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Comment by yohannparis | Hacker News Reader

I like innovation like this, but I will never buy one. A chain or belt will always work when the battery is dead. Or something went wrong. I need a fail-safe mechanism, and this idea does not offer one.

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Conventional mechanical drive trains are very efficient, but those with multiple gears can be fragile with exposed moving parts subject to damage and misalignment. Most of us who ride a lot have experienced broken shifter cables, bent derailleur hangers, etc. Hardly fail safe. A well engineered electric drive system could potentially be more robust and reliable, but obviously more expensive and less efficient.

I agree, but even the most sophisticated or rusty/bent/damage drivetrain is only unridable if a chain-link is broken and you don't have a chain-link tool to shorten it. Even with broken cables, you can select a gear by moving the chain and go forward.

  An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You
  should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign,
  just "Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for your convenience."

--Mitch Hedberg

This is a funny quote, but for those who don’t know it’s also wrong. Escalators can indeed break, and violently: https://gizmodo.com/catastrophic-escalator-failure-in-rome-s...

There's also the fact that an escalator makes for some terrible stairs — the steps are much taller then what would be comfortable (and allowed, AFAIK) for stairs.

I cannot count the number of times I trashed my gears. And the fail-safe is walking. (I assume you're using a fixie?)

Something is very wrong with your bike if you are frequently "trashing" your gears. I've been riding bikes for 30 years and have never had to walk due to drivetrain failure.

As long as the drivetrain is set up well initially, a traditional bike will go many thousands of miles on pretty minimal maintenance.

I suspect I'm just not taking good enough care - both while riding and with maintenance. Rusty bowden cables causing misalignment and the chain jumping into weird places… (I've also used some sketchy bikes. One literally had the rear derailleur bolted on because the mounting mechanism didn't fit the holes on the frame. I ended up completely twisting that one.)

Single speed transportation bicycles are extremely common where there aren't significant hills. Internal gear hubs have regained significant popularity, too - ranging from 2 to 11 speeds.

Not sure why you're "trashing your gears" so regularly. Older cassettes/chains didn't like being shifted under significant power but anything made in the last 20+ years by SRAM or Shimano or Campagnolo really shouldn't have a problem being shifted while full-on sprinting.

I think we may have different definitions of what significant power means. I managed to break the metal rod inside my plastic pedals one time… But yeah, I used an 8 speed hub gear with a toothed belt for ~7 years, which I don't see breaking any time soon. (Though I did have to walk home a few times due to other reasons, e.g. clogging the gears up with snow or flat tires.) But it doesn't switch gears when under power, and if you start giving power while it hasn't fully switched yet, it makes very unhealthy sounds.

This is a generator, a dead battery is not a problem. Nothing in this setup is less likely to break than your chain or a derailleur -- I've had those happen to me a couple of times each.

I understand what you are saying, but a generator capable of providing enough power to propel the bike without a battery doesn't exist yet. If that was the case, the battery would not be needed.

It is however a lot easier to cart around a chain tool and a replacement chain than a replacement generator.

Which I do on longer rides, but they only seem to break on casual rides when I don't have them.

But I've also broken frames and taco'd wheels. Should I bring spares for those?

That generator can probably do a million miles.

You must be putting your bikes through hell and never maintaining them. There are no instances where a chain should break if properly maintained and replaced at the end of its life.

It's happened twice. Once was on a really old chain. The other I'm not as sure. I'm a heavy guy. If I use my weight I can put a lot of torque on the pedal.

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