Stringbike: Benefits (2020)
stringbike.com
stringbike.com
There will be a lot of pressure on a relatively small wheel there, so I wonder what dust or a grain of sand would do there. I would guess making sure the mechanism near the pedals stays operating smoothly takes more maintenance than with normal bicycles. I wonder whether they considered exchanging rotary motion of the pedals for up/down movement so that they could get rid of that complex shape.
Also, given that they sell a “seatpole spare string holder“, those strings don’t seem to last as long as a traditional bicycle chain.
Since you can't fix a broken string just by removing a link and closing it, the only protection against string breakage is to carry a full spare.
Edit: there's also two strings, one on each side. So if one snaps, I think you can ride home with the other
If you put a new chain on old sprockets, it will likely skip, particularly on the rear cassette. This will go double if you're someone who allowed the chain to wear for so long that it just broke. That chain will only work with the sprockets that it is on and vice versa.
If you damaged a newer chain due to some freak accident (like cross chaining while shifting under load or something: shouldn't happen on a quality, well adjusted drive train) you probably don't want to replace it; aside from the bent/broken link, it is good. Splice the damaged link out and get moving.
Swapping in a new chain could be extra work. It likely has excess links which you have to remove and set aside, and may have stuck links that have to be identified and massaged into releasing.
For MTB especially, it’s not the fact that there’s probably better drivetrain options, but the fact that the current options will happily take a beating, and still let you ride back out. I’m sure the string is real nice and quiet, and has a nice internal hub, but my chain, mech and cassette will get whipped into trees and rocks, will have sand, water, grit ground through it for ~20kms, sustain impacts from going off drops and jumps and they’ll continue to work. I’ve bent mechs, hangers, dinged cassettes, ground chainrings, and they’ll put up with an astounding amount and still get you home.
Once home the ease of access make maintenance a lot simpler, everything gets a clean and lube and it’s happy to go again.
Your definition of "serious cyclist" excludes a lot of serious cyclists. Precisely because it happens so rarely, carrying a bulky tool for a rare problem isn't worth it to everyone.
We've seriously shifted the goalposts from "serious cyclist."
Folks who are serious about any hobby or activity are also often relentlessly practical. I used to ride 100km from the city I lived in, out to my brothers farm. It was not a particularly long or challenging ride, and it had cell service most of the way, even 20 years ago. I always did a gear check, and carried spare tires, but in 4 years of doing that 20-30 times per year, I replaced tires, but never a chain on that ride. I also never carried the tools to do that work because it fell into the category of unnecessary gear. If there was a problem, I was only about a 30 minute wait for help from either side if I needed to be picked up.
I also used to do a fair bit of trail riding, and for a much longer period of time, and for significantly technical trails. Again, a gear check ahead of time, and proper maintenance meant I took tubes, but not the chain repair tools (and one time I regretted not taking 4 tubes, because it was a long and hot 14km hike back carrying my bike on a July afternoon).
I am not going to gatekeep your ability to gatekeep, but you should at least understand that your perspective on what constitutes a "serious" cyclist is completely subjective and not rooted in anything meaningful.
There’s a tendency to ascribe value to words like “serious” but it’s a temptation, nothing more. Who cares that some bozo thinks “serious” drivers drive manual transmission cars, or ride bikes in a particular way.
The worst mechanical I ever had was a rear derailleur which deformed under load and pulled into wheel. I have never heard of anyone carrying a complete spare derailleur unless on a round the world trip.
https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/900-bike-multitool/_/R-p-10042...
[1]: http://www.birzman.com/products_2.php?uID=2&cID=31&Key=54
Small distinction I agree, but you come off a little arrogant with such a strongly worded statement.
But as with all riding, it depends on use-case. For remote cycling, you'll be carrying more spares than commuting, where worst-case you can walk the bike home.
The people I know who've had breakdowns tend to be physically a lot stronger than me, and more "adventuresome" in their choice of riding conditions. For instance I expect my mountain biking friend to have a new story of destruction every few weeks. In some cases, I suspect that neglect or lack of maintenance skills played a role.
I bring more spares and stuff when I go on really long rides, or if my family travels to some remote place with the bikes.
Bike chains supposedly last from 500 to 5000 miles (https://www.bikeshepherd.org/how-long-do-bike-chains-last/) depending on usage and maintenance.
Regardless, aren't you suggesting here that we should use chains and not strings because their upper bound of lifetime is higher?
> Change the strings quickly and easily in 2 minutes, no tool required and no need to remove the wheel. Choose the color to match your outfit or mood.
500km == 310.68m
1,500km == 932.05m
500m == 804.67km
5,000m == 8046.72km
you should write "mi" not "m", m symbol for meter.
I'm curious how often you'd need to replace other moving parts on the stringbike; at a guess since there's much less exposed metal-on-metal there'd be less wear.
With an 8 speed bike, riding between 300km - 500km a week, I usually get around ~1000km on a chain riding outdoors, or about a month on a chain. Riding indoors on a trainer however, my chain almost never needs to be replaced.
