Blending Clothing and Bicycle Componentry Wearable technology is nothing new to cycling apparel – from heart rate and fitness trackers to jackets illuminated by LEDS. But lurking in R&D departments of bicycle component manufacturers is something altogether different. Bicycle shifters: wearable technology -- designs that meld clothing with shifters. Namely, gloves and other handwear that [...]
Shimano Wireless Shifting One of the biggest questions on the minds of cycling’s technology-minded types: will the next generation of Dura Ace include Shimano wireless electronic shifting? Shimano was of course the first major player to market with electronic shifting (aside from Mavic’s early short-lived attempts), when they introduced Di2 in 2009, using wires to [...]
SRAM's eBike Shifting Patent shows that bikes and batteries are becoming deeply intertwined. With ebikes surging in popularity both in the US and globally, manufacturers have been considering what else a large-capacity ebike battery could power in addition to propelling a bike. Headlights and taillights are obvious accessories to draw juice from an ebike battery, [...]
Yamaha's e-bike frame patent belies that the Japanese industrial giant Yamaha may not yet be a prominent name in US bicycle retail shops, but the company’s patent filings suggest strong interest in the US ebike market. Yamaha ranked fifth for bicycle industry patent grants in the US in 2019 with 15 total, ahead of [...]
Campagnolo 13 Speed Patent, 9 to 44 Tooth Cogs Rumors and leaks about a forthcoming Campagnolo 13 speed shifting system have been flying recently. Thanks to two US patent applications published on July 30, we now have a few more details of what Campy has been working on. The patent filing titled COGSET WITH INCREASING [...]
Patent filing shows rotating front derailleurs integrated with the crankset Is bicycle shifting about to get some entirely fresh technology? A recently patent application shows that SRAM has been hard at work designing a wireless front derailleur system unlike anything seen before – with three separate gear-changing mechanisms that rotate with the crankset. Made [...]
New patent application shows movable stem as part of an array of sensored components that can communicate and control each other. Dropper seatposts have become standard equipment for performance-level mountain bikes. Could the same concept … altering the position of a bike-fit component while riding … also work for a handlebar stem? A fresh patent [...]
About 15 to 20 years ago, power output (in Watts) became the gold standard metric for quantifying cycling performance. Longtime insiders know that the SRM crankset emerged in the early 1990s, with Greg LeMond as an early adopter. SRM inventor Ulrich Schoberer deserves credit as the pioneer of bicycle power measurement, with his SRM cranksets [...]
Trek is getting highly analytical when it comes to how bicycle rims slice through the air. Not long ago, advances in bicycle technology were often seat-of-the -pants efforts – use of the term “engineering” would be generous. But in the ceaseless pursuit of faster bicycles … and efficient manufacturing … Trek steps-up with computational fluid [...]
