An Amusement & Diversion for The Genteel Cyclist. Daily.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Turning limes into limeade


Being ignorant never stopped us from poking fun at people and products. The less we know, the smarter we sound, right?

Anyway, we've been flipping all kinds of crap at Trek and Shimano for their silly automatic shifting device on the Lime bike. It's just too hard to believe that the one thing keeping people off of bikes is the tedious task of shifting gears manually.

So, this video came across our desk today, and we learned more about how the system works.

The main conclusion we reached after seeing this? You don't want to be jumping any logs--nor any high curbs, for that matter. Check out where they've mounted the CPU that runs the transmission. (Hint: It's not the cleanest or driest place on a bike frame, either.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

this electronics setup is similar to the Lucas electrics of a vintage british sportscar. open, and exposed to the elements and constantly failing. should build a lot of shareholder equity for shimano and trek.

Matt said...

I think the answer is in-between the twnety-something-speed derailleur bike and the automatic 3-speed. I have a bike with an 8-speed Nexus hub and it would be just the ticket for newbies; wide gear range, instant shifts, comprehensible gearing, clean chainlines, chainguards (none of the well-you-have-some-duplicates-in-there-plus-you-should-think-about-the-chainline-oh-look-you-have-chain-marks-on-your-trousers of derailleur bikes). To a surprising extent derailleurs confuse non-cyclists, but internal gears make eminent sense without being dopey like the Lime. And that is a great place for a CPU! But think how fast it'll run in the winter, being supercooled and all!

Anonymous said...

Buried at the bottom of the article is an even greater advancement in bike technology than an automatic shifting mechanism:

"Extra touches: A rack on front perfectly fits a six pack. Also has a bottle opener."

It's on front! So you can reach the dang brew^h^h^h^h er... sodas.