You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
They had it on their stand at the Malverns too. Very lovely thing. No plans for a geared/gearbox version when I spoke to Joe though.
I wouldn't want a gearbox on it. Just the Middleburns, thanks!
Love the Sturn - all bar the horrid 1/2 link chain. Even if it is necessary. I'd def have one if I had the use.
Now if only they could hide a small gearbox in it it'd be more than a park bike.
Love the Sturn - all bar the horrid 1/2 link chain. Even if it is necessary.
I hadn't even noticed that. I don't think an all half-link chain is necessary. Surely all you need is one half-link?
I remember there was a fashion among BMXers to use all half-link chains for a while. Maybe this is a throwback to that 🙂
Very lovely thing. No plans for a geared/gearbox version when I spoke to Joe though.
I think a Gearbox would miss the point (IMO of course), a Jackshaft SS suspension bike just looks 'Right', Starling's are much tidier.
A Single speed DH bike makes real sense to me, perhaps not as an all-out race bike(?), but it addresses the main complaint people have about gear danglers risking rock interactions. Obviously the trick then is picking your one ratio to suit the riding, but I do think I'd personally prefer that over a Gearbox.
IT's the KISS principle innit, but also not the topic Weeksy was looking to discuss, Race bikes really need gears.
Almost all BMX chains are full half-link now so it's one of those. Only kids bikes and racers use normal chains anymore.
Has anyone seen the Sturn V3 with pedals on? I'm wondering if that's a custom pair of left hand drive Middleburn's or they've stuck a regular set on the wrong way round to get it on display.
A Single speed DH bike makes real sense to me, perhaps not as an all-out race bike(?), but it addresses the main complaint people have about gear danglers risking rock interactions. Obviously the trick then is picking your one ratio to suit the riding, but I do think I'd personally prefer that over a Gearbox.
Using a Classified hub might be the way to go, dunno if singlespeed/dinglespeed is possible on them though?
Using a Classified hub might be the way to go, dunno if singlespeed/dinglespeed is possible on them though?
Like I said, Keep it simple, can you even get a 148mm Classified hub? are you gaining much by having 2 speeds Vs gearing a little on the tall side and having to grunt a little jus to get rolling?
Almost all BMX chains are full half-link now so it's one of those. Only kids bikes and racers use normal chains anymore.
Really?
I genuinely thought it was a fashion thing from 15 years ago or so that they had given up on.
I understand having one half-link but why anyone would possibly want a full chain of half-links?
can you even get a 148mmClassified hub? are you gaining much by having 2 speeds
- They do an MTB version so I'm sure it's 148mm
- Yes, you're gaining 100% extra speeds
Has anyone seen the Sturn V3 with pedals on? I'm wondering if that's a custom pair of left hand drive Middleburn's or they've stuck a regular set on the wrong way round to get it on display.
No I haven't but expect it's just a case of swapping the axles side to side and keeping an eye on the axle/nuts & adding a big dollop of Loctite to make sure they don't unwind. Though thinking about it for the pedals it'd be no different to normal as the nut one side is always "backwards" as they're just standard nylocs not handed versions (I'm thinking Burgtecs as it's all I've had for years).
Did RHD BMX cranks used on the left used to unwind the pedals before LHD was invented?
Sure Middleburn/BETD is small enough to be able to do a few customs.
Sod running pedals the wrong way around. They only need to come loose by a couple of threads before they rip themselves out. Don't fancy that halfway down Pleney.
I don't know anyone who was running LHD on a BMX before the cranks and hubs were available. The cranks have been bossed on both arms for over 20 years and you couldn't just swap them around anyway until you had a LHD rear wheel.
Any BMX cranks would fit the Sturn but some 155mm Hopes with the correct pedal threads would be a lovely thing. Or eewings if you're Tom Howard.
Or eewings if you're Tom Howard.
Starling are in convo with Ora, so maybe they’ll do a lhd version…
Has anyone seen the Sturn V3 with pedals on? I'm wondering if that's a custom pair of left hand drive Middleburn's or they've stuck a regular set on the wrong way round to get it on display.
Middleburn do tandem cranks so it's probably got those fitted to stop the pedals unscrewing.
