Electric integtration on a Mountain Bike
I've looking at the latest developments in Mountain Biking recently, and the biggest things of late have been 29ers, 10x2 drivetrains, and just more variety.
There hasn't been anything major from Shimano, Sram, Rockshok, Fox or frame innovations from the Major frame manufacturers for a while.
Really Mountain Biking development has been more about becoming more nieche specific between XC, all mountain, down hill etc. There are more and more hub standards (although 15mm front seems to be winning, but 142x12 vs 135 QR is still puffing along).
Cannondale showed something exciting a few years ago, but probably due to company restructuring, and the GFC they haven't bought it to market yet. It was a remodel of something done many years before-active damping.
This is where a micro processor can detect the location and speed of the damping piston and vary the damping rate to best suit. It results in suspension which is very sensitive to small high frequency, but can also soak up large hits. While this is also the goal of todays set and forget suspension damping, the cannondale system could be changed on the fly between firm pedaling or setting of different terrain, and the micro processor would control compression and rebound to suit the riders taste, but also the needs of the trail as it happened.
This was *just* in a left fork. What I'd like to see as the next step, the same micro processor controlled style of damping, but linked between fork and rear shock, so the rear also knew what was happening up front and could allow balanced performance. Put an accellerometer at the rear wheel and it would be electronic brain suspension like never before!
Next step along would be to link in a crank based power meter and wheel speed. With every pedal input the suspension could adapt to prevent bobbing-
Cranking hard up hill -> damp out the low frequency more
High speed down hill free wheeling -> switch the damping setting to maniac mode.
Now that to me is some real innovation that would make riding more fun, and racers go faster!!
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