Where will bike design/technology be in 20/30 years time

[johnnyb47]

Hi.
Bike technology has really taken off over the last few years. Up until the mid 90s bike design was very slow ,but suddenly it seemed to gather a huge pace in new ideas and designs. Gone where the straight tubed steel bikes and in came aluminium frames sporting complex curves. Suspension bikes became the norm on mountain bikes and then carbon fibre frame started to make an entrance to the mass market offering ultra light frames and in designs the we could only dream of having only just a few years back. Components too ,have gone through an amazing revolution over the last few years. Electronic shifters, carbon wheels and disc brakes to name a few. Now electric bikes are making way in leaps and bounds. All these new innovations seem to have come around relatively recently, compared to back from the 70,s / 80,s era when bike technology stayed fairly static. With the pace of things moving at the moment i wonder what the bike will be like in the future. Will Carbon frames be superceeded by something even better. I wonder where components design will take us. Will electric bikes become a common sight on our roads and take over the more conventional bike..
Saying all this though i personally think all this bike technology will bottom out at some point. You can only go so far before perfection is met and when the humble bike has met it's pinnacle of efficiency. I do hope that bikes don't become over complicated works of art where the Sunday tinkering around with them becomes a thing of the past because of there complex designs like the modern car. ( maybe I'm getting a little carried away with that one )
but let's just hope they don't become a product that becomes a none serviceable unit like so many things have become this day and age.

 

[Smokin Joe]

No technology bottoms out. Progress may slow to a crawl when the limits of what is possible at a given time are reached, but then someone comes up with one or more innovations out of the blue and the whole thing starts to accelerate again.

Predicting more than a few years ahead is very difficult though. I can see automatic transmission being standard on most bikes, something the shift to electronics make very easy.

One thing I can guarantee however, every single advance will be fiercely resisted by the usual "What do we need that for, it will never work, it will break and leave you stranded, Merckx didn't have it etc etc" brigade. With the exception of the Merckx reference, the rest of that phrase was copyrighted during the introduction of the pneumatic tyre.

 

[S-Express]

History is a good predictor of the future. Practically bugger-all has changed in bike design in 30 years (or even 100 years), so don't expect too much to change over the next 30 years.

 

[tyred]

I don't see that very much has changed at all in real terms. Different materials and more gears but that has come at the expense of durability in some respects.

They are better at marketing today to convince people they need to keep upgrading things while my 34 year old three speed soldiers on year after year with minimal maintenance or expenditure.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Yes, of course electric bikes will become a common sight. Battery technology will see to that and every fat kids' Christmas-box BMX will be battery powered.
However, on competitive pedal bikes the following will happen.

1) They will re-invent the oval chainring
2) They will re-invent the saddle and come up with innovative stuff like slots and pressure zones and stuff.
3) The chain will still be open to the elements but city bikes will be belt-driven, I hope.
4) They will come up with a reason to re-introduce FDs and triple cranks.
5) They will not use common sense to solve the BB problem.
6) They will invent stuff to work with batteries and wires. I can't even begin to imagine the level of stupidity where wires and batteries can go - perhaps bearing heat sensors.
7) The Campagnolo wheel bearing patent will have expired and Shimano wheels will have replaceable bearing races.
8) The Horst Link suspension arrangement patent will have expired and all bikes will sadly become Specializeds with different badges.
9) Most bikes will have disc brakes.
10). Wheels will mostly be carbon but the retro "steel is real" brigade will still ride aluminium, or as the new tech pseudo-savvy will refer to it: 606X alloy."
11) Hipsters will make grey hair fashionable.
12) Bicycle computers will all sync with watches and implants and no-one will be happy.My Cat-eye 4-function speedometer will be on its third 2032 battery.
13) They will find a way of working the word nano, or perhaps even some real nano-technology into a bike's tyres.
14) Punctures will still be a result of superstition, not luck and sharp objects.
15) Supplement and nutrition companies will still be turning perfectly healthy individuals into type II diabetics, albeit quicker than today.
16) There will be so many rules and regulations on riding "open cell vehicles" on the road, you'll practically have to kit out like George Osborne on TV inspecting a building site. There will be so much high-viz on the roads that only the people in camo will be truly seen.
17) Carradice will still be making stupid, hard, leaky, floppy bicycle luggage and sell to the gullible.
18) People will still be breaking in Brooks saddles with their bare arses. However, the rails will be sprung nono-tube carbon painted to look like real steel.
19) There will be so much data collected on each little ride that bikes will require Petabyte-big solid state memory chips to be plugged in to a socket on the headset top cap.
20) They will still tell us that polyester wicks armpit sweat so nicely that it will never stink.
21) Bikes will be so light, stiff and strong that special recycling plants have to be erected to crush old ones.
22) Luckily beer will still be the best recovery drink.

 

[johnnyb47]

Brilliant post buddy :-))

 

[Drago]

I doubt anything will get any "better". 29'ers came into fashion, and then fell out of fashion in a very short period of time, so perhaps the recurring trends will simply come around quicker.

 

[raleighnut]

• Steel Frame. .....................Check
• Brooks saddle....................Check
• Carradice saddlebag..........Check
• Suicide brake levers...........Check
• Downtube shifters...............Check
• Aluminium rims...................Check

That'll do me for another 30yrs

 

[EltonFrog]

@Yellow Saddle funny post.

I wonder why belt drive hasn't been more popular?

 

[raleighnut]

@Yellow Saddle funny post.

I wonder why belt drive hasn't been more popular?

It's cos people have read his book about chains and now know how wonderful they are.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

There will in all likelihood be two triangles, and two circles. It was the perfect design a hundred years ago, it'll still be the perfect design in another 20.
Carbon fibre has finally allowed for a massive step change and a wholesale redesign of the bicycle frame, but I don't think we're ready for how that might look yet. Innovative designs will still be seen as a bit whacky until someone finds a way to mass market whacky so it becomes the norm.

 

[classic33]

@Yellow Saddle funny post.

I wonder why belt drive hasn't been more popular?

Possibly

• Derailleurs cannot be used, so an internal-gear hub is used if multiple gear ratios are required.
• The belt cannot be taken apart as a chain can, so a frame must be able to accommodate the belt by having an opening in the rear triangle or an elevated chain stay.
• Belts come in limited selection of lengths, which must be accommodated in the design of the frame.
• Belt-driven bicycles and their repair or replacement parts are scarcer at shops than bicycles with conventional chain.
• Front and rear pulleys or sprockets must be well aligned to avoid excessive friction and wear. A chain is more flexible in this respect.
• Compared to a chain, belts are typically run at a much higher tension. This is done in order to avoid skipping of the belt while in use. However, high belt tensions can reduce the life expectancy of the bearings in the bottom bracket, as well as in the rear hub.
• First-generation pulleys with dual guides had problems with snow becoming compacted and trapped in the pulley (up to complete inoperability in some cases). Second generation (one guide, wheel side) and third generation (center guide) improve upon the design.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt-driven_bicycle

 

[jefmcg]

Kids born this year will be lovingly restoring genuine carbon fibre frames, "just like the one my dad used to ride when I was little".

 

[KnackeredBike]

Kids born this year will be lovingly restoring genuine carbon fibre frames, "just like the one my dad used to ride when I was little".

Are you sure they won't just be papering over the cracks?

 

[iateyoubutler]

I don`t care, I`ll still have the bikes/kit that I have now!