If you’ve ever wondered, no we’re not above theft for you, our lovely readers. Especially when it comes to something as exciting as this new gearbox from Pinion. We
spotted them at Eurobike a few weeks ago and it’s fair to say we were pretty excited about them. So when Falco from Pinion showed up on our doorstep with his pre-production bike, we felt we owed it to you. As soon as he turned his back for five minutes we hammered (or if Falco's reading this, lovingly fitted) the nearest set of pedals into his bike and legged it. Can you blame us?
Falco's Nicolai Helius with the pre-production Pinion gearbox. To say that this is a special bike would be an understatement.
Why a gearbox? Rear mechs are a flawed system, there’s a box of broken mechs sitting in the same garage we stole Falco’s bike from to prove that theory. These days they shift incredibly well, but they are always vulnerable to being ripped off, are open to the elements and put weight in awkward part of the bike. So over the years many people have tried to find a different system: Rohlhoff and Shimano make their incredibly intricate geared hubs, Honda put a mech in a box and Lahar mounted a geared hub in the middle of the frame. Not to mention a small legion of men in sheds with novel solutions.
One of the major advantages to a gearbox is the lack of weight at the rear axle - no cassette or rear derailleur required. Less unsprung weight means that the suspension can theoretically react faster to the terrain.None of these have really given enough of an improvement to really catch on though. Internal gear hubs tend to drag, Hondas had a complicated system of chains to drive the bike and the Lahar had both of these problems. And a common theme among all of them was the weight, they’re all relatively heavy.
This is why we’re so excited about the Pinion system. They have done something that now you see it seems obvious, but nobody has tried before – mounting the gears around the bottom bracket. Getting your head round the Pinion system is somewhat of a mindset change, gears have always been something you can bolt onto your bike, but with this they're part of the frame. It isn't overly complicated (on the outside, at least) and it seems competitive weight-wise.
The Pinion gearbox is noticeably more compact than any other gearbox design that we've seen. It almost goes unnoticed when looking at the bike from the drive side.What Pinion have behind them is engineering expertise – Christoph and Michael, the founders of Pinion, met while working at Porsche on projects like their double clutch gearbox. With that kind of background you can’t doubt they know a thing or two about gearboxes. They haven’t rushed either, this project has taken them more than five years to get to this stage and they’re still developing them. The version we tried was number 18, but there’s more tweaks coming before production.
Pinion P1.18 details:• 18 gears without an overlapping gear range
• Sequential shifting with 11.5% jumps
• 636% gear range
• Uses a twist shifter
• Total weight: 2.6kg (
including shifter, front and rear sprockets)
• MSRP: Helius AM frame w/ Pinion P1.18 gearbox - $3399 EUR
The gearbox's cogs are housed within a sealed aluminum housing and fully protected from the elements, making for a reliable and and nearly maintenance free system. Photos courtesy of www.mtb-news.deRiding the Pinion: So what did we manage to find out before Falco managed to catch us? Well, it works. It was a little strange using gripshift again, like some late-90s flashback, but the feel of the shifter was pretty nice - it’s very light and the indexing is crisp. We did notice that without a rear mech it was a touch unusual not to feel the feedback from chain moving on a cassette through your feet, but not in a bad way. There’s no noticeable drag anywhere in the system either, although that shouldn’t be surprising.
The twist shifter uses two cables to run through the gears, but the required effort was surprisingly lowThe eighteen gears were plenty, the range was fantastic and they felt nicely spaced out. Having all eighteen in one place made shifting over the range much simpler and this could be a big advantage over multiple chainrings. There’s no repetition of ratios and you can get to them in quick sequence.
Falco later explained (he did forgive us) that you need to learn a couple of things with the gearbox. You can’t always shift when you’ve got the power down, but he’s confident that’s just an adjustment to your riding style and after a few days on the bike it’s something you’d find natural. We did notice this pedalling, there seems to be a threshold to how much power you can put through the pedals and shift. If you’re just cruising along it’s not a problem, it's only when you put a bit of force into matters. When the pedals are in the vertical position there’s no pressure going through the gearbox, so if you’ve got good cornering technique you should be able to grab a handful of gears ready for the exit, which was always one of the advantages of gearbox designs.
Weight-wise the bike was on the money too. Falco’s bike is around the 33lb mark (15kg), which is about right for a 170mm trail bike with this kind of build, especially one made by Nicolai. The tubeset in this bike is the same one they use in their downhill frames...
The Pinion gearbox is a tidy package that shows a lot of promise. We can't wait to spend more time on the production version to put it through a full length test.Pinkbike’s take: On our quick spin we came away with the overall impression that the Pinion felt very normal. This may sound anticlimactic, but it’s actually very important, it feels like a system you could live with. There are lot of questions we have now that can only be answered by getting one of these out on the trails, but based on our first impressions we’re excited to answer them...
