- Joined
- Aug 8, 2022
- Messages
- 1,321
What a dumb looking bike
- Thread starter harrisonpatm
- Start date
I'd give credit to this company for actually producing the bike. Every normal employee, after realizing how bad the product is, would just quit and look for another job. But no, these guys stayed and released the bike to the world, for everyone to see and avoid making the same mistake again.
Chalo
100 TW
Hubless wheels are shorthand for "I'm a fledgling designer without half a clue how things really work". I've seen it again and again for my entire adult life. There are no exceptions.
Here's the old for sale thread
endless-sphere.com
oddly didn't find any other discussion threads for this one.
To support this thread, I'll just quote the company (and some thoughts that passed thru my head as I was pasting it in)
(Wonder what rain on the sensor does to distort your print?)
(Does the bike shutdown when your phone battery runs out or the app crashes or...)
and then myself from that one back on Dec 26, 2021
And then Chalo's response to them from a few days before me
Reevo : The Hubless E-Bike Style, security & safety for the modern urban cyclist.
Say hello to the coolest, most secure ride ever built. Pure engineering excellence, secured with world-class triple-barrier security and built around a strong, lightweight core with a sleek stealth black finish. The most striking bike ever built is also the most secure bike in the market. It’s...
endless-sphere.com
To support this thread, I'll just quote the company (and some thoughts that passed thru my head as I was pasting it in)
(So don't ride it in freezing weather when you must wear gloves?)
(Wonder what rain on the sensor does to distort your print?)
(Does the bike shutdown when your phone battery runs out or the app crashes or...)
and then myself from that one back on Dec 26, 2021
oh, great--airless tires *and* no spokes, and no mechanical suspension in the frame and fork. so zero suspension of any kind other than the rider's own joints and fat.
so it's ride quality for actual city usage will actually be negative, rather than just zero, unless you're indoors on a perfect skating rink-smooth surface.
i imagine on the typical city roads here where a bicycle is relegated to, those wheels are going to be beat up so badly that they'll start coming apart in a very short time. (even regular bike wheels on oem non-ebike bikes fail on these conditions, without being setup by someone that knows what they're doing first, on non-suspension bikes with pneumatic tires, they do so very quickly with airless tires!)
then there's the delicate electronics of the security system that are very likely to prevent actual owners from riding their own bikes and strand them out in places, especially after it has sat in the desert sun on the bike rack in summer for a few hours. and if it requires an app to interface with, then when y'all stop updating the app like all companies end up doing, but the phone/etc os's update enough to require an app update to allow the app to run, then the owners will have a cool looking expensive modern art sculpture to put out in their yard to look at, instead of a bike to ride. and if the app requires subscriptions then they will even have to pay for the privelege of riding there own property, right up to the time the subscription or authorization servers stop working for whatever reason and they again have a sculpture instead of transportation.
i hope it has a super great warranty on them for a very long time, and y'all actually are still around to honor it, for those customers that choose to buy one from you.
And then Chalo's response to them from a few days before me
DanGT86
100 kW
Watched that episode just this morning. Hilarious how pushing the bike triggers the PAS to take off and ghost ride indefinitely! I wonder how many people were injured by these bikes.
If it only was so simple.
Inventive "Donut Motor" 15.KW @ 8.KG scooter motor?
What is this mechanism? The company is at CES 2025 so there will be videos of their stand. Heres a sales blurb video, FFWD to 3:50 (to avoid tedium).
endless-sphere.com
People tend to like to reinvent the wheel.
Tom Cruise bought one for sure
I would expect "normal employees" to revise the design to make it a *good* product...rather than just persevering to release a bad one that they have to know the problems of.
I don't give credit for that kind of perseverance.
DanGT86
100 kW
I was thinking piece a sh*tSo for this design, is that Pedestrian Assault System?
Or maybe Push Attack Start?
I'd like to see a *careful* disassembly.
