Stress-Free Cycling With Auto-Shift Gears!

Automatic bike gears...really?! Hank recently purchased a bike for our cheap commuter challenge video over on GCN a month or so ago and completely unbeknown to him it had this wonderful auto-shift dérailleur installed, but how does it even work? Alex is here to explain!

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[gcntech]

Would you fit automatic gears to your bike? ⚙

[andrei]

i shall like this video simply for the fact that George listened to the will of the people and made a video about the bike, as requested when we all saw it :)

[huffytoss]

We sold these back in the late 90's at the bike shop I worked at. The ones we had used a front freewheel, the chainring would spin when you weren't pedaling. This allowed the system to to shift when you weren't pedaling. They rode fine around town.

[pentacleman]

I had one of these. They had a slogan. I think it was “the bicycle built for you” but I thought it should be “always in the right gear” because that’s what it did. Whatever speed you went, it put you in the right gear. And because it automatically shifts up, it would kind of encourage you to accept higher gears and go faster. The shifting was not very smooth at all, but it did work as advertised. You would want to anticipate stops and slow down so that it would downshift. But being in the wrong gear after a sudden stop is a problem with any derailleur system. I don’t recall how long it lasted but it did eventually break. It was fun while it lasted, but I eventually moved on.

[zedddddful]

GCN remembered we asked for an autoshift video thanks for this good to have it explained and wouldn't it be wild to see how someone like SRAM or Shimano could have progressed the concept.

[StuartMossTV]

Never heard of this component until this video. However, my A-level technology project was a similar automatic gear system for bikes. My design also had spinning weights but used a linkage instead to move the derailleur. Ultimately it was really cumbersome, just like this video illustrates, I’m amazed someone rode round the world using this. Wow.

[JonCannings]

Interesting concept! But in reality, not everyone is comfortable at the same cadence and the adjustability looks like it could be rather random! Nonetheless, always great to see tech like this.

[AlexdaCunha]

Now is relatively easy to think about a system like this electronic, using the sensor for power meter. You could decide what torque you are willing to make and then the gears should shift to adjust. Or just get an E-Bike

[letourrr]

My knees hurt just seeing this video in my feed. Those shifts are really hard and unexpected with that derailleur. Worked on a few in my time as a mechanic.

[GregoryColby-zy]

I borrowed one of these bikes for a senior project in high school. The technology is impressively elegant, even if it didn’t ride too smoothly at times. I like the simple mechanical ingenuity of it.

A few years later, in 2008, Shimano came out with the Coasting system, which combined a dynamo front hub with electronics and a 3 speed rear hub to make possibly the first (only?) electronically-controlled automatic bike. The launch was coordinated with Trek and several other brands to put multiple Coasting bikes on the market at once. The program ultimately folded just a couple years later, but that would be a fun bike to get your hands on!

[Gregory_tottie]

With electronic shifting, plus power and cadence date, it’s only a matter of time until Erg mode comes to IRL riding

[johnmac]

finally .... been waiting to geek out to this since Alex spotted the mech on the commuter bike challenge

[jpsalis]

I had a chance to repair one of these bikes a couple of years back. Still in really decent shape all things considered. An incredible piece of kit, Ive never seen anything like it.

[kevinfeeney]

CSA AutoBike had a freewheel system in the crankset so when you stop pedaling it'll start shifting down to the lowest gear before you even stopped. And instead of the weight on the side of the derailleur it used weights that slid along the spokes attached to a disc that would move the mech inboard n outboard. It appeared you could use ANY rear mech, if memory serves me correctly. No rubber belt to degrade over time or get caught in something to rip it.

[musicandsoccer]

Being waiting for it since Alex teased about doing a video on it. Wonderful walk through of the tech.

[jbratt]

Some other shifting systems of the past that you guys should look into for a future video are the front freewheeling systems, and the different positron shimano shifting that was early index shifting found on lower level bikes.

[mordillokiwi]

I remember seeing infomercials for this bike when I was a kid over here in the US. The commercials always showed elderly people riding them.. at least I think so, my memory may be playing tricks on me.

[BreakawayB]

This is soooo sick and I’ve never even heard of it!

[Bmanhp]

That's cool, I like that it works sustainably without dependency on battery charging/electrical components.

[bramweinreder]

Clever system :) I always envisioned a system where the tension on the chain (or lack thereof) would be translated to the derailer. If the chain is in motion, with a certain positive or negative tension, a switch would flick the derailer to the next best gear.