this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
1 points (100.0% liked)

Bicycles

3097 readers
1 users here now

Welcome to [email protected]

A place to share our love of all things with two wheels and pedals. This is an inclusive, non-judgemental community. All types of cyclists are accepted here; whether you're a commuter, a roadie, a MTB enthusiast, a fixie freak, a crusty xbiking hoarder, in the middle of an epic across-the-world bicycle tour, or any other type of cyclist!


Community Rules


Other cycling-related communities

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Another win for older tech?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Same, but then again, I still don't understand the appeal of automatic transmissions in cars (despite that being all I own these days). I generally prefer simpler machines with less stuff that can break.

Bicycles should be extremely simple. You pedal to go, and if you want to go faster for the same RPM, you push the chain up a gear. If you have gears in the front and back, you shift the front every few times you shift the back. That's it, that's all the complexity I need in a bicycle.

What happens if you're out on a ride and your battery dies? You just can't shift anymore? That's terrible! Or what if a thief steals your fancy electronic shifter? What if the SW goes bad and the pairing breaks? There's just so much that can go wrong, and not a lot of backup options. If my derailleur gets messed up on a ride, I can probably still use a handful of gears, enough to get home. If a shifter breaks and I have tools, I can adjust the indexer to keep it in a decent gear to get home. It's like that manual transmission, if something breaks, I can probably work around it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

I just rode nine weeks across the Alps with my SRAM X0 Transmission and the battery lasted the whole trip. A spare doesn't way too much though. A rock hit my transmission hard and it needed slight adjustment. I took less than a second and I did not have to get of my bike. Also, installing the transmission was super easy. All in all, I think it is way more convenient than mechanical shifting, if you are willing to pay the price. It's probably not worth it for most people.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I generally prefer simpler machines with less stuff that can break.

have had 3 different manual cars, the only one that didn't have clutch issues was the rx-7, my vw golf and ford fiesta had terrible transmissions. like made out of duct tape and bubble gum bad.

since then, had hondas and they're built like little brick shithouses - excellent life, fuel consumption etc. they make the 80s and 90s cars I owned look like yugos.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Nice. I guess I was lucky, because the two I had didn't have any issues with the clutch (Honda Civic and Saturn SC2 coupe), and both gave me 200k+ miles. The Saturn had problems with an oil leak into the engine, but other than that, it was pretty trouble-free aside from a starter issue.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I still don't understand the appeal of automatic transmissions in cars (despite that being all I own these days).

You just hit my nostalgia nerve. Damn I miss my 5-speed.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, and EVs have essentially killed that. And no, a "manual transmission" on an EV isn't the same at all, I know those are fake gears and I'm having none of it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Most EVs have barely any gearbox to speak of, usually one gear for reverse and one for forward. If you like simplicity and less stuff to break, an electric drive train is about as simple as you can get.

The battery does have some more complex tech in it. And of course, sadly, all the software stuff that doesn't have much to do with the actual driving. That is usually the worst part.