What do you think of Pinion's gearbox? Is this the one that finally puts gearboxes into mainstream use?Visit the
Pinion website for more info.
twist shifter and you have to use special cranks to work with the gearbox...
want a 6 speed version for DH
also whilst i would agree everyone hates grip shit style shifters im sure they have a long term plan to make a trigger shifter.
Ride a little more relaxed, you won't have a problem, you don't need to hold on as hard as you can to the bars, typical problem with the true bike riders who've never ridden anything else, goes away when they ride a 215 pound motocross for a season or 2.
www.pinkbike.com/photo/2386795
there I was just about to be a smart arse and suggest that paddle shifters would work for this box and you've ruined all my fun by highlighting that someone's already been there and done that.
So to take the idea further, they could integrate the paddle shifter in to your brake levers, so that waggling them up and down changes gear? Oh no.. wait.. doh
I can't decide between 155 mm for stability or 105 to be cooler than bmx
I'd even take a derailleur and cassette in a sealed box bathed in oil (aka honda). Constant chain pull angle to simplify dialing out pedal bob, less to snag on rocks. Simpler, cheaper, symmetric rear hubs with larger diameter axles and bearings. weight moved from way off center and un-sprung to centralized and sprung.. and belt drive to the wheel so I don't have to oil my chain! maybe throw the freewheel before the cassette so you can shift while coasting... and make the box outa carbon fiber.
(kidding)
Serious question: how does having the tensioner at the crank affect pedal bob, chain stretch, chain slap, anti squat, pedal feedback, bb clearance?
?!?! i see the marketing got to you mate. it simply tensions the chain goddamit, do you even have any idea what the other stuff you mentioned means?!
www.roox.at/Components_web_2006/product_page_chaindevices_2006.htm
I would say that the advantage is that you would gets less slap because the device sits near the BB where there is little suspension movement - if it was at the rear axle it would be thrown around a lot more.
I loved the Hammerschmidt, I love geared hubs, but I really think this is the future.
I dont need 18 gears though, but hey you know what i will take them if the pricing on this goes down. $3k plus is just more than I can afford but this is very exciting indeed.
Grip shift dont bother me as I have been running it forever so bring it on.
As for versions with less than 18 speeds, the guys from Pinion already answered in 2010 "if we can do 18 speeds, we can easily do 9 or 6 speeds as well - it all depends on the demand." So, let's all hope gearboxes make it to the showrooms in a short while, as the advantages are more than obvious in terms of weight distribution, maintenance, sturdyness etc.
It is still early days but if and when the other companies take this on, it'll become the norm'. Much the same way as Disc brakes Suspension came about.
That way you can have your 9 speed and your hammershmigent for 18 speed then regular cranks for 9 speed ie DH or manly AM/trail riders.
I would like to see the possibility of mounting the swignarm pivot right around the crank axle like the G-Boxx so you don't have to use a chain tensionner like this one above and hear that chain slap going down like a fückin Harley-Davidson idling at a red light.
Single-speed is where it's at :-)
Nicolai builds a bitchin frame- I would love to see some like Transition take this on as well.
If you run the shifter in so you're hand is only just touching it, YOU WILL NEVER MIS SHIFT.
I had a Lahar and had no issues with shifting at all. Oh, and to the tester, it was about 40lbs, so hardly heavy for a bike five years ago.
You guys banging on about the shifter are very narrow minded, you'r missing, the massive gear range, shifting when not pedaling, virtually zero maintenance. Fool proof, even virtually zero gear tuning, way less unsprung weight, so better performing suspension, also lighter rear end for chucking about, longer lasting chain, low COG, shifting even when coasting through a rock garden, and not having something as fragile as your balls hanging off the back of your bike to be smashed, bent etc. I'd happily swap that for grip shift, and have, as I now have a Zerode, a comuter,trailbike hardtail with an Alfine. Also the cost is made back so quickly, evn without any broken mechs, your chain will last longer, and no perishable cassette(yeah you still have one sprocket front and rear, but they're not having a chain rammed into them every minute.
I'm all over it. Sign me up.
See my page for pics of my Sealed Drive Bike
this is another Pinion-Frame to come. also a german manufacturer. ALUTECH.
When the DH version comes out put me down for 2!!
This isn't an issue for anyone?
hammerschmidt looks nicer too.
Wonder how much the whole system weighs too - it's not ideal for lightweight XC etc, looks chunky and can't be lighter than a small derailleur
the only thing left to actually maintain will be the suspension. (not if you buy marzo though /jk)