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The Vital MTB Crew
@ Dropper brands, Make a decent Wireless dropper that doesnt look like ass and has 200+ travel, I'll buy it.
Like actually make one, sell it to me and make some profit off me. Intergrate the battery, contact charging at the post colllar, a little bit of extra length is fine as most seat tubes are short now, id happily lose 20mm off my oneup dropper down to 220 so i could have it wireless.
Sometimes It makes me wonder if brands actually want to sell products
I'm in the same boat. instead of what we want its "here's an ugly ass dropper that still won't drop enough. now give me 1500 bucks and don't forget to charge it every other ride."
Just found an unlisted Telum video embedded on a customer facing website (sorry Steve). Might be interesting.
I've been thinking about the insertion length thing and realized that since you don't need room for the cable to sit below the bottom of the post, the extra length of the servo/etc might not be issue. Am I crazy?
Ty for that, very interesting. The re-tune of that shock from one frame to the next is pretty cool as you don't have to open up the shock.
For example, I have a Telum setup for an Airdrop Edit MX and I decided to move over to an Insurgent LS.
With a single tool (to loosen the compression caps) I just have to unwind an adjuster and then wind it in a certain number of turns to adjust for the frame difference.
I'm not smart enough to understand how it works but very cool conceptually as it makes it pretty easy for someone like me who likes to mix and match different frames on a fairly frequent basis.
Any Ohlins rumors on a new rfx38?
Thinking about picking up one as they're almost half off...
Got a link to other 3 parts?
Let Steve release these videos on his own timing. It's good that his products are getting some attention, and I love his non-marketing approach
a bike brand that is also a band name is also developing an ebike with the dji avinox motor
Can you link to this sale? Don't think there are any m.3 version for any of their products in the works.
Its on sale at jenson but the 180 is the biggest discount.
Ghost, presumably? Other options might be Sunn or I'm sure there's a djent band named Polygon out there somewhere.
Am I crazy or does this all sound waaay more complex and annoying than running a cable?
Sounds like all of the downsides of cables plus all of the downsides of wireless to me. Annoying to install, annoying to remove, needs to be charged, it's expensive and heavy, and there's more things to go wrong.
This has been my big prediction for the last couple of years - with more batteries being used it makes a ton of sense to have some kind of regenerating capability on modern bikes. Especially with larger riders on e-bikes who will always get less battery life (because physics), they will now have more kinetic energy that can be recovered through the suspension or braking. The suspension one could have interesting benefits since generating electricity could be used to supplement hydraulic damping so the energy harvesting would be used to add damping which kills 2 birds with 1 stone. The bike makers would have a hydraulic damper with the minimum tune needed, then instead of firmer tunes for heavy riders you increase the amount of harvesting the system does and the extra damping makes the bike ride better while also extending your battery life.
Rob Roskopp already alluded to this a year or so ago in an interview he did - anyone noticed where he is at now? I think Specialized has a lot of new technology in the pipeline around this space
Alternatively the magnet clips someone posted are a super tidy way to do it - no fragile external connectors anywhere on the ocmponent and can be sealed much better. Wireless components will only become more common, as anyone who has replaced the cable on an e-bike with attest to!
Regarding wireless droppers, I wonder if it would be possible to make a similar system to the archer d1x gear shifting system. A remote, Bluetooth activated servo that opens/closes the cable end of any current cable actuated dropper post with a small cable spool. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to do? The only bikes that it would struggle with are ones that have interrupted seat tubes like Santa Cruz, forbidden, etc
Don’t know if anyone with the tech know how is trying this already…But might bring wireless droppers to more people, and get the drop/looks that most people are after.
I talked to a factory rider of a well known d2c brand. He also had ridden an Amflow bike with the dji motor and said he’s never ridden a bike with this good of a motor. He rode stuff up that he considered unridable on any other e-bike including his own sponsors e-bike. And the current e-bike of his sponsor is really good, but no dji motor. But there are lots of bike companies that have the dji motor already in house and build prototypes.
HOWEVER…
There are management concerns (I assume that counts for all bike brands the same) if dji who are a large corporation, decide/calculate/figure that the bike industry isn’t worthy the revenue their motor brings in and choose to discontinue the bike motor, you then have a bunch of bikes out in the field and no more spare parts. After all, dealing with Chinese, isn’t always easy. Not trying to bash them, it’s simply that a lot of people didn’t experience great customer service from Chinese companies and they’re not necessarily known for that either. And it would suck to for the bike manufacturer and obviously for the customer, if you can’t get spare parts for the motor.
Plus the dji cranks bend. Not during normal pedaling but if you properly case a jump, their cranks bend i.e. the pedals point down. Easy fix, choose different cranks, but this could hint other poor choices in material and/or parts strength
On the other hand, a close friend of the pro rider runs a large bike shop that sells Amflow bikes, has people storming into his shop simply asking for Amflow because of the motor. They don’t care about the bike.
Anyway. Just what I picked up from some nerdy conversations…
One company that manufactures MTB suspension is currently already doing kinetic energy recovery damping for factory motorsport applications. It is not one of the big 2 either.
US Department of Defense classify DJI as a "Chinese Military Company". I'd imagine that alone will be plenty to ward off many of the bigger, more conservative brands. Especially as we approach another 4yrs of trump tariffs.
Should be simple enough, the only problem being how to get the signal to the actuator. Frames are either steel, titanium or aluminium, all obviously conduct electricity, while carbon fibre also conducts electricity, but not sure how well. The metallic bikes for sure, possibly also carbon fibre bikes, are effectively Faraday cages which means no signal can get to the inside, more or less...
I agree, but still it works for people integrating AXS electronics in the handlebars or inside their frames. Don't understand how though.
Regarding energy recovery, I was invited to a brainstorming session by a local sports equipment brand just before covid where energy recovery was one of the ideas. It would require a completely custom drivetrain solution fkm the cranks to the rear wheel - custom motor, gearbox and a direct connection between the motor and rear wheel. That means either in hub motor or a direct chain/belt connection with no tensioners. Which means a single pivot suspension layout with a concentric pivot to the output ring.
Then there is the question of activating and modulating the recovery, this session occurred before abs on bikes was a reality. And another question is the amount of recovery that is possible with, realistically, rear wheel only, the control or the calibration of the system should be a pain in the ass with a mountain bike and where you would be doing the energy recovery given the variability of surfaces and grip levels, etc.
Kudos to anybody making that happen in a way where it would be genuinely useful over just a marketing gimmick that nobody cares about 3 months after the release.
I might be wrong about the Faraday cage factor of everything...
I knew there must have been a reason no one had done it up to now, seems too simple for someone cleverer than me to not try it…
Even F1 has trouble balancing brake bias with the effects of regenerative braking on the rear wheels. It would seem to be much harder on a mtb with the weight shifts and traction variation.
Maybe it could be integrated with ABS, but then I wonder if regen would create enough energy to offset the power demands of ABS systems?
Regen on mid drives seems difficult and highly inefficient to implement, but for hub motors mated to a brake sensor could work (how my hybrid regens).
Back to rumors the entire specialized gravity team were testing in Tahoe and Bruni’s insta post on it mentioned ‘new bike is fast’. Maybe a revised layout proto update or they’re finally on the production frame?
Taken with Niantic's training an AI with all the data it amassed from PokemonGo it's way too easy to see how that info could be used for ill. I'm not anti ebike, but I am anti unscrupulous data acquisition.
Nothing against your comment, but just reading that, and then realizing that this forum is discussing advancing ways to make bikes more electronic just made me shudder a little.
I heard the “new” bike looks nothing like what they have now. Heard it may even have an interesting drivetrain set up