
i.imgur.com/h7vFb9k.jpg
During testing we noticed that the cranks under impact want to rotate in the same direction as pedaling, due to the greater load given by the pedal in the forward position.
In this case you have to add an extra speed to the chain and the result is pedal kickback phenomena. It depends on riding style but we have seen that all our riders have experienced the same behavior.
there is another phenomenon related to the motions of the bike in the xy plane that adds extra speed to the chain, I am preparing a video to show it.
I hope I have been clear :-)
As someone else noted, you failed to account for the weight of the rider on the pedals in your Norco calculations. Unless your sight can ghost ride, that's a pretty big thing to leave out, no?
I have also done a chainless (mild) downhill run and was amazed at the smoothness, it really is awesome. I didn't make a graph, but you should still try it.
The phenomenon you are describing is not something I can relate to. Neither can the different testers in Pinkbikes Field tests the last couple of years. (Notice how the cranks stay almost surprisingly still during landing)
youtu.be/NMq2p12RkTk (2019 Pinkbike Field Test Huck to flat)
youtu.be/V1XYCVJt3VE (2020 Pinkbike Field Test Huck to flat)
For the sake of the argument, let's assume that this phenomenon persists; when landing from a drop, the cranks rotate. Why on earth is this not mentioned once on your website, your marketing or this press release? By not addressing my initial (data-driven) claims, you basically admitted that I am indeed correct about the scenario I was describing. It seems strange that your only expressed motivation behind the product is based entirely on the wrong premise.
I will, however, try to address your points:
"Seems to me that it depends upon the speed you’re going which influences the speed of the hub in relation to the free hub."
This is correct in some situations. Scenarios such as drops and huck-to-flats where the "speed of the frame travel" mostly correlates to the vertical height of the drop, and not the horizontal speed you're travelling, potential PK is very speed dependent. If you have close to zero forward speed and do a high enough drop, you will experience PK.
However, when you hit a "square edge bump" at speed, the "speed of the frame travel" directly (-ish) correlates to the forward speed, and the speed you are traveling at, cancels out of the equation, leaving only height of the bump and frame kinematics as variables that can influence potential PK.
Does this make sense?
With that out of the way, yes, it's similar to a low engagement hub. The difference: if a hub has, say, 10° engagement, the actual rotation to engage could be anywhere from 10° to 0°, with the average rotation to engagement being 5°. If Ochain works as promised - in the unlikely event coasting kickback even occurs - the rotation to engage should be consistent.
hamncheez: A high kickback bike taking a big hit at a very low speed is the situation that could produce coasting kickback.
jomacba: It will work ... if there's anything for it to work on. One thing it will definitely do is create a delay in drivetrain engagement, which could be more problematic than kickback (or the lack thereof). Removal of the lower pulley on a chainguide does not prevent kickback.
I will agree in the sense that this will create a delay in drivetrain engagement, which would ultimately be the tradeoff.
It will work on any bike that sees significant drive side chain growth.
Dont get me wrong here, I'm not advocating this product, as I believe that its subjective, I'm simply agreeing with the fact it will do what it's designed to do. Reality is pedal kickback is real, and given the circumstances it can be almost non existent, to more pronounced.
If you've seen the kickback simulations on Linkage software, this assumes zero forward motion and instantaneous drivetrain engagement. Add forward motion when coasting and kickback mostly disappears. Add a delay in hub engagement and it fully disappears on most bikes, most of the time. The opportunity for Ochain to do anything at all is limited, let alone the opportunity to do anything of significance.
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't part of the suspension performance improvement when riding chainless coming from the removal of the derailler spring tension - especially with clutch mechs? This system and 'ghost cogs' only solve the pedal kickback part of the issue - which at any speeds above walking and with non silly POE hubs I'm dubious the existence off about anyway...
I'll take your statement further and say that on many bikes, coasting kickback isn't a thing *at all*. On some bikes, in some circumstances, it's occasionally a minor thing.