Chainring is on the left on the front of tandems so pedal threads will be the correct way round.
Slight aside: are belt drives on grown up bikes really sensitive to how straight the wheel is in the frame? We’ve got an early rider belter and getting the tension and wheel alignment right is a bit of a zen breathing job and there’s a pretty narrow window of where it’ll work. I’m wondering if it’s a function of being a tiny wee belt or not as it’s the only maintenance grumble I have with that bike.
Middleburn do tandem cranks so it's probably got those fitted to stop the pedals unscrewing.
Chainring is on the left on the front of tandems so pedal threads will be the correct way round.
That's the answer I was looking for. I never knew that about tandems and now I do.
Just need the Sturn page of the Starling website to be updated with all of the juicy details.
I worked out once that we put out 350 ft lbs of torque at the rear wheel in granny gear on our tandem - at 60 rpm tho not at 3000 or more!Maybe measure the torque your legs can put out and then compare it to that of a big Harley Davidson engine,
I am a huge fan of IGH. cheap to run ( chains and sprockets last longer and cheaper to replace) Virtually unbreakable. I'd love a pinion to try out.
one of the best runs I watched in this years World Cup series was by the guy whose chain broke at the start of his run. Rendering his drive chain choice redundant.
This bike doesn't use a gearbox but the alignment of the crank to pivot line drive is the kind of layout that a 5-7 speed 'mech in a box' and high pivot combo could take.
I rode a longer travel bike with an Effigear gearbox and belt briefly last year. I'm not the one to say whether the sus sensitivity was a game-changer as I rarely ride anything with 150mm+ travel and it was set up for a heavier rider but, like e-bikes with more mass in the frame, the suspension did feel very reactive and supple vs what felt through the contact points - like riding a rigid bike with great quality lightweight tyres vs rigid heavy casings. Whether that's worth some loss of the efficient power transfer / acceleration that a direct crank-to-wheel chain connection gives I'm not sure. In DH I'm tempted to say it should be.
Starling are in convo with Ora
I saw some of those recently.. Very nice.
I also had a carpark pedal on the Beady Little Eye and can't stop thinking about how much fun a grunt-n-plummet bike could be for the short runs in the local woods. Such a great combo of tech and KIS. Not sure about the Classified hub on it- too £££ for my tastes and hub gears off-road detract from the dynamic ride feel overall ime.
BLE with a belt .. mm-mm
are belt drives on grown up bikes really sensitive to how straight the wheel is in the frame?
Yes, Gates have a spec for the alignment tolerances. And frame stiffness, though that won't be the issue on a kid's bike unless Jnr is a track world champ in the making.
“…on the Beady Little Eye and can't stop thinking about how much fun a grunt-n-plummet bike could be for the short runs in the local woods. Such a great combo of tech and KIS.”
I haven’t ridden one but I keep thinking about the BLE and then remind myself that my 160mm singlespeed Moxie is basically an even simpler version and I already own it!
Didn't someone on here build up a Nordest Lacrau a few years ago?
I've been dreaming of one ever since. Mrs STR does need something to buy me for our 30th wedding anniversary 😉
I'd love an XC/trail version of that Sturn
And a Classified dinglespeed. The problem, aside from the absurdly high price, is that the singlespeed versions may be OEM only (the standard hub takes a prioprietry cassette, which won't take a single speed sprocket).
No advantage in DH use... and worse for all other riding. We're all waiting for someone to create a gearbox without the kind of drag that makes you question whether you really like riding a bike at all... but after many decades... it's clearly not coming. Now, ebikes are a whole different story... that could pan out quite differently, eventually. And belts... we've been down that deadend a few times already... commuter bikes yes, proper filthy mountainbiking no.
Thanks @jameso. That highlights a small issue with belt drives. They’re definitely lower maintenance but the maintenance they do need is a bit of a learning curve IMO. Not helped that by the time you need to do maintenance again you’ve forgotten what you did last time.
And a Classified dinglespeed. The problem, aside from the absurdly high price, is that the singlespeed versions may be OEM only (the standard hub takes a prioprietry cassette, which won't take a single speed sprocket).
