Originally Posted by
corrado33
I was thinking today, there has to be a practical limit for the number of cogs for a rear wheel to have. Today, we have up to 12 speeds, but will that trend continue? 13? 14? 15? Expanded rear dropout spacing? Even if they expand the dropout spacing, the wheel dish gets to be so bad that it'd be impossible to build a long lasting wheel.
When do you think the cog "expansion" will stop? Or what do you think will enable the next "number of speeds" revolution? Hyper efficient IGH's combined with cassettes (like SRAM dual drive)? Or will it be the bottom bracket 2 speed cranksets?
Eventually someone in marketing will have a huge ergonomic "breakthrough". Low Q-factors for many people are both faster and better for their knees. (Well, duh!) Chains have been moving right for the past few decades to stuff more and more gears onto the cluster. But our bodies will take a few thousand years to do the same adaptation. (Maybe longer, this doesn't affect our breeding ability and therefore genetics.)
I love fix gears set up to the 120mm spaced track standard with old fashioned straight track cranks. As good or better is my Sugino double crank set up an a short Phil Wood symmetrical BB with just enough asymmetry that the inside ring doesn't quite hit the chainstay. Left crank is very close. My knees love this bike!
Ben