Regarding the influence of the clutch:
1. Notice how there's a little movement before the clutch mechanism stops chain movement. On most bikes, this is enough to absorb small to medium impacts, which are most common. On some bikes, large hits will force the clutch to move.
2. Compare the breakaway energy required to move a derailleur clutch to the energy of an impact.
As you can see, the influence of the clutch is extremely small. Not literally zero, but close enough to not worry about it.
The physics of the situation simply don't support kickback being a significant factor, if at all. Nor the derailleur clutch.
When riding chainless, I notice two things:
1. It's so quiet! I don't hear the chain and I don't feel it through my feet as it slaps the frame.
2. I know I can't pedal my way out of a mistake, so I ride more carefully and smoothly. This definitely explains some of the effect - for me, at any rate.
Maybe one or both of these things is sufficient to explain the sensation of smoothness.
I've asked you in the past to discuss the physics of the situation and you haven't responded. I'm still interested in your response. I'll state it again, if you like: When a coasting rear wheel is "spooling out" chain faster than the elongation of the chainstay is "taking up" chain, how can kickback occur?
I'm sorry sir, but agree to disagree on this one.
Another possibility is the inertial force of the chain: when the wheel goes up, the chain wants to stay down. This is the same force that causes a derailleur without clutch to move and could have a similar effect on the Ochain device.
This is not exactly the reason for the Zerode designs. Bikes with high pivots and idlers are trying to simultaneously achieve their anti-squat goals (which are no different from current designs) with a more rearward axle path and/or less kickback. The kickback in question could be kickback while pedaling, which absolutely is a real issue, or kickback while coasting, which would be severe with such a high pivot, if not for the idler.
BUT
There is only a small amount of time when riding spent coasting.and when you do, there is only a few times when you also need your suspensions to be active.
Most of the time spent on the bike will be at lower speed, either pedaling or braking. Both of these situations creating kickback.
Removing the chain help fastening the rebound of the bike when braking. That improve greatly the rear wheel traction when needed the most.
I don't know how this "ochain" system works, or how much it improve anything, tho.
Coasting kickback CAN happen when coasting, it just takes a bike with extreme chainstay growth, certain combinations of sprockets, a severe impact, and essentially instantaneous drivetrain engagement. It's not common, but it CAN happen on some bikes! The next question is whether it's a *problem*, in the event it actually happens.
I am working on a video in order to explain better all.
See you soon. Peace and love. And watch out for the Coronavirus. It is an ugly beast.
There is nothing phenomena your device can do that a low-engagement hub can't do, except your device maintains a more predictable amount of rotation before engagement. If these effects were so important, they would already be accomplished by low-engagement hubs and people who switch to high-engagement hubs would notice a degradation of performance.
It is worrisome that you are claiming the existence of significant phenomena without even describing what they are, let alone the physics of how your device solves them.
I've looked at your charts:
www.pinkbike.com/photo/18291874
www.pinkbike.com/photo/18290456
These are typical of what's displayed by Linkage models, which is how I assume you generated them. These charts assume instantaneous drivetrain engagement and - most importantly - zero forward movement. They're only true if the rider drops straight out of the sky without any forward motion. You may have missed a crucial part of your calculations.
Please understand I do not want to be unkind to you, I'm simply trying to promote truth. There would be nothing to disagree about if you made modest claims that can be explained by physics, such as saying this device makes a small improvement on certain bikes. The problem is that your claims are exceeding what physics can explain.
If I've made an error in my calculations, please help me find it because it would be wonderful if you've created a product that will make bikes better. I truly would be happy to ride a better performing bike and to see a small business become successful.
Once again I will agree under many if not most circumstances you would generally be correct, however; As I previously stated, I have experienced this myself in testing to accrue real world data.
Generally most designs need to find a happy medium between anti squat and suspention performance. There is typically a tradeoff here.
