Originally Posted by
Marcus_Ti
Catch being...they still are using standard highly-dished wheels. Since the "cassette" (if you will) is only a fraction the stack-width of a regular cassette....there's no need for a dished wheel, certainly not a dished 11s standard wheel. Makes me wonder why if it was out of convenience or laziness or what that they did it they way they did.
Originally Posted by
ksryder
From the article I got the impression this was more a proof of concept than anything.
Makes sense to try to fit it to a standard freehub, even if you don't need all the room. That way, the owner / builder can pick the wheels 'off-the-rack' for whatever kind of bike is being built, than being wedded to a proprietary hub, rim, and spoke count. (of course, proprietary frame for the shaft drive, but we're not counting that)
Incremental Gains is where it's at now, all those fractional percentage points can add up, if you take advantage of them. This is supposed to be something like 0.5% less friction than (optimal) Dura-Ace 11sp, which is like 99.0%
I saw it on GCN's Eurobike'18 video, and when he gave the crank a spin, it seemed like it went forever.