Specialized Prototype. Effigear Gearbox?
Photo Credit: Pinkbike
There’s been lots of box-talk recently with the Gates $100,000 Belted Purse Prize, Aon and Gamux plus Atherton and Intense joining the Zerode MS Racing gearbox gang. I’m the #1 gearbox fan and think this is great to see, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner for DH racing.
This Specialized spy shot showed up on Pinkbike a couple of days ago, suggesting a prototype Demo with 2x chains like the latest Pivot.
Looking at the photo, I can only see one chain, unless another is on the other side using a Jackshaft setup like the old Brooklyn Machine Works or Starling Sturn. In this photo, there’s a lot of material around the BB and the shock has also moved up and forwards a lot compared to the old bike – to make space for the gearbox?
I can’t see any other reason foo have so much material around the crank axle?
Comparing this to their previous race bike, I reckon there’s enough space for the shock’s pull link to squeeze in above a gearbox and below shock.
Definitely no drivetrain sponsor.
My guess? It’s an Effigear box, and the derailleur has been put there as a distraction. Effigear is the only other gearbox on the market aside from Pinion, and they’re based in Toulouse in the South of France. Specialized Gravity are in the South too and Loic lives not far away near Barcelona somewhere. Accrding to their website, the Gravity Team doesn’t have a drivetrain sponsor either, another clue?
The Effigear box is a pretty simple unit. There are 3x axles, some pinions and an aluminium casing. With the production method of these frames, a good engineer could easily make this main bottom bracket/pivot lug into the gearbox casing itself. This would save space, weight and some bolts allowing the Effi internals to fit straight inside: an excellent and clean solution. If they wanted to be really posh, I’m sure they could get Effigear to machine the internals from titanium instead of steel and save a bunch of weight if that’s a concern.
The original Effigear box uses a separate output shaft for the drive to the rear wheel. Looking at the spacing on an Effi between the crank axle and the output shaft it’s pretty similar to the prototype bike. This makes more sense to me than running two chains and an extra sprocket far away from the main pivot while still using a derailleur.
The casing could easily be integrated into the frame.
More clues? I can’t tell what cranks are on the bike, but Effigear uses an ISIS crank interface giving many options. The Effigear uses a standard SRAM shifter, which seems to correspond with the photo, the other missing item is the long BIC-biro type spring that stores tension and allows shifting one way when the trigger is releases tension, but this could easily be hidden in the downtube.
For pure DH ridin, the Effi is a great unit. Pedalling efficiency isn’t super important with the number of cranks turns needed on a World Cup DH track, shifting up into the harder gears is actually incredible on the Effi: instant and seamless. Shifting down is not so good when you are pedalling up a hill as you need to pause the cranks slightly to allow it to disengage and shift, but upshifts must be very rare for these guys and should easily be anticipated and changed whilst not pedalling.
That’s my guess, happy to be wrong. Surely the derailleur is only a distractor to test out sprocket sizes and to act as a makeshift chain tensioner? We will see. The gearbox race is heating up.