In regards to Zerode, I was not referring to the high pivot, more to the use of the Alfine rear hub at the main pivot. The idea is to keep the gearing ratio the same between the main pivot and the rear axle in order direct any drive train induced forces through a more linear effect. This can allow for more consistant damping characteristics and allow a more accurate tune. That's the theory anyways from my understanding.
Kickback: When the rear wheel is locked, the kickback situation is essentially what's shown on Linkage (minus the rotation in the hub before it engages). You experience the full extent of the kickback. When the wheel is locked, kickback definitely can occur.
Brake squat / jack (same effect, opposite terms): Bikes typically range from about neutral (100% anti-rise, if you're using Linkage) to moderate brake jack (roughly 50% anti-rise in Linkage). Your Jedi and Flatline represent this range: roughly 100% for the Jedi and roughly 50% for the Flatline. The Flatline will have a lot more rise in the rear when you grab that handful of brake. A truly extreme example was the old Schwinn Straight 8: that thing had about -50% brake squat and when you grabbed the brake, it felt like someone kicked your butt!
If calculations don't reflect real-world observations, the calculations were incomplete. If my calculations are incomplete, please help me see the error. Don't casually dismiss things.
I'm sure you felt something. Are you absolutely sure it was kickback? Could it have been poor compliance due to an insufficiently rearward axle path? Could it have been a pressure spike in a damper piston that was too restrictive? Could it have been a very stiff tire casing? Did the sensation change when you used a hub with a different rate of engagement?
I'm not saying it's impossible you felt kickback, but I'd be surprised if you controlled for all realistic variables. That's how to gather real-world data.
@R-M-R: All good, but kickback is most noticeable when you are braking hard/skidding, and it is usually the moment when you drop your heels and push bike in the ground…
Watching the Ochain device move on video got me thinking: the Pinkbike huck-to-flat videos are a more extreme scenario, with a larger impact at slower speed. That's a worst case scenario for kickback, so if we're ever going to see kickback, we should see it on these videos.
I've been watching at 4K resolution on 0.25× playback and it does look like the upper run of chain is momentarily pulled tight on some bikes, but the chain quickly goes slack - if it was ever tight - and a slack chain can't cause kickback (other than inertial forces). This is in line with my expectations: modest kickback (if any) on some bikes, presumably when the hub's driver was lined up for rapid engagement. If you watch the cranks, there appears to be little to no rearward rotation, even in this worst case scenario of a huck to flat. Any rearward rotation may be due to the rider, since there are also cases where the cranks rotate *forward*, which would be impossible in the presence of kickback.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1XYCVJt3VE
@Guarana2th: Yes, when the rear wheel is locked, the kickback situation is essentially the full amount of what's shown on Linkage (minus the rotation in the hub before it engages). You experience the full extent of the kickback. When the wheel is locked, kickback definitely can occur. Solution: stop skidding!
The inertial effects of the chain are caused by severe impacts, so there's already a large force for your feet to deal with. The inertial effects of the chain may be a drop in a bucket, compared to the impact force. It's worth testing, of course; just saying I have a guess as to how it will turn out!
I re-did the maths.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQJSJwc3l5II4hueEdcqOioaxS2RQRmOyVLabaxXLrAkfZRLQZW7nagsXGJ6XbxPoKKUeWIi4sE_nQc/pubhtml
It seems actually possible to observe kickback at lower speeds. But It needs a really fast impact at really low speeds.
I don't have datas about shaft speeds for bikes going at those low speeds, so I can't say It happen in real life or not, but it's specific scenario that's not really common. For bike going at an average or high speeds, I have enough datas to think it is nearly impossible.
Huck-to-flat can't produce fast enough suspension action so you won't see it. big impact doesn't mean fast suspension.
Your wheel speed numbers are pretty good. I have data on shaft speeds and can tell you 4 m/s is extremely high, 3 m/s is about as high as most people experience, 2 m/s is a typical high-speed event, and 1 m/s is about where the shock enters the "high-speed" damping region.