, with detailed high res pics of all the bits. Ideally I'd like to *do* the disassembly, but I can't imagine ever running across one for free, which is the only way that would ever happen. :lol:
marvin78
1 kW
What's the inherit mechanical 'fault' in this idea though? I mean drive shafts are not a new thing, as a kid I owned a Yamaha PW50 once and besides not being the coolest kid on the block riding it, it had basically a 'zero maintenance' drive system.
Looking at the picture I would be afraid of dirt ingress in the shaft or build up on the 'teeth' of the gear both of which would negatively affect efficiency. On that moped the driveshaft was fully enclosed... now I get that this isn't in line with 'want to keep bike as light as possible' but I would feel a lot better about it then.
Though I would want to combine it with a pineon gearbox, and only use the shaft for transmission. I'm pretty sure if you do this right you're going to beat the reliability / endurance of belt drives.
Sounds like the ideal setup for long distance bike packing.
edit: or replace pineon with a Roelhoff hub, if you don't mind more weight in your wheel.
Looking at the picture I would be afraid of dirt ingress in the shaft or build up on the 'teeth' of the gear both of which would negatively affect efficiency. On that moped the driveshaft was fully enclosed... now I get that this isn't in line with 'want to keep bike as light as possible' but I would feel a lot better about it then.
Though I would want to combine it with a pineon gearbox, and only use the shaft for transmission. I'm pretty sure if you do this right you're going to beat the reliability / endurance of belt drives.
Sounds like the ideal setup for long distance bike packing.
edit: or replace pineon with a Roelhoff hub, if you don't mind more weight in your wheel.
Last edited:
the main problem is that the gears here are not going to transfer any serious force, they will deform and self-destruct instead. I dont' think you'd be able to ride this bike at all. It's the kind of engineering @Chalo mentioned here - made only to look nice on pictures but never worked in reality and never will. And with recent AI developments you don't even have to build anything, just ask ChatGPT to make a video...
marvin78
1 kW
Ow I agree the gearing itself doesn't like inspirational at all, which is why I would want to replace that with other options. But the driveshaft idea for a zero maintenance bicycle isn't a bad idea I feel on it's own. It's just going to be heavier and less efficient as a chain would be, which is why I think we haven't seen much development into that area before we got options for electrical assist.
We're seeing a lot of ebikes with beltdrives and gearboxes / hubs with internal gearboxes, especially for long distance trekking. I think we will see one's with driveshaft eventually as well ( though maybe niche, as in only meant for the most gnarly situations where a open belt drive would get less efficient like thick deep mud ).
Or maybe not, I got like a 38.7c fever so maybe I'm half hallucinating
We're seeing a lot of ebikes with beltdrives and gearboxes / hubs with internal gearboxes, especially for long distance trekking. I think we will see one's with driveshaft eventually as well ( though maybe niche, as in only meant for the most gnarly situations where a open belt drive would get less efficient like thick deep mud ).
Or maybe not, I got like a 38.7c fever so maybe I'm half hallucinating
Driveshaft, as you have noticed, is a well known and tested technology that exists already and is used in motorcycles. Has been designed and made possible by engineers who know what they're doing. But the guys who made the gears from ball bearings would only be able to draw a picture of it (as long as it doesn't need to be correct).
Aside from debris ingress, the rings would require some serious stiffness so they remain fully engaged with the drive teeth. I somehow doubt the structure as pictured would have sufficient stiffness, so that would allow deformation during engagement, and excessive wear of both drive and ring teeth.
Shifting that among the rings would also require moving the drive gear longitudinally along the shaft. Debris could lodge in the splines or other drive surfaces on the shaft that the drive gear has to slide along, and cause jams, and you can't lubricate that with typical greases or oils either, or it will accumulate fine debris rapidly and wear even faster, or jam more often. Fixing the gear to the shaft and moving the shaft itself requires the shaft be hollow and slide over another shaft, and while you could gasket that to minimize debris, and lubricate it's insides, it adds weight and size to the system over moving just the gear.