For an 8 speed bike you replace the chain at 0.75 wear.
Depending on the bike you may choose to let both wear, and replace both at the same time. Eventually you will find the shifting sloppy, and the chain slipping however. This observation is from personal experience.
I find the idea of using string interesting, more commonly on the market you would see belt driven designs like the pinion.
Stringbike – A Chain-less Bicycle - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11515123 - April 2016 (6 comments)
Stringbike: Chain-free bike - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1716002 - Sept 2010 (47 comments)
Degrease your bicycle chain with kerosene or some other solvent, and submerge it in molten paraffin for 20 minutes.
I have been doing this to my bike chains for almost a decade now, and it makes a big difference.
Totally agree that waxed bicycle drivetrains work very well, are quiet, and avoid the mess of oil-based lubricants.
[1]: https://moltenspeedwax.com/
[2]: https://silca.cc/products/secret-chain-wax-blend
[3]: https://www.ceramicspeed.com/en/cycling/shop/ufo-products/uf...
right now about every two weeks I clean the chain with a light mineral oil, then a day later I clean again and put down heavier oil. keeps the mud away.
would be I happier if I just cleaned the chain and dropped it in a pot of hot wax? is there anything to look out for?
Wax fills in all of the voids between the bushings, roller pins, etc - so it physically prevents dirt from getting into your chain. And since there's no oil to cause the dirt to stick to your drivetrain, your gears don't wear down as quickly (as oil / grease + dust is abrasive; each rotation wears the chain and rings down ever so slightly).
Quite possibly. Chains stay clean and efficient for longer without intervention. And can be handled without dirtying your hands. It's nice. Other drivetrain components wear slower because there's less grit and the chain stretches more slowly.
> is there anything to look out for?
Main downsides:
* For bicycles, a lot of chains (Shimano, KMC) come in some kind of factory oil/grease. Stripping that off takes time and working with solvents. Fine if you have time and a garage, less great for busy people in apartments. I think some manufacturers sell dry chains (I've heard YBN does).
* Heating wax up is slow. I use a $12 crockpot and it takes a couple hours. Obviously, it's not like it takes any effort on your part, but there's some built in latency. ("Low" heat is about right in the steady state, but it melts faster if you use "high.")
* Again for bicycles, some kinds of quick link / master link wear quite quickly and can only be reused a handful of times (e.g., Shimano 11 speed). So one surprising expense in repeatedly removing chains to hot wax is the consumption of quick links. Can be mitigated with different brands of quick link, and/or using drip-on wax a few times between hot waxes.
* A freshly waxed chain will be stiff from the hardened wax. So a pre-install step is going through every link in the chain (on bicycles, typically ~110-120 links) and making sure each one rotates freely around the pin. This takes a few minutes.
It's a bit silly, but I've used a simple ESP8266 board with a relay and a DS18B20 temperature sensor controlled by some Arduino code to make a simple temperature controller. It runs a Telegram Bot so I can start/stop the Crockpot and it notifies me when it reaches the desired temperature and when when lubrication is done.
Over the top, but it was interesting to implement. I might release it one day.
> Again for bicycles, some kinds of quick link / master link wear quite quickly and can only be reused a handful of times (e.g., Shimano 11 speed). So one surprising expense in repeatedly removing chains to hot wax is the consumption of quick links. Can be mitigated with different brands of quick link, and/or using drip-on wax a few times between hot waxes.
Whipperman makes the Connex Link. It does not require tools and can be reused as many time as you'd like. No 12 speed version yet, for some reason, though.
https://www.connexchain.com/en/connectors/detail/connex-link
Just note that there are two ways to install it. Follow the instructions exactly as described.
Edit:
Specifically, connect the link at the bottom of the chain, put the link on the front of the right hand side link and the back of the left hand side link.
Otherwise, shifting to the lowest gear will not be smooth.
https://connexchain.s3.amazonaws.com/website/downloads/bedie...
I wonder if that wouldn't solve the master link wear issue if you could wipe soft gobs of it on the chain instead of taking it out and submersing it completely.
It wouldn't penetrate as well, and you might end up wasting a lot of it / making a mess. The goal is to get wax inside, and you prefer it to be a liquid for that.
Maybe I'll add another layer of protection with a second controller and relay that would only work as a timeout or heating overrun protection.
It's still better than the previous situation when I would just forget the crockpot running.
Oh, I always forget about this.
It's not necessary when you only ever ride singlespeed bikes... just wrap your chain around the rings and let the first few cranks do all the hard work!
But if you have a derailleur and whatnot... yeah, don't skip this step!
Clean it with isopropyl alcohol after degreasing it and before submerging in the paraffin.
After a few hundred kilometers you'll need to submerge it again. Boil a kettle of water and use it to clean the chain before submerging it in the paraffin.
Some people suggest adding PTFE to the paraffin, but I have no idea whether it has any benefit.
