The Ixow Syncrobox Can Operate A Full Triple Drivetrain With A Single Shifter

Good for persons with a disability reducing their ability to use both hands. However if have difficulty figuring out how two shifters work you may have a different type of disability that this wont mitigate.

Considering the market this is aimed at I think an internal shifting hub would be a better choice. It’s probably simpler to adjust. They are incredibly durable. And they are stupidly easy to operate. While this idea is neat, I just don’t see it being better than the current options.

Using an existing triple and 9speed rear…I can’t imagine this shifting well to avoid gear inch overlap. Your front derailleur would need to be shifter a lot with your rear when mountain biking on rolling terrain

Riders aren’t choosing 1×11 because they can’t figure out how to operate a front derailleur and losing the front derailleur is actually a liability in some full suspension designs. Not being able to control them independently is deal-killer for proper FS operation. For novice riders on hardballs that require wide range gearing then maybe but those don’t want to spend money and they increasingly don’t need front shifting.

I doubt there’s a tandem rider anywhere who needs a crutch like this.

I believe this has been posted before, but it’s maybe one of those deja-vu moments… I recall reading something about this kind of mechanical synchronization between both derailleurs maybe 10 years ago…

Maybe somebody with better memory could shine some more light here.

“Oh cool!”

– said no mountain bikers, ever.

“i” nailed it (not me, “i”). The reason I (that’s me) ponied up for 1X11 is to get rid of the front derailleur, not the shifter. And I’ll bet that’s pretty much the same across the board–anyone who’s willing to cough up that much for a drivetrain is probably a fairly experienced rider, someone who already knows how to shift, and who understands the drawbacks of front shifting. We’re not abandoning front shifting because it hurts our little brains to use all those gear combinations, but because front derailleurs are crude and imprecise.

This effort seems a little long on assumption and a little short on market research.

Someone really missed the point about the appeal of a “one-by” drivetrain. This offers all the dropped/sucked chains, noise, poor shifting and extra pound of running a triple…while also adding a heavier (and insanely complicated looking) shifter.

OK, why not just hack Di2 so it just selects the right gear for you based on cadence and heart rate or whatever you choose. Auto mode. No, cruise control.
You could just put your feet up and head out on the highway….oh hold on.

Gunnstein…a Rohloff hub has over 97% efficiency. I can imagine that that system could possibly be employed into a crank body. It would also center the weight which would be nice for climbing and would negate the slightly more difficult flat fixes. Personally, I’d love a Rohloff but if I got one, I’d want at least 3 of them for other bikes…that keeps me from getting one of them. I also don’t like the fact that you’ve gotta really back off of the power to shift and in some gears…practically stop pedaling.

***Plus with a Rohloff, you get INSANE reliability. Imagine getting over 30,000miles without doing anything but changing your chainring, cog and chain. Some people have gotten well over 50,000 without any servicing.

It was a conclusive measurement comparing their hub to a normal drivetrain. Their numbers admit a normal drivetrain is slightly better in perfect conditions which isn’t always the case. Its also nice to not have to clean a derailleur and if you’re willing to give up a little more friction…you can run a belt drive. You lose power but you basically don’t have to think about chain wear and in the case of a dirty chain, vs a dirty belt(it won’t get that dirty) can be more efficient Remember…you also have the benefit of a perfect chainline all the time.

***I had a Nuvinci for a while. I loved it in the winter. Its much easier than cleaning a rear mech. However, the drivetrain drag was TERRIBLE, it was really heavy and luckily…I never got a flat with it. I did like that you can pedal as hard as you want while “shifting” their planetary gear system.

@Veganpotter You’re preaching to the choir, as I said, I like IHGs.

Bringing out the old “Bicycling Science”, 3rd ed: It says the best roller chains are about 98.5% efficient. If my math is correct, then a Rohloff plus a chain is then 0.985 x 0.97 = 0.955, i.e. 95.5 % efficiency. Or did you mean that a complete Rohloff system has 97% of the efficiency of a pure chain drive? Anyway, if we’re arguing numbers we need to know if the 97% you quote are for the hub alone, or for hub + chain.

For the generator-motor drivetrain they say 50% with cheap components, and 80% “or more” with “projected future” optimum components.

The book is quoting several different studies on drive efficiencies. Interestingly, one of them concludes that chainline impact on efficiency is “negligible”. And also that lubricant has “almost no effect”. For chains, there are various results from about 88 to 99% (depending on power input and number of teeth on cogs). For a 3-speed hub plus chain, 87-95%. For a 7-speed, 86-93%. The 97% you quote does seem within the realm of the possible, then, though a bit high.

For the NuVinci I have read ca. 90% efficiency somewhere, no source. I tried the eletric automatic edition of it once, pretty weird but works fine.

Enough number nerding for one day, good night.

Gripshifts are awesome.

@Veganpotter You could test the chain drive separately and then subtract it from the chain+hub test. I hope it wasn’t Rohloff themselves doing the testing, but even so I trust them more than Fox 🙂

Also nice to know what power they were testing with, since the chain-only studies I mentioned found big differences at different power levels (more power = more efficient). And we need to know what their chainring and cogs were, since the higher the number of teeth, the better the efficiency. (Should probably ask about sunspot activity and moon phase, too!)

Aaaaanyway, bikes are very very efficient vehicles, with the exception of generator-motor drivetrains, it seems.