''Imagine being able to boost your chassis performance at the push of a button - this was the idea behind Project Dis\Connect,'' reads the words on the wall above what appears to be a shock-less but otherwise normal looking Canyon Sender downhill bike. It's anything but normal, however, as the bike is equipped with a novel system that allows the drivetrain to be disconnected from within the hub in order to completely free the bike's suspension from chain-induced forces. Check the video below to see it in action.
The video above shows the system in action. The first time the suspension is activated, when the drivetrain is engaged as it would be on a normal bike, you can see the cranks rotate backwards as the Sender's suspension goes through its travel. The rider's weight on the pedals would keep the suspension from working freely; this is what happens on most full-suspension bikes to some extent. Next, the rear hub's clutch is disengaged when the remote lever is pushed; when the Sender's suspension is activated, notice how the cranks no longer rotate backwards. This means that the rider's weight on the pedals will have zero effect on the bike's suspension.
Why would you want to remove the chain's influence on a bike's rear suspension? To allow the suspension to work as freely as possible, especially in this day of clutch-equipped derailleurs. You can't simply say that removing a drivetrain's influence on suspension is a good thing, though, as a mountain bike's rear suspension has been designed to work with, and often to harness, chain induced forces and to use them to the rider's advantage.
Project Dis\Connect Details
• Intended use: downhill
• Shown on Canyon's Sender DH bike
• Decouples drivetrain influence from suspension
• Controlled via bar-mounted button
• DT Swiss' Star Ratchet clutch
• Availability: maybe never
Bikes whose suspension is firmed up or extended under pedaling loads, usually referred to as having anti-squat, are often thought of as lively, fast accelerating machines. Bikes with less chain induced suspension influence, aka low anti-squat, are usually considered to be more active, forgiving, and possibly able to provide more traction over a wider range of conditions. Those are some pretty wide generalizations, of course, but that's the general idea.
A bike's designer must strike a balance regarding how much they want their bike's suspension to be affected by the drivetrain; downhill rigs will often be less affected as the spotlight is on outright suspension performance with less consideration to pedaling performance. Cross-country and trailbikes will usually take a more balanced approached. Why not just design a bike with suspension that's totally impartial to drivetrain forces? Because it'd pedal like total shit, and even the most downhill-focused riders out there still need to pedal sometimes.
The interactive display in the Canyon booth shows the difference in how the suspension is affected by the chain, and also how it works when chain forces are removed.Canyon's Project Dis\Connect allows the bike's drivetrain to be instantly disconnected from its suspension with the push of a button, thereby keeping chain forces from having any effect whatsoever on how the Sender downhill bike's suspension performs. Neato. Canyon says that this allows the suspension to work ''precisely as it was intended to,'' although I'd argue that the Sender's suspension, and any other bike's suspension, was designed to work with chain forces, or at least be designed with such forces in mind.
Regardless, the idea is that a rider could be approaching a section of track or trail where they won't be pedaling, so why not decouple the bike's drivetrain to give it total suspension freedom.
Who remembers that time Aaron Gwin did that trick where he won a World Cup after breaking his chain right out of the gate? That momentous race run of the ages raised a few questions besides what planet Gwin comes from; mainly, just how much better does a bike's suspension perform when it doesn't have to deal with anti-rise, anti-squat, pedal kickback, or any other words you'd use to describe what a drivetrain does to a bike's rear end. For the record, Canyon says that they were four or five months into development of Project Dis\Connect when Gwin took that chainless win, but also that it certainly did highlight the possibilities.
How does the system work?
The display bike in the Canyon both was rigged up to show looky-loos how Project Dis\Connect works, so Canyon had a repurposed shifter attached to the setup to make things easy. Pushing on the shifter's thumb paddle pulled a cable, just like normal, only instead of the cable being attached to the derailleur, it tugs on a plunger that runs down through the center of the bike's rear axle, very much like how an old Sturmey-Archer internally geared hub is activated only with a different outcome.
The bike's modified hub is home to a DT Swiss Star Ratchet clutch, and the two Star Ratchet wheels are moved apart by a complicated system of three movable pawls that extend outward from within the special axle. Picture a Swiss watch, only inside a bike hub and a lot more interesting.
Once the thumb paddle is pushed, the Star Ratchet wheels separate and the freehub and drivetrain have zero influence on the bike's suspension - pedaling will result in nothing, and it's as if there's no chain on the bike at all.
Pushing the thumb paddle a second time will retract the three pawls back into the axle and allow the Star Ratchet wheels to re-join again as if everything was normal. Now you can pedal again.
Canyon says that they're working with Fabien Barel, the legendary mad scientist of downhill and enduro, to develop the Project Dis\Connect system. Will it ever be raced or see production? Canyon was coy when it came to answering that question, as you'd expect them to be, only saying that they're evaluating the system and learning from it. It obviously makes the most sense for downhill and enduro racers, and what it could do is allow for the performance window of a bike's rear suspension to be larger because designers won't have to compromise as much when it comes to balancing drivetrain and suspension performance.
Cayon is known for doing things differently - take their Shapeshifter suspension and geometry adjustment system, for example, and whatever does come of Canyon's Project Dis\Connect system, you can't argue that it isn't interesting.
MENTIONS:
@Canyon-PureCycling
Sure its fun to tinker with things like this but it should be a good indicator to you that it isn't on all of their top athletes' bikes this season.
