masiman

CNN Chainless bike story

Elkhound

The story says that it has a guard. Making a guard--or even a case--standard on chain-driven bikes would go a long way to eliminating the problem of trouser-leg grabbing.

TandemGeek

Chain guards, mudguards, and kickstands were all standard at one time on the vast majority of the bikes that average folks rode. It was the move away from lightweight roadsters, touring bikes and balloon tires family bikes and towards "racing bikes" here in the states the ride of choice for recreational riders in the 60s and 70s that saw those practical features go away.

What I'd like to know is how they came up with 3,000 parts in a bicycle chain and why so many news outlets simply ran with that number instead of asking themselves, "can that be right?"

By my calculations, using a current bushingless chain that works out to be a chain with 375 links that's about 31' long... compared to say the 47 link chain that's on my fixed gear bike. Even doing a throwback to the days when chains had bushings you come up with less than 600 parts in a chain used on a multispeed / derailleur equipped bike.

WebsterBikeMan

They counted all the droplets of oil/particles of lubricant.

gosmsgo

Its the "drive by" media. Dont you listen to Rush?

Elkhound

Doesn't Biria offer a shaft-drive bike?

TandemGeek

That's simply poor editing and fact checking, i.e., a lack of quality control that is perpetuated throughout the AP food chain by outlets that simply repackage and regurgitate what other news outlets like AP produce. By the way, don't think factual errors like this are limited to arcane topics like bicycle technology.

While I don't listen to Rush, I informed enough to have heard the expression "drive-by-media" which is a term Limbaugh created to describe a media practice that, to him, is analogous to urban gangs and "drive-by-shootings" where the goal is not to report factual information regarding the news supported by due-diligence, but to be the first to report on salacious or otherwise emotionally charged events or statements without doing any fact-checking with the goal of attracting an audience and without regard to the consequences or any accountability for any resulting damage. I leave out any examples as that would quickly drive this into a P&R discussion and, well, those are pointless.

Bottom Line: Always best to do your own fact checking, lest you mirror the practices of our current infotainment / tabloid / blogosphere / talking head dominated "news" outlets that are, as I like to say, certainly not news.

In fact, let me close with an anecdote about understanding the expressions you throw around. I knew a gal who worked with very senior executives inside the Beltway and she would never on her worst day ever utter a fowl or unkind word. However, I was having lunch with her one day and she used the expression 'snaafoo'. It caught me complete off guard because it seemed way out of character for her to use an expression like that so I asked her, "Do you know what SNAFU means?" She knew it was an expression that suggesting things hadn't gone as planned but what she didn't know was that when most people who spent anytime in the military or a quasi-military organization know it's an acronym from World War II that means "Systems Normal - All F**ked Up". She had no idea and was now recounting all of the times, places, and people to whom she spoke where she used that expression with a sense of shock and horror. Like I said, she was a true lady in the traditional sense of the work.

TandemGeek

Could be... Shaft drives were first used on bicycles over a 100 years ago and have been used extensively on commuter-type bikes in China and many other countries around the world for about as long. Belt drives have also be messed around with for about as long. In fact, even the bamboo bicycle made it's first appearance in the 1890's.

Elkhound

Here they are.

Has anyone had any experience with these or other shaft-drive bikes?