DaveSSS 

Perhaps the math is over your head. 10/9=1.11 11/10=1.10 12/11=1.09. That means changes of 11, 10 and 9%. 16/15 = 1.067 or 6.7%. The percentage difference gets smaller as the sprockets get larger, but at some point a 1 tooth change is too small. If you're pedaling at 100 rpm, a 9,10 or 11 rpm drop down to 90 isn't excessive. I have no problem with my 10-11-12-13 sequence on my 10-36 sram cassette, but the 13-15 jump can be annoying. Campy would use a 10-11-12-13-14-16-18-20-23-27-31-36.

znomit

Buttons and motors have got to be cheaper than the clockwork inside a shifter.

surak

New alleged UCI rules will relax some requirements on things that should open up road bike frame design a bit more: https://cyclingtips.com/2020/10/new-...et-a-shake-up/

Sy Reene

You called the high end shifts a "very little percentage difference", when in fact from a relative standpoint the 6% shifts in the middle of the cassettes would be more deserving of that designation, and are areas of the cassette where many many riders like 1-tooth shifts.

Just curious, Is that 20-27 gap a typo (35%) -- it seems out of place?

Bulette

For a Campy 10-34, I find: 11-12-13-14-15-16-17-19-22-25-29-34
I don't see a Campy 10-36, though I didn't look all that hard.

https://www.campagnolo.com/US/en/Com...peed_sprockets

DaveSSS 

Oops, the sprocket spacing should be 10-11-12-13-14-16-18-20-23-27-31-36. That's the same as the new Ekar 9-36 13 speed, without the 9.
Mathematically, the 1T jumps are as small as possible. Call them too big if you want, but any accomplished cyclist should easily be able to handle a 10% change. It's a lot better than the ridiculous 10-12-14-16 that you see on some cassettes.

I spent over a year riding the Campy 11-34 12 speed cassette, that has much more sensible spacing than a shimano 11-34, 11 speed. I now use a sram 10-36 12 speed. It lacks the 14, which is noticeable in the 25-29 mph range. A campy 10-36 would fix that. Campy does not offer any 12 speed cassettes starting with a 10 yet, but they now have the freehub body and Ekar 1x13 system to make a 10-36 12 speed cassette if they choose. The current chorus 12 RD will work with a 10-36 sram cassette.

https://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=258775

ljsense

If "Dark Ages" is a period without dramatic innovation, I'd say road bikes had been there, more or less, for many decades and we've just started to really depart from the norms over maybe the last five years or so.

From around the 1970s well into the 2010s, you could pretty much count on a road bike to:

• Brake with the rims
• Ride on 700c wheels
• Have a 2 x Something drivetrain
• Use quick release skewers
• Use a chain
• Have a rigid three-main-tube frame and fork
• Work as a wholly mechanical device that relies on cables, springs, bearings, etc.

The "big" changes during this era involved:

• widening the head tube a little to accept a wider steer tube
• changing where the bearings go to support the bottom bracket spindle
• moving the axle spacing out in the rear by 4 mm
• moving the shifters from the downtube to the handlebars
• improving the materials
• changing pedal/shoe retention from clips and straps to cleats.

I'd argue the more recent changes are far more significant. They've changed the road bike from a device that was wholly mechanical to a more complex system that involves electronics and hydraulics and makes the mechanical features less accessible and more likely to be proprietary.

Rather than thinking that these changes will lead to another great, long 40-year period of relative stability, I'd think that we'll see more change as new opportunities to use electronics are tested.

At the same time, I think that "traditional" road bikes will continue to be built and used -- wholly mechanical, rim brakes, etc. -- so maybe the result is just greater product diversity, less clarity on what a road bike is, and above all, hopefully more people finding one they like. If more people are out on bikes, in my mind it's not the dark ages.

tomato coupe

I don't know if we're entering a dark age of road bikes, but we definitely are in a dark age of bike forums.

OwenMeany

Graphene and direct drive-trains. There will be no going back.

datlas 

Sounds like a good thread title.

genejockey 

Bad enough that I forget to charge my tail light. I don't want to forget to charge my shifting system.

DaveSSS 

At least with AXS you can keep spare batteries. I carry a spare with me on my rides. Two spares is not unreasonable.

jon c. 

If CVT technology can ever replace shifting, that would be a major change.

Kimmo 

How do you get two likes for this while my detailed post talking about exactly how and why this will happen gets no love...?

Kimmo 

The only possible progress on that front I can envision is 3D-printed 6Al4V (as already done by Bastion for frame lugs), and maybe carbon nanotubes in a more useful length; but as far as the latter goes the aerospace industry will probably hog it all for a decade or two. They need long nanotubes to make space elevators possible, and that application will require thousands of tonnes of the stuff.