One day, Shimano will see sense and make a posh Nexus 2 or 3spd. I've been waiting a long time.
I haven’t ridden one but I keep thinking about the BLE and then remind myself that my 160mm singlespeed Moxie is basically an even simpler version and I already own it!
Yes.. But think about the benefits on the suspension of the light rear end, no mech/cassette .. it runs almost no sag but could react fast. Would need careful shock set up but that's an interesting combination of traits, could be the most fun bike going. Spin it up to speed then just use momentum and flow to stay there. You need one ; )
We're all waiting for someone to create a gearbox without the kind of drag that makes you question whether you really like riding a bike at all...
What makes me question whether I like riding is maintenance, mechanicals, cleaning, etc.
No advantage in DH use... and worse for all other riding. We're all waiting for someone to create a gearbox without the kind of drag that makes you question whether you really like riding a bike at all... but after many decades... it's clearly not coming. Now, ebikes are a whole different story... that could pan out quite differently, eventually. And belts... we've been down that deadend a few times already... commuter bikes yes, proper filthy mountainbiking no.
Agree on belts. Don't see the benefit for mtb use but had one on a commuter and think they should be much more widely used there. Clean and low maintenance - you can quickly hose your bike after a filthy commute and just put it away.
I really wonder just how much time people who complain about gearbox drag have actually ridden them. I spent years riding Rohloffs both commuting and on both full sus and ht mtbs. The weight distribution off road was poor, especially as it was all unsprung leading to more pinch flats (this was mostly in the days of tubes too), but the drag really wasn't a problem for any of the sort of riding I was doing. If I was racing and every single watt counted maybe, but more than offset by all weather/zero chain suck/perfect indexing/stationary shifting the rest of the time.
Pinion was even better - very low unsprung mass made a very noticeable improvement to suspension, low central weight good and certainly less perceptual drag than Rohloff (the 'grinding' sensation in some rohloff gears is something you feel, but I'm not so convinced it has a real negative impact).
Issues for me?
Gearbox outliving the bike geometry so you can't get the value for it when you sell it, nor transfer it to a new bike (as the old frame then becomes completely worthless and you can't buy a new frame without a gearbox attached...). Bike geometry changes are minor enough that's probably less of an issue now, and the same issue applies to eBikes generally
Weight - I'd definitely consider a Pinion for my next unpowered Enduro bike. Riding in rocky terrain with no risk to mech/uplifted trips - all that would be great. In theory the weight shouldn't matter on an eBike but I think eBikes ride best at about 20kg and adding a few extra to that does make a difference. The Nicolai with the Pinion is 26.5kg! which is a lot. Based on my old non-e bike pinion it won't feel like that when you're riding it because the weight distribution is so good (and that seems true of the MGU as well) but thats a LOT of weight.
Pinion MGU Nicolai impressed RobRidesEMTB enough that he bought one with his own money
and Loam Wolf first ride very positive too. https://theloamwolf.com/videos/video-testing-the-nicolai-s16-mgu-with-pinion-e1-12-motor-gearbox-belt-drive/
Just looking to see what other bikes are available with the Pinion MGU. Theres not a lot of choice, and it's all at the the Enduro end at the moment - 170/160 or 160/160mm travel. There nothing trying to compete in the 160/150 c20kg Trail bike market the Rise/Amflow are in.
Nicoalai >26kg
Both the Haibike and the Moustache look decent enough, but they're coming in at >27kg (!).
The carbon Simplon is nearly 26kg in the most expensive spec.
(for comparison an alloy Spec Turbo Levo is 26kg and the carbon one 24.5kg. I've not checked battery sizes on all of these to see if they're like for like)
I'm struggling to make sense of why the Pinion bikes seem so heavy: the MGU is supposedly 4.1kg which is 1.5kg over a Shimano motor and 1.3kg over a Bosch CX. But you *should* be able to offset quite a bit of that weight - an SLX 12S cassette and mech are 800g. And *in theory* a belt drive should have a weight advantage over a chain, but I'm pretty certain the oversized/overbuilt front and rear sprockets, rear cog snubber and that tensioner with a big spring, and the big retainer ring/bashguard on the front mean you've just added all the weight back on.