They may be experimenting with it but when it counts its not on the Race bikes. Gwin's chainless win is a testimate to Gwin not how the lack of a chain affected his suspension.
Running a high pivot with an idle gear virtually eliminates this problem. We mount our idler gear concentric with the pivot. Routing the chain over the idle gear then around the BB gear and back up to the pivot almost, there is only a very slight pull on the chain during the very last part of the suspension, so small, a few millimeters, you cannot even feel it.
And gearboxes are the way to go. The more I ride this Pinion, i would never go go back to a junky derailluer. Makes a derailluer feel like Walmart quality.
do you see any concept cars on the streets? no!
but little things to make into the production line when good ideas on paper also work in practice
www.bikerumor.com/2016/01/14/119081
Anyways it won't keep the crank from interfering with the suspension, even with both freehubs. One would need the same engage/disengage system that Canyon has on their hub, on the crank.
There is a common misconception of pedal feedback - it's actually a function of 3 things:
1: Chain extension of the frame/gearing (the only commonly recognized one)
2: FORWARD VELOCITY (moving forward = reducing or eliminating feedback)
3: HUB ENGAGEMENT POINTS (less = better)
Companies that wank on about pedal feedback being some huge drama don't understand the mechanics of how pedal feedback is generated. It might be an issue justifying this if we all bounced up and down without moving forward, or only did huge hucks to flat.
If you are rolling forward at all, suddenly it's much harder to generate pedal feedback. If you have less hub engagements (eg. an average 40 or 44 is far slower than instantaneous) then that too is helping reduce pedal feedback (specifically: it reduces the forward riding velocity you can compress the suspension at and not have perceptible feedback, i.e. don't have to be moving forward as fast to eliminate feedback). That's why all these tests are shown with a static bike - it makes it easy to sell the snake oil.
By all means add a bunch of weight to your bike for no reason though... ahh, ze Germans.
Ushering in a new Bender era.
I cant wait for the lever that airs my tires back up like on the old Batman show.
What they could do instead is a button that keeps the freehub engaged only when you are holding it pressed. Disengages as soon as you let it go. Could be coped with shocks LSC valve. I'd love a remote lock out like that, with "push-for-pedal" option so I lock it almost fully during sprints, but release it just by letting go of the button. In this way I don't forget to unlock it.
It's only at low speeds, like tight technical ledge drops where you notice the tug, and it usually comes with a big clang when the pawls engage and the spokes ring from the impact.
this is a waste of time, humans probably just make their max power at low rpm anyway.
People just want to make money having the "next big idea", iv owned the hammerschidt, and a few other strange prodcucts... Over thought, simplicity rules. Solving problems that arent problems, isnt good for anyone.
Although i am sick of seeing this very conservative viewpoint on pinkbike, where if its not some sort of fixie steel unicycle built in an amish barn then its better off dead. Especially since the industry is still pretty young
Cant say that a manufacturers not allowed to experiment.
It's a competitive marketplace and its not like these companies have Apple like margins so innovation is going to be pretty incremental. There's not the money to make the "iphone" of bikes and completely change they way we think and use the mountain bike...
I ride what I have and generally only replace parts that I feel are restricting my riding or are no longer functioning as well as they once did. Some however, enjoy having the latest and greatest parts and these companies are catering to that demand. Not saying there is anything wrong with that, its a good business model centered around increasing demand and profit.
So there's zero effect?
HashtagFacepalmemoji
If you are coasting, the chain tension can only affect the suspension if the suspension compresses quickly enough to make the pawls on the spinning hub re-engage. In a DOWNHILL RACE, where you coast pretty fast most of the time, this happens basically never. Certainly not often enough to justify a complex hub pawl mechanism and its risk of failure.
I personally hate not having a chain, the cranks feel nasty without resistance there but I agree with you that the suspension comes into it's own all of a sudden without it.
So as much as I'd love to bash it and moan because I hate new stuff - actually this clutch might be a good idea.
As for the disconnect critics, relax. This is a German company, they like to explore new stuff. They're not going to release something that gets people crashing clearly attributable to their new technology. It doesn't seem they're at that stage yet.
And let's not forget Neko's fourth place at the world champs a few years ago.
www.pinkbike.com/news/waki-bikes-of-the-future-y-me-schmetterling-2016.html
You shouldn't be talking about bicycles Levy, because you don't know fvck all about them. Yeah I'm sure the Stitched 720 pedals sooo much worse than low pivots that bounce or highs that kick back. Neutrality is the best way to do it & this idea is utter fvcking stupidity. Canyon wants a gimmick to call their own by the looks of it.
You've gotta push a fvcking lever to use it! What's the next "BIG" thing in this cesspool of an industry now, a zillion reasons to put more levers on your handlebars? If I'm gonna use a lever, it's gonna lock the shock so this thing here, is totally fvcking irrelevant & that locked shock is gonna be on a bike with chainstay neutrality so everything works right when it needs to work.
I do wonder though if more time could be made up for the pros with Aero than fancy disconnected drive trains? I know skin suits are not popular but they are certainly fast and then add in some bits on the bike and one assumes there would be tangible gains
DH Skiers are all about the skin suits.
The only reason I can think of is so companies could advertise shorts, trousers, tees and jerseys. Imagine if all the pros wore skinsuits - These companies wouldn't sell many skinsuits as regular riders would just wear whatever clothes were in their drawers at home.
Check out point number 2.
Ask Mased Magician.
yeah,you made a point.
...Ain't no one got time for that!