caioxmag

And yes, I'm a big fan of gearboxes and my dream bike is a Nicolai Ion 20 Pinion, but it is too damn expensive and I wouldn't find it easily in Brazil. I currently own a Mondraker Summum 2011 (bought second-hand) which I really like.

It's ridiculous how people start riding bikes and suddenly become mechanical engineers... Laymen making assumptions on design engineering, materials and so on. I am a professional design engineer on electronics and automation, not mechanical engineering. I will not be so naive to make assumptions on mechanical engineering challenges... But one thing I know for a fact is that innovation will only happen when there is a sizable market to pay for it. This has not yet been the case for bicycle gearboxes, and this is the reason why we haven't seen much innovation on this field. It takes several design iterations and years of field testing for the gearbox to evolve to the level we've seen the traditional drivetrain evolve in the last few years. Small/medium companies with a limited consumer base will not have enough money/funding to pay for several design iterations (development costs). Also, with a limited number of companies trying new concepts the whole idea will not evolve fast. One major objection for the gearbox is that we would have to revise most industry standards and introduce several new ones, such as standard frame housings to install the gearbox into. This is much more complicated than different wheel sizes and so on. This is why, IMHO, the gearbox hasn't been able to get a decent market share yet.