Geesh, I must really be getting old and grouchy, because that pronunciation is really putting me off the whole video.
We've also had belt driven (with pinion) systems for years, both of which would seem to solve this in a much more straightforward approach. This seems like a technological dead end to me.
But how good would a rope be when it's soggy and covered in road grime? I'm thinking pretty terrible.
The prices on their different lines seem way out of whack though. Carbon and Aluminum cost basically the same? Aren't carbon bikes usually much more expensive than others?
Single speed is _way_ cheaper than the rest. Like unexpectedly so. Are they saying their adjustable gear mechanism accounts for $2000 of the price?
And Designer is in the middle?
I really don't understand the pricing scale here.
Still, it is a bit odd...
€3990-€5200 Carbon €1590-€1990 Designer €1490-€1990 Aluminum €1250 single speed
Carbon: $3478-$4553
Aluminum: $3100-$3800
Designers: $1386-$1909 (many priceless, presumably expensive)
Single Speed: $1090
Look again: the "single speed" includes the gearing:
"The gear shifter was removed however gears can be changed manually pulling or pushing the pulley up or down when the bike is stationary."
You're paying $2000 to not have to stop and change gears manually, or saving $2K by doing without the gear shifter, which ever way you wish to look at it. I almost think the price is a typo.
Wish there was audio, I'm personally a little doubtful of the silence of the bike given the sorta clunky front gear system, but I'm sure it's quieter than a chain. It's odd that they muted it.
I was born in China during the 80s, when biking was the most common way of transportation. The term "Kingdom of Bicycles" [1] was used as a tag line for China in that era. Most roads had bike lanes which could be just as wide as car lanes. Between the lanes are physical separators: 3-4 ft high, made of metal, reliable and heavy-duty [2].
Now I live in the US, and still enjoy biking cause there're nice bike trails near my place. However, most city roads seem not safe for biking. Biking becomes a recreational activity, and no longer a transportation method for me. I appreciate the nicely maintained bike trails, but I hope the city build more physical bike lane separators, not only painted lines on the ground, that can actually stop some reckless drivers entering bike lanes.
--- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_bicycle#China_a...
[2] Another good reading about the bike history in China: The Rise, Fall, and Restoration of the Kingdom of Bicycles. https://macropolo.org/analysis/the-rise-fall-and-restoration...
Other than that I can't readily find any more reviews from anyone who claims to have ridden one. I wonder why, given that they apparently have been making them for 10 years?
[1](https://cyclingtips.com/2017/06/just-how-good-are-male-pro-r...)
I still ride a normal chain bike regularly, and I can't say i find the Brik heavier to ride. It all seems negligible compared to the watts wasted by the sitting position of a city bike.
https://rowingbike.com/en/modellen/
with cables either in steel or in dyneema (polymer-based).
The super funky gearbox contraption though? That's a different story altogether. You have a continuously varying normal force on the lever arm throughout the rotation, and I have no idea how long it would last compared to a traditional derailleur setup.
Here's the patent, for those interested: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2010084363A1/en
0; https://www.stringbike.com/stringbike_support_questionsandan... 1: https://www.stringbike.com/stringbike_asthemagicworks.html
Source: https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/4606/what-cause....
Friend of mine had Zipp wheels which had a distinctly louder freehub.
Clutch mechanisms are available, but these are slightly less efficient and generally more expensive.
Basically... People love spending lots of money for the absolute highest quality components. How will other riders know how fancy your hubs are unless it broadcasts that fact to the world?
There will absolutely be some losses due to rope deformation (squish, not stretch) and heat, but I imagine they would be relatively consistent across the lifetime of the rope - there's not any grease to degrade over time, for example.
Also the string will definitely pick up grime off the roads, especially when wet, so efficiency will almost certainly drop as a result.
https://www.stringbike.com/stringbike_support_questionsandan...
I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with the pull-back motion of the strings. Is there a spring in the hub? Are they stretchy cords that are going to snap someday? How easy are they for a passing asshole having a bad day to cut?
i.e. - Your push stroke unwinds the string to its max extension length, and then the rotational inertia of the wheel does the job of winding the string up again.
EDIT: Scratch that, disregard the above. Looks like they're using a spring to wind up one side while it freewheels.
As for assholes? Yeah, they're going to be able to slice those with a pocket knife in a few seconds. Even Dyneema and the like would likely be quickly frayed with a few good knife swipes to the point of being in danger of snapping from a hard pedal push when taking off from a stoplight.
What happens if the string snaps?
It takes 10 minutes to replace, by the rider. No specialist knowledge required, worth watching the tutorial on the website. No tool required, no need to remove the rear wheel, or other parts. Spare string is provided, and neatly stored in the seat pole. The spare comes with instructions to install.
And then there's the bearing surface of the pedal-gear-thingies. I'd bet a little grit in there would sound and feel like nails on a chalkboard.
A silly idea, for sure, but fun to think about and a unique feature of a two sided drive.
Which is pretty short... You rarely break a normal bike chain.