{"id":49,"date":"2006-12-02T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-01T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-01-16T22:44:52","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T05:44:52","slug":"chainless-bicyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/chainless-bicyc\/","title":{"rendered":"Chainless Bicycle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I’ve renounced chains on bikes now that I’ve fallen in love with the chainless bicycle. I’ve been riding a chainless for about 5 years now. Drive shafts for bikes were invented at least a hundred years ago; what’s new is their new low cost, clever shifting, and improved efficiency. Since there is no chain, contemporary chainless bikes use a hub transmission on the back wheel instead of a stack of different gears to “shift gears”.<\/p>\n

A good ol’ standard bike chain can be more energy efficient if — big if — it is kept well-lubricated, aligned precisely, and fine-tuned with constant attention. Mine never was. But a modern sealed drive shaft beats the efficiency of the average neglected crusty chain (like mine). Getting rid of a chain removes the least stable part of a bike, the item most likely to need adjustment or fail, and the dirtiest component. Shifting is a breeze on these drive shafts; just click into discrete gears. I don’t mind tossing the bike into a car (no grease) and I can ride with long pants (no pinched trousers). Removing a rear wheel for repair or a flat *is* more of hassle with a drive shaft, but not unduly so.<\/p>\n

There are some high-end custom versions of the chainless bike, but they all use either of two drive shafts. The bike I bought is a slightly clunky Taiwan-made $300 weekend bike outfitted with a Sussex drive shaft — the most popular type. It connects to a Shimano Nexus non-cog gear hub. I got a 7-speed version. Mine is not a high-performance bike, but it has gotten me everywhere I’ve wanted to go — without the hassles of a chain. This bike is no longer manufactured, but the Dekra Chainless is very similar, although it uses a different brand drive shaft (which I have not used).<\/p>\n

Dynamic Chainless Bikes (which now owns Sussex) produces more sophisicated, higher quality, and more expensive ($600 plus) chainless bikes. These slick bikes have a lighter second generation Sussex dive shaft, an 8-speed hub, and better components. Dynamic makes chainless mountain bikes, which other Cool Tool readers have recommended, and I am tempted to try.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A more highly-evolved bike<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9001,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/9001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}