- Casey Turtel
- Billy Murillo
- Chris Cosenza
- Grant Allgood
- Jack Wilson
- Ryan Spencer
Currently, biking is a popular mode of transportation, both by those who have been biking for their entire lives and are experts in its use and new bikers who are still getting used to the gear mechanics. Much like in the development of cars, we first had manual bikes. Like cars, manual gear shifts for bikes work well but allow room for user error, which could be harmful to the bike/car as well as being inefficient for the user. The solution to this is to have a bike gear that switches gears on its own, with environmental (e.g., bike speed, pedal speed, etc.) input rather than user input; this is the Pace Sensing Gear (PSG).
While gear switching is not a difficult concept, when it’s being done manually, the rider may not be making the most out of their energy. When used correctly, one’s pedal speed should remain relatively constant: downshifting when pedal speed starts to slow and upshifting when the speed becomes too high. In manual, the breakpoints at which one notices a pedal speed change may not be the optimal time to switch gear. Thus, the PSG would allow for a more accurate measurement of when to switch gears.
Another benefit, this automatic gear system would have, is that it is also easier to use and one less thing to worry about. For beginners, oftentimes when pedaling up a hill, they will start to focus so much on the pedaling and getting up the hill that they simply forget about gears, because they are trying to power through the hill. While not a huge issue, it does leave room for improvement, in that it would make the rider work slightly less.
Although this system will be most beneficial for beginner riders, it also will benefit even the most experienced riders. This product is intended to shift with such precision that it will always ensure the rider is in the most optimal gear for the current terrain.
Along with the ease of not worrying about the gear switching, since the data for many “trip measurables” (speed, distance, time) is already being recorded and measured, it would be a simple matter to output this info onto a phone or some dashboard that will be mounted onto the bike.