As you note in the rest of your post, enclosing the gearing at each end is a more typical method, and that allows for preventing debris ingress and can also allow for support of a light structure from behind. (would complicate roadside wheel removal for tire/tube service, but I can envision a couple of ways to make that less of an issue, since it would be a custom frame anyway).
A system like that could work fairly well in a perfect lab environment, maybe even in a velodrome, but it's not a practical realworld on-road / path drive.
marvin78
1 kW
Yeah debris ingress was the first thing I saw then they touted this as 'low maintenance'. Which is indeed why a fully enclosed driveshaft with internal gearing in either BB or in the hub would be the closest thing to a 'low maintenance' setup.
Something like this, but replace the open belt drive with an enclosed drive shaft ( and a more rugged frame, tires ect it's not about the bike just the drivesystem ). I wouldn't mind if a bike like that was available for a good affordable price, I think it would sell.
Something like this, but replace the open belt drive with an enclosed drive shaft ( and a more rugged frame, tires ect it's not about the bike just the drivesystem ). I wouldn't mind if a bike like that was available for a good affordable price, I think it would sell.
There have been at least two; don't know if they're still around.. Byar Volta (?) and Hon-something. One of them actually used the motor to drive the shaft, the ohter had a hubmotor and only the pedals went thru the shaft.
Somebody here on ES built an ebike out of an existing pedal-shaft-drive bicycle some years back.
There is still going to be an interface gap between the driveshaft and the wheel where debris / etc can enter, but if you don't use that as the gear surface, and instead enclose all the gearing inside a lubricated sealed box before this interface, it wont' wear out your gears. A spline can be used to transfer the output of the gearbox (which can even be shiftable if you like, but that can also just go in an IGH in the hub) to the wheel hub. Removing the wheel with such a spline present is more complex than the typical dropout of a standard chaindrive bike, but there are a few ways to make it easy for roadside repair, since you have a custom frame design for a shaft drive bike anyway.
A shielded chain would provide the same advantages of a shaft drive, without the loss of efficiency, proprietary parts, loss of ebike convertability, and expense.
That's another technology that's been stuck in the
someone offers bike with it -> nobody it wants it -> company fails -> decade passes -> someone offers bike with it
cycle for decades, maybe centuries actually.
That's another technology that's been stuck in the
someone offers bike with it -> nobody it wants it -> company fails -> decade passes -> someone offers bike with it
cycle for decades, maybe centuries actually.
marvin78
1 kW
That's true, would require a lot more design and fabrication.
As as kid I rode a Yamaha pw50 for some time ( yeah, I wasn't the most popular kid lol ). Something like that I thought should work on an ebike.
enclosed drive shaft, don't need the centrifugal clutch as you're always engaged and as you say a connecting interface designed to prevent ingress. Using a Rohloff / Enviolo would just be the easiest way from there.
Only issue I think would be higher internal drag compared to a chain, so riding when the battery is flat would probably suck ( not as much as bike in OP though, at least it would roll normally / preserve input ).
Edit: shielded chains have been around for ages, but you're required to use a gearbox not a derailleur. They are also never really ingress proof, all the one's I seen in my life both the more fabric like one's with actual zippers lol and the hardcase plastic one's, they all allow ingress.
As as kid I rode a Yamaha pw50 for some time ( yeah, I wasn't the most popular kid lol ). Something like that I thought should work on an ebike.
enclosed drive shaft, don't need the centrifugal clutch as you're always engaged and as you say a connecting interface designed to prevent ingress. Using a Rohloff / Enviolo would just be the easiest way from there.
Only issue I think would be higher internal drag compared to a chain, so riding when the battery is flat would probably suck ( not as much as bike in OP though, at least it would roll normally / preserve input ).
Edit: shielded chains have been around for ages, but you're required to use a gearbox not a derailleur. They are also never really ingress proof, all the one's I seen in my life both the more fabric like one's with actual zippers lol and the hardcase plastic one's, they all allow ingress.
Similar threads