It feels like theres scope for a weight optimised single speed rear hub and chain tensioner and you'd get the weight penalty down to less than a kg, especially if you did a Rise style power limit so you could get good range out of a smaller battery. I think I'd be all over that.
Different tensioner and snubber on the Simplon but they definitely don't look light...
Spoke to a chap at the weekend with an older Zerode bike (not the DH one), he said he doesn’t really notice the drag after the first few rides, but does notice how well it rode compared to everything else he tried. Apparently it climbs perfectly fine and the position of the gear box weight makes it descend like a dream, which is something I can attest to from my YT Decoy MX.
I’d certainly consider getting a gearbox bike if I wanted either a DH bike or an enduro bike.
I really wonder just how much time people who complain about gearbox drag have actually ridden them.
I persevered with my Rohloff long enough for it to go through two sets of wheel bearings.
Folks kept telling me the drag would get better when it was broken in...
I think after enough riding for the bearings to get play in them twice it should be broken in.
I sold it after it came back from Rohloff for the second time.
I really did love the idea of a gear hub but the reality was it was probably fine for a commuter bike but not for my intended use.
I believe @trailrat had a similar experience.
I do wonder if IGHs/Gearboxes just inherently have more of a range of drag that you can have within a single model. I had two 8s Alfines. On one the drag was unnoticeable, on the other the other it was noticeable to the point of being annoying.
One was silver and one was black but I don't think that was the difference. Saying that, the bad one I got second hand so who knows if the previous owner did weird stuff with it.
Anyway, still got the good one and I gave away the bad one.
I've a Rohloff on my gravelbike and I'm conflicted on the drag.
At first I didn't notice it at all -- on my local UK rides I was around 5% slower, perhaps less, which was what I'd been expecting. As a solo rider that doesn't bother me, especially as I make most of that time back through avoided maintenance (and I rather spend more time on the bike than fixing it, even if that on-bike time is grinding up a hill).
Now I live in Switzerland, however, I find I am extremely slow on hilly rides (100km rides with >3000m of climbing), and I can't help wondering if the Rohloff is more draggy for these kind of routes. But I have no geared bike to check with, and it is equally likely that these rides are just hard on any bike.
I find I am extremely slow on hilly rides (100km rides with >3000m of climbing),
That ties in with my experiences. I was doing a fair few 100km MTB marathons when i had the Rohloff.
Just found it ground me down. Switched the same bike out to conventional gears and it felt better in every way.
I find I am extremely slow on hilly rides (100km rides with >3000m of climbing),
That ties in with my experiences. I was doing a fair few 100km MTB marathons when i had the Rohloff.
Just found it ground me down. Switched the same bike out to conventional gears and it felt better in every way.
It's not so much the length for me, but the climbing.
I've never been a particularly fast rider -- probably the fastest was a solo road century at 22kmph or so, with a little over 1000m of climbing, so hardly flying.
But my average speed on a couple of ~110km rides over here has dropped under 13kmph. I've no idea whether that was entirely due to the ~3,500m of climbing, or because Rohloffs' efficiency drops considerably at slow cadence in the lower gears.
In any case, I'm riding a steel gravel bike, with no other riders to slipstream, so I'm never going to be roadie speeds.
This thread sent me off down a rabbit hole of reviews. RobRidesEMTB was impressed enough with the Nicolai Pinion that he bought one with his own money. There was a post 8 months ago after he'd owned it for a while in which he seemed to say it was great, but he's since sold it. Which is odd.
https://ebike-mtb.com/en/the-best-simplon-rapcon/ compared the same frame as an unpowered, TQ, Bosch and Pinion version but they seem to have missed a load of opportunities to make decent comparisons between them. Their efficiency test is disappointingly basic but seems to show the Pinion is far more efficient than the other motors. If that was the case you'd expect manufacturers to be shipping them with smaller batteries for a lighter bike.
The mention of air vents only on the Pinion version suggest heat management might be an issue (which would suggest poor efficiency) although you'd then expect them to be around the motor rather that above the battery? (I've never seen any review make any mention of Pinions battery charging - if it was super fast it might generate more heat?)