Originally Posted by
NattyBumpo
Their universal problem -- apart from too much weight and too little reliability -- was that they couldn't know what size gear the rider wanted to be in at any given moment. Cyclists often change gears in advance of the change in conditions because they don't want to lose momentum (or foot speed) when the conditions do change. Even if they had been weightless (heck, even if they levitated) and were stone reliable, the auto-mixers still compelled you to ride in the gear-inches of their selection.
I think Porsche has a GPS-enable transmission algorithm that "looks ahead" and anticipates what gear will be needed "next". Combine that with some sort of heart-rate or glucose-level monitoring technology and you could have a bicycle transmission that would figure out what gear is "optimum".
But riding until you're stupid is half the fun, ain't it?