spelger

funny you should write this. i was wondering if they were patenting it just because it is a dumb idea and they just wanted to kill it.

i read somewhere on the internet that the oil companies patented an infinite power source but they just want to keep it secret and sell oil to us to make money.

genejockey 

Patents can be invalidated if you can prove the inventor/assignee didn't pursue them, but of course that requires litigation.

Did it look like this?

Seattle Forrest

Infinite power source is the sun. People in Seattle debate whether it exists. A popular theory is it sprouts from seed in May, blooms for 2 weeks in August and then dies.

genejockey 

You say that now, but in 5 Billion years you'll be singing a different tune.

Kimmo 

Yeah, nah.

Seems to me, there's a far more elegant way to move the master cylinders into the lever bodies; just pivot the brake levers at the very top, with actuator rods pointing back into the guts mounted however much necessary below the pivot point. Piece of piss.

I'm actually kinda stumped why they didn't do it this way in the first place for electronic shifting levers, unless it was just for economies of scale with the mechanical versions.

dmanthree

If they really mean brake by wire...NO. I'd avoid that like the plague.

Ghazmh

I’d pass on that faster than I’d pass on those weird looking barefoot pedals.

Ferrouscious 

I will Not use SRAM's version.

spelger

A little bit. the one I saw was green.

veganbikes

I get that but they also need bigger brakes and with todays dynamo technology you could charge them with minimal drag and weight. Looking at Di2 which has been around a while it requires pretty minimal charging, I remember the reports of people doing RAAM with no charging at all. Surely with brakes they could take a more minimal battery drain. However I am no expert and still would want back ups to the system at least for a little while but it is the future at some point.

zandoval 

Wow... Groovy Man...

Yet here's another thing I can't afford for my bicycle... HA

Kimmo 

I'm pretty sure you'd be looking at an order of magnitude or two for the difference in power draw between gears and brakes.

veganbikes

Maybe I really don't know, I am not an engineer or an electrical expert by any means. I mean I could build some mean lego stuff and in grade school built a pretty strong bridge that beat the class but beyond that I leave it up to the professionals.

alo

A lot of trucks have air brakes. They are designed so the brakes cannot be released if the air pressure is too low.

The same should apply here. Make it so the bike can't be ridden if the battery controlling the brakes is flat. But then, what if the battery goes flat while you are out riding?

chaadster

Man, getting ABS on a road bike would be a game-changing development! I don’t know there’s a compelling argument for BBW in bikes absent that, but all-or-nothing is not how evolution works.

As to the question of why not move the fluid reservoir from the lever, I’d think that may be for the sake of a manual backup system. If the electronics fail, physical connection could allow some brake actuation, though likely with less force/higher lever effort.

If that’s the case, the safety fears expressed upthread are misplaced, because such a system would be more robust than the zero backup systems we have now. If your brake cable head fatigues and snaps off— a friend just had this happen to his rear derailleur cable at the shifter— your brakes are good for naught. Same if you develop an actuator piston leak on conventional hydro brakes. Further, isolating the fluid system as much as possible from failure points enhances system integrity

Lazyass

Good idea for people who think all change is automatically good.

popeye

You funny.

smashndash

Seattle Forrest

Pneumatic tires! Grrr!

SoSmellyAir

For a large company like Shimano, which presumably has in-house patent counsel, the cost of filing a patent application is probably less than one high end road bike. So it should file one regardless whether it intends to bring that invention to market.

Disclaimer: Not legal advice.

SoSmellyAir

Wrong. Look at the number of U.S. patents granted per year:

U.S. Patent Statistics Summary Table, Calendar Years 1963 to 2020, 05/2021 update (uspto.gov)

Common sense tells you that most patented inventions do not make it to market. Patents can be invalidated by proving that the individual(s) who are named as inventor(s) did not actually invent any of the claimed inventions (among other ways to challenge the validity of an issued patent). This has nothing to do with whether the inventor(s) and/or the assignee ever tried to bring the patented inventions to market. Otherwise, there would be no non-practicing entities (commonly and often derogatorily referred to as patent trolls). Also, many patents are licensed by the inventor(s) or the assignee to third parties to bring to the market.

Disclaimer: Not legal advice, merely Internet debate.

Lazyass

Spinergy Rev-X wheels! No Spokes! Cool!

genejockey 

It's possible I was misinformed and/or the law or interpretation of the law changed.

But your arguments don't really address the point, which was that invalidating a patent, or proving noninfringement - for whatever reason - generally involves some kind of litigation, which can be expensive and risky, so paying off the patent owner is generally cheaper, which is exactly why patent trolls exist, right? Because it's cheaper to settle than fight, or to just not go there in the first place.

vane171

IMO dead end tech.

I believe the future of braking will be by electric servo motors which are part of the brake mechanism, same as with derailleurs already. It could be used with rim or disk brakes and with either wireless or wired connection, same as it is now with the derailleurs.

To first replace wire by hydraulic hoses, then have the fluid pressure electrically actuated from the brake levers... I say, chuck it, don't build new house on the old foundations.

genejockey 

It seemed like a silly idea to me, since for the most part bikes and riders are light enough to brake efficiently with normal hand strength. Cars, of course, are MUCH heavier, and becoming more so all the time, so power brakes, then ABS, and now brake-by-wire, because the average person lacks the leg strength to stop a two ton car without some kind of assistance in a reasonable distance.

But then I realized that with the rise of Ebikes, which allow riders to go farther on less fitness, so that some folks who would not ride bikes at all are now able to ride a reasonable distance. People without the leg strength to climb a big hill without some kind of assist will find themselves at the top of hills with steep enough descents that anything less than average hand strength might be insufficient to descend safely. I mean, after all, even those of us who have been riding for years have generally quickly adopted new mechanical technologies that improve braking, or we'd still be running flexy single pivot caliper brakes like BITD.