Kimmo 

Yeah, and you're facing way less aero drag on those cogs than 11/10/9.

znomit

Solar panel on the top tube.

Kimmo 

That's right, everyone just keep ignoring the fact electronic shifting can potentially enable a half-step triple that's easy to shift.

Kimmo 

That's, as they say, non-trivial. Pretty sure the technology of solar electricity doesn't lend itself to that format in the slightest, and if you solved that problem you've still gotta connect it all somehow... And you'll always need a battery.

Another thing that's non-trivial is the chance that the road bike is very near its apex, since it's increasingly looking like civilisation itself is past its own. Without accountable government, the only thing in the tins that say all that great stuff about national endeavour and flourishment is naked corruption. Without anything it says on the tin being done, we don't have adequate measures in place to sustain our populace, our environment, and our industry. Without all that, we don't have the road bike anymore. We don't even have roads.

Sy Reene

Since THIS is a real issue, I can see some innovations like maybe a swing-down arm that can come off the chainstay and hold up your bike when you need to get off of it.

rydabent

Dont doubt that there will be changes. Some with a real advantage and some that are sales hype.

A little history. About 1900 give or take, some one in the patent office made the statement that everything that can be invented already has been.

Another point is will the "real cyclist" adopt improvements. I remember back when click shifting first came out, a hard core bunch said it wouldnt work right. Now we are in the middle of disc brake adoption. The hard core still wont admit the advantages of disc brakes.

Bring it on inventers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kimmo 

While we're at it, how about some sort of elegant device to politely alert other road users to our presence?

Kimmo 

The physics is pretty straightforward, if you squint. Very little room for improvement left; we're well into diminishing returns. The only way to go much faster is fairings (or maybe they can come up with something abbreviated like a Kamm profile) and/or reducing the frontal area of the body, ie recumbent or something.

That's why one or two of us are talking about gearing; it's not super fundamental, but it's the last factor of any import that still has appreciable room for improvement.

PoorInRichfield

What I'm struggling with in terms of potential future innovations is that I don't see any obvious thing on my bike that needs improving.

I started riding just before index shifting (Shimano SIS) became a thing. I remember shifting w/o indexing being the most annoying thing on the planet as one had to constant micro-adjust the shifter, which was inconveniently located on the down tube, until the noise went away from a misaligned derailleur. To me, this was a no-brainer that there must be a better way and could even theorize that simply indexing the shifting would solve the issue (I just had no means to make it happen).

Toe clips were the next obvious area of the big that needed improvement as getting one's foot stuck in a toe-clip and falling over was just silly. Once again, just about anyone who rode a race bike with old fashioned toe-clips knew there must be a better way.

Fast forward to today, I can't think of anything on my bike that annoys me or needs obvious improvement. All my gripes of the past have pretty much been addressed by what is currently available on the market.

ljsense

I like my traditional, all mechanical rim-braked road bikes, yet these are the improvements I think would be neat:

Improved materials:

Spider silk -- Once this stuff can be manufactured commercially, I hope my next set of tubular tires weigh less than a morning breeze, can stop a bullet or hold up a bridge, and flex with the suppleness of sheer negligee. Scraping the moths off of them at the end of the ride will be a small price to pay.

Nanocelluluse fibers -- It's my dream, so I'll say the hype is correct, and they turn out stronger, lighter and less expensive than carbon fibers. Mixed with the spider silk above, I've got a set of wheels that weigh less than 800g than can double up on dirt drops.

Charge-responsive materials -- like muscles, these materials will respond to weak electric signals and can instantly become more or less rigid as the situation demands. As soon as your bike sense power output climb, it tenses up, providing more stiffness where needed. When you're noodling along in the pack, the ride is as plush as can be. Especially since your saddle is like a spider silk hammock.

Technical advances:

Automatic infinite transmission: With a spider silk pulley cord instead of a chain, and a charge-responsive drivewheel and cog that can grow or shrink as needed, your drive ratio instantly adjusts as the bike senses your torque and power output. It further trims it based on heart rate and everything it senses going on with your metabolism and mood.

Car safety override: This system insures that no cars that can operate on the road will collide with you. For smart-road legal cars, it overrides all other programing to make sure you're not hit. For illegal dumb cars, it sends out a micro pulse to kill the engine as soon as they are within a one-mile range.

Net effect

A 2 percent gain in speed is expected, but not gauranteed. A Tour rider on a 90s bike will still be much, much faster.