A Deeper Look At The Latest Trinity MTB Gravity Project 

Thanks for letting me know I can click off this video!

Hi 👋

I feel like if there’s a way to swing the gearbox above the bb in to the frame and somehow manage to get a decent shock mounting point all in that front triangle, thing would be mint…

I see what you mean. But it is also pretty much the same place as the motor and gearbox on an ebike is placed.

You may not have seen the other pictures but the gear box has a protective shield on it. It is only open there for display reasons. You can fully shield that gear box as much as you want which you cannot do with a derailleur at the back.

I see where you are coming from, but if you ride a bike with 200 mm travel, the bb height is much greater, and it's not usual to hit the bb on the ground. Unless you 50/50 a feature bad enough, you won't damage it.

@markusilomaki8922 shielded or not, I'm going to hit it where on a normal bike there is air. That usually affects going forward on the trail.

Daniel

Not really, Geez that's what people think 😂

Maybe great mechanical work, but putting the disadvantages (!) of a Pinion and a standard drive together is for sure not the best engineering.

It’s clearly not a production version and quite an early functional prototype. I think it’s great that these guys are giving something completely different a go and thinking outside of the box. Does it need refinement? Yes definitely! Is it a good concept? Yes! He’s trying to solve many issues with most likely a quite limited budget. I’m excited to see this develop! Keep it up @trinitymountainbikes8985

Chris

It's a whole load of throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks... Engineering has left that chat 😂

You could seal this system if need be and it would most likely be a bit more efficient than a Pinion box. I'd be interested to compare the weight.

@@streddaz Possibly. Hard to beat the instant shifting of Pinion without the need to pedal and 'clickity-clack' back home.

@@exothermal.sprocket Yes, this an advantage and to be able to dump a whole lot of gears in one twist, although the manual shifting models don't like to shift under too much load. The only downside over a derailleur is weight, but at least it's centred and not on the rear wheel.

@@streddaz Derailleurs protest about shifting under load too, at least that's always been my experience. I've always let off the torque to snap a shift or two.

@@exothermal.sprocket yes you do have to back off a bit. Apparently the new SRAM Transmission can do full power shifts.

Looks like mounting for a steer damper. Theres another piece to it right under the stem

Matt

But listen to how much he swears - he must be cool and know what he's doing...

You know it does have a full cover? When you ride the bike it's a sealed unit. But here is a box full of gears isn't as cool to look at.

Daniel

Darren

Hey I really like your profile picture and if you let me, I would make such an amazing mural out of it! If you don’t mind one of your post could be my inspiring muse for an art project i’m working on for a client. You will totally get paid for it as well as a bonus also get credits.

Doing that would be too much simpler, cheaper, more reliable, more versatile and possibly even lighter than the mess they've put in there. They've literally combined the disadvantages of derailleurs (Being out in the open, crappy slow shifting and needing a chain) with the disadvantages of gearboxes (Complicated, heavy, messy chain routing).

Or a Pinion?

@@Surestick88 I guess I was thinking that they wanted to be different and why not use something that is already made like a Rohloff. But if it was me I would have built it with a belt drive Pinion, the new ones with Smart Shift, other than the poor engagement which I hope they fix, are really sweet!

Mike

Not if / as it is enclosed and sealed.

Shimano's Alfine hubs are fantastic - for what they're designed for anyway. I love mine, for commuting, city riding and general messing around, but I hated it for off road riding. SRAM also make geared hubs, so both are well able to make gearboxes if there is market demand for it. What's missing is a well supported standard for fitting gearboxes to frames, and gearboxes that are anywhere close to the weight of a derailleur setup and make one with shifting doesn't feel stupidly heavy compared with derailleur systems. Ebikes with BB motors have accidentally made a mount of sorts, but it's not a particularly good mounting standard from what I've heard, and ebike frames aren't exactly light. I'd also expect to see far more support of competent gearboxes (Not the pointless monstrosity in the video here) if buying a gearbox frame didn't automatically paint you into the corner of having to buy one gearbox from one manufacturer that might go bust at any time and make your bike effectively useless I would have at least one gearbox bike already.

Agreed. They make so much sense for off-road. The extra drag is there but somewhat tempered by the efficiency hits chains take when dirty, worn, or in a gear with a bad chain line. We're also at ~40 years of development for modern drivetrains and a lot less for gearboxes in any sort of performance application. From a competition standpoint it doesn't matter if everyone is on a gearbox.

@@Surestick88 The first bike gears to get popular were Sturmey Archer 3 speed hubs in the early 1900s, hub gears predate derailleurs.

Hi 👋

Yes - Nobody should tell the emperor he's got no clothes...

@@peglorgo back to simping for $400 cassettes

@@peglorIronic because all these comments are just pandering to other comments that say the same thing...

@@RC-fp1tl It might blow your mind, but it is possible for one person to simultaneously have no time for bad gearbox designs and overpriced cassettes. First generation Shimano 3x10 Shadow+ was where bicycle drivetrains peaked in terms of excellent range, chain lines and fully mechanical gear shifts so light it's hard to believe how bad modern stuff is by comparison. $400 should buy an entire groupset, including cranks. Thankfully Shimano still make 10 speed Shadow+ branded as the XT touring groupset. Just change the 48-38-28 chainrings to set the ratios for whatever wheel size you run to get thousands of miles of effortless, maintenance free (Apart from oiling the chain) riding. Then replace the large and middle rings, chain and cassette (For a lot less than 1x12 wear parts) and get thousands more miles without even touching the indexing. I've been doing this since that groupset came out as the top of the line MTB setup on one of my bikes. Better than Shimano 2x12, though front derailleur shifts on 2x12 are ridiculously good, and better than 1x12 SRAM I run on another bike, which has lasted well, provided I ignore that I've had to unseize both BB and jockey wheel bearings after muddy spins because the sealing is so bad, when the Shimano equivalents just stay spinning for years. The shifting has got very poor into the low gears on the SRAM 10-52 because there's so much slop in the jockey wheel bearing, which has barely lasted as long as the chain - usually it takes 2-3 drivetrains worth of wear before the teeth are worn off the jockey wheels enough it starts to affect shifting on Shimano derailleurs. It's swapping to a Shimano crank and BB and XD driver compatible Sunrace cassette next, because I got the cassette and chain for less than a SRAM bottom of the line 10-52 cassette, and the SRAM chainring and new BB cost such a significant percentage of the cost of an XT crank and BB, I just replaced with the better engineered option. I actually ride my bikes and wear them out, so if the selling point on a part, especially a wear part like a cassette is that it's shiny, it'll get no shortage of abuse from me.

That's not very sophisticated engineering, it's 1990's level. Vent off dude 😎

Hi 👋

Christina

I've seen one with a cover. Also I don't think it'd be considerably heavier than conventional drivetrain, which has also the weight hanging in the worst place possible.

@@ollialanko699just the pulleys alone would be the weight on an entire bike if not more. No way this system is comparable in weight to the derailleur

​@@ryankan1What😂

Ryan

Yeah, there's no place for innovation in cycling!

Off ya get then!

Chris