I don't think about shifting gears, I do it automatically. But what would it be like to
have genuinely automatic gears? Ones that knew what my most efficient gear would be
before I did, and then shifted to it? Changing gears based on evidence and data as opposed
to emotion or just laziness? Well, it exists. We saw a pre-production sample of an intelligent
gearing system that does just that. It's going to polarise opinion, so make sure you let
us know what your thoughts are in the comments section down below.
We've been joined in GCN's home town by Armando Mastracci, one of the founding members of
Baron BioSystems. He's brought his intelligent gearing system for bikes. Armando, perhaps
you'd better explain what what that is.
The product is called BioShift and what it is is an intelligent gearing system for bicycles.
What BioShift does is it essentially takes data from your bike, processes that data,
determines which is the best gear you need for a given situation and when it's attached
to an electronic shifting system can go ahead and automatically shift the gears to that
optimal gear.
This isn't about choosing a certain cadence and keeping you at it is it? This maintains
your self-selected cadence but yet optimises it for the speed and power that you're riding at?
Correct. We wish it could really be that simple, just to pick a cadence and go ahead! But it's
not, the cadence you're going to be pedalling at is going to vary across different intensity
levels, so the system is smart enough to determine what kind of demands you're having and then
to gear you appropriately for those demands, so those are going to vary as you're riding.
Over a number of years we've been working to determine what that optimal gearing mechanism
should be. It's based upon collecting this power data, collecting your speed and cadence
and then putting it through this algorithm that then says 'here is the optimal gear that
you should be in', then, based upon that optimal gear determining how to best change the gears
to get to that gear. That's essentially what the unit is doing.
What about getting out the saddle? As an experienced cyclist, I really enjoy the feeling of shifting
down and getting out the seat and then accelerating. What would I do on this BioShift?
The unit has been engineered to operate transparently within the given shifting system. In other
words, even when the automatic is on, you can go ahead and shift the gears at any point.
So if you decide that 'I want to be in a different gear because I want to pedal out the saddle',
or attack or perform some other activity on the bike, you just go ahead and override the
gears. The system, even though it's automatic, can be overridden manually at any point. That
could be applicable to standing, for example. We do have the ability to tell the system
that you're standing and to change the algorithm for standing mode and the algorithm will be
for standing mode vs sitting.
Other things that a rider might like to think they control on their gearing is preventing
the gears from going into sub-optimal chain lines, so big chainring and big cog on the
cassette. But this takes it into account?
Correct. We are changing the front derailleur and rear derailleur in the automatic system
and will make intelligent choices on which gears are appropriate. We tend to avoid the
big-big, small ring small cog, because those are going to create very inefficient transmissions
on the bicycle. We avoid those in terms of when we change the front derailleur. But we'll
also do intelligent things like if you do go into standing mode for example, the front
derailleur gets disabled, because you don't really want to be changing the front derailleur
when you're out of the saddle.
On the screen at the moment, although being pre-production you can obviously get it to
say whatever you want, but you've chainring and the cog at the cassette, so you've got
your gear ratio displayed, your power, your speed and then also the fatigue level, which
is very cool.
It doesn't need to have it's own dedicated interface like we have, it could be embedded
within the shifting system itself and the electronic shifting system. What we put on
the interface today is more typically how we would augment an existing display. Whether
that's going to be on a head unit that the rider is currently using or we even envisage
this to be on a heads-up display where you're riding up and then there can be indicators
in your heads-up display of when the shifts are going to happen. Will will give warnings
- for example there are these LED lights that are used to indicate to the rider that a shift
is imminent so the rider can be prepared for that shift to happen. We can give warnings
using the LEDs, those are shown on the screen. They'll show you what gear you're in, so if
you're wondering what gear your system is running on, we provide that information. As
you mentioned earlier, we do show fatigue level. That's interesting in itself to know
where your fatigue is, but for us it's part of the algorithm for the calculation for the
optimal gear.
Armando has been kind enough to lend me his bike and my first impressions are really positive.
It does feel very natural in that the cadence it selects for me is probably what I would
do for myself. But I'm quite a lazy gear changer normally in that I often put up with a gear
that's slightly sub-optimal and so it feels quite surreal to always be in the right gear.
I imagine that it's something I'd learn to love but at the moment it feels very strange.
To try and explain what it feels like, it feels like it wants me to ride in the manner
of Bradley Wiggins. If you think about the way he climbs, he's often in the saddle spinning
quite a high cadence and when he accelerates he stays in the saddle and I think that this
probably encourages me to do that. I wasn't using the standing mode or getting out the
saddle but that is kind of what it felt like. I think genuinely there are a lot of people
who could really benefit from this, particularly those that are keen on triathlon or time trials
fro example. Those people are really going to see the benefits of this.
It has to be said that obviously you need a power meter and you need Di2 as prerequisites
for this system to work, so initially at least it's going to be high-end when it reaches
the market. Also I know that people are going to say that manual shifting is part of the
joy of cycling and I do agree that that's something I enjoy as well. But what's exciting
about this firstly is that the technology now exists to do it properly, but also when
it reaches production it might be that you don't even notice that it's on your bike,
it's something that you could switch on when you need it and then ride manually for the
majority of the time. That's really quite cool, because could just be software - it
won't add any weight to the bike, it just exists there for when you need it. So as something
for the future I think it's really quite exciting.