My findings were that kickback is possible when using small cassette sprockets, even at realistic speeds, but only on bikes with high kickback and moderate to fast hub engagement.
Grazie mille in anticipo e buona fortuna per tutto... Con tutto il cuore a voi, amici lombardi.. Che strazio vedere la Lombardia messa così
The big question is: the cranks during impact stay horizontal? There is another movement caused by rider body that cause an extra rotation of the cranks? if yes, which movement does it take?
During testing we noticed that the cranks under impact want to rotate in the same direction as pedaling, due to the greater load given by the pedal in the forward position.
In this case you have to add an extra speed to the chain and the result is pedal kickback phenomena. It depends on riding style but we have seen that all our riders have experienced the same behavior.
there is another phenomenon related to the motions of the bike in the xy plane that adds extra speed to the chain, I am preparing a video to show it.
I hope I have been clear, you are a very attentive and prepared group I hope to find ourselves one day talking about these topics with a glass of beer after a day of riding :-)
A forward rotation of the cranks upon impact sounds plausible, as I assume the rider's weight lurches forward when the bike is momentarily slowed by the impact. This seems easy enough to measure and verify. If confirmed, it would exaggerate the kickback effect.
My concern remains that if these issues were true problems, riders would notice detrimental effects by changing from a low- to high-engagement hub, yet that does not seem to be a common complaint, nor does it seem to be a factor in high-level racing. It's possible the effects have simply been overlooked, yet you previously claimed your racer improved his times by 3 - 6 seconds over a 2:00 track, which is an enormous difference at that level of competition. It seems unlikely - though not impossible - such a huge effect would have gone unnoticed and unresolved by most racers for so long.
Thanks again for the replies and I look forward to more data and discussion.
1. Somewhere in this thread - or maybe it was in the forums, or maybe both - I already mentioned the inertial effects of the chain. This isn't the first time someone has thought of it. Steve wasn't the first, I wasn't the first - I'm sure someone thought of it a hundred years ago. Most aspects of bicycle physics have been known for a long time.
2. While I don't disagree with Steve - he's both tremendously clever *and* has outstanding critical thinking, so I doubt I'll ever strongly disagree with him - I wish he had done more to address the magnitude of kickback due to the chain bounce effect. It's really not much. His point is that it's an often overlooked variable and it's non-zero, but it's not huge. The force you feel in your feet due to supporting your body weight during an impact is so much larger that it's unlikely the possible addition of the chain bounce effect will even be felt, let alone cause enough of a detrimental effect to be worth worrying about.
I prefer instant engaging than some controled kickback.
did I ever realy experienced kickback ?
...but was sorely disappointed.
youtu.be/yMzyleT2FqY
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGaBU5cKluU
www.pinkbike.com/photo/17449411
Absolutely nobody:
OCHAIN: "We want you to have chainless feeling on your bike... With your chain on".
Absolutely nobody:
@badbadleroybrown : being a dick for no reason
Tell me more about thick skulls and your hurt feelings.
Anyone can take a shit in a bowl and sell it it to morons as chocolate mousse... and I'll keep clowning the idiots that make it and the idiots that buy it. Go have a wank and cry about it.
THIS ISN'T FOR YOU it's for people who want this, have you not realized that just because you don't want it doesn't mean nobody else does? That's the most self-centered idiotic thing i've ever heard, they're actually doing something while you're on your ass acting like you're better then everyone. Also: my hurt feelings? Is it even possible to read something like this: "go make a shitty product that nobody wants and get shitty feedback that you deserve, go have a cry about it and tell your mum" who the f*ck would take that as an insult, it's hilarious that you think that me explaining your idiocy to you is "hurt feelings" and not just annoyance with idiots on the internet. But i should probably back off at this point, you are american i really shouldn't be surprised
No worries though, you can come back and admit you were wrong with this product disappears from existence in another 12 months.
Still a piece of shit though, but you do you.
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