There is an easy and straightforward way to make this chain successful. Put in on a team bike that wins. 2% is quite a bit in a peloton. 2% of 2% is Biopace.
it's only for single speed drivetrains
New bike chain claims to be faster, more durable
131–140 of 226 posts
Re: New bike chain claims to be faster, more durable
#132Reduced chain width has significantly changed bicycle drive trains over recent decades. Bicycles have many more usable gears. A manufacturer who pushed a non-standard chain heavily would wound cycle shops. Standardization facilities keeping parts in stock.
I'm not sure that's true. SRAM already went with their own non-compatible design with their latest road groups (AXS road). Bottom bracket "standards" have proliferated over the last 20 years (all 8 of the bikes in my garage use a different system). Hub spacing is non-standard too (100mm/130mm QR, 100/135 QR, 100/135 TA, 100/142 TA, 110/148 TA, Superboost, DH, and a few other niche standards). Even within a brand, the…
They're standard-ish. My road bike and mountain bike are both 12 years old, which means I've learned the ins and outs. SRAM likes to abandon old derailleur tech, but SRAM and shimano chain spacing are MOSTLY similar. On road bikes, the Shimano 9/10spd are the same, if I remember correctly. I think the 11 and 12 speed stuff use narrower chains, BUT conveniently front chainring spacing seems to not matter a whole lot. 10 speed ultegra chains and cassettes work fine with an "11 speed" generation front crank, thankfully.
Re: New bike chain claims to be faster, more durable
#133Side note: I used to work in a bike shop for about ten years. One time had a guy come in who worked with Kyronics. We all made jokes about freezing dead people - but he said you can apply Kryonics to a wide array of stuff not just dead people. One of the many things some of the team riders were seriously considering was having their cranks, chains and frames frozen since its supposed to alter the molecular structure…
Cryogenically freezing auto brake rotors has been a thing for awhile, but I forgot about it until you mentioned it here. It's probably fallen out of favor as I don't hear much about it. But the claims may well be true. On the other hand, when I only replace brake rotors every 60-80k miles, I don't much care.
Re: New bike chain claims to be faster, more durable
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they are claiming any power is transferred by the other side, just that it forces a more uniform fit and distributed the power transfer over more teeth.
They very much are making that claim. > The future apparently isn’t far away, as New Motion Labs has developed a new Dual Engagement chain that is supposedly able to transfer high power on both sides of the tooth, over nearly all the teeth available to the chain.
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Re: New bike chain claims to be faster, more durable
#135Trucks use a solid driveshaft to transmit power to the rear axle. Is there any merit to using that idea for bikes? (with a geared transmission?)
Re: New bike chain claims to be faster, more durable
#136Reading through there is something very noticeably absent: any claims of increased efficiency. If you spread pressure out offer wider areas, you don’t get less overall friction at least in the first order approximation of friction you find in first year physics. What it looks like is an attempt to make something better that improves metrics which aren’t necessarily coupled to better overall performance.
First paragraph of the article: UK company New Motion Labs has introduced a completely different design that not only promises *better efficiency*, but also decreased wear throughout the entire drivetrain, and all without the need for laborious cleaning and lubrication procedures. The article also puts an upper bound on its claim of 2% since conventional chains are already 98% efficient. It will require new chainring…
Yes, but for other claims they have quotes and numbers, when it comes to presumably the most important, there’s nothing.
Re: New bike chain claims to be faster, more durable
#137There is an easy and straightforward way to make this chain successful. Put in on a team bike that wins. 2% is quite a bit in a peloton. 2% of 2% is Biopace.
it's only for single speed drivetrains
Yes, all of their examples are single speed but I can't find anything in the article or site that specifically says that. Moreover, in their competitive critique of belt drives they complain that belt drives can’t be used with derailleur gears.
https://www.newmotionlabs.com/articles/blog-post-title-three...
Still, single speed. Get on the podium with track racers.
BTW, my skepticism is very tempered. I still think Biopace was a good idea and could be made to work. I think this is a good idea and I still think it could work. But it has to, you know, work. It has to demonstrate and provide that efficiency rather than just claim it because modern chains are pretty darned good.
Re: New bike chain claims to be faster, more durable
#138Reading through there is something very noticeably absent: any claims of increased efficiency. If you spread pressure out offer wider areas, you don’t get less overall friction at least in the first order approximation of friction you find in first year physics. What it looks like is an attempt to make something better that improves metrics which aren’t necessarily coupled to better overall performance.
Given a conventional chain can be up to 98% efficient then the maximum increase in efficiency is 1/.98 - 1 = 2.04%
A percentage of a percentage is an odd way to express a change, and at that picking the non-loss side as basis.
One could say increasing efficiency by 1% equivalent to reducing existing losses by 50%, both of those are reasonable bases, making it a percentage of the existing efficiency feels off.
Re: New bike chain claims to be faster, more durable
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I guess I'm a bit (to use one of Bike Snob NYC's favorite words) nonplussed. JK Rowling taught me that nonplussed is apparently a part of the daily vernacular in the UK.
Not really. I've never heard it used in the the general publice. It is normally used by office manager types and by talking heads in politics.
Granted, it's not a common but it's not uncommon.
Re: New bike chain claims to be faster, more durable
#140I'll tell ya what I see: no rollers. Pins rubbing (wearing) both sides of the tooth. Including the back side, which will never exert any forward longitudinal force on a chain unless it's made of magnets. I also see a highly suspect FEA diagram on the right, where teeth not even engaged still show non-zero stresses (lighter blue, not the darkest blue), indicating that the color/stress scale has been changed compared t…
I'm afraid this is kind of a scam too.
The solution clearly loses on weight/benefit ratio to just making a thicker chain.