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Russia's direct drive hub
An interesting website - but all in Russian! Can any reader help out with translation?
Thanks to Mike Eliasohn for a link to
http://bicycle.kcci.ru/
where there's what appears to be a site about bikes which use a direct-drive hub (see recent past Velo Visions, and e.g. this story) with the crank-axle (nearly) concentric with the rear wheel's axle. The Russian one seems to offset the crank-axle a bit. I can't see any indication of a gearchange system, but the pics on the site are a bit too poor to be able to say for sure.
Can any reader help out with more info gleaned from the Russian text?
Posted on 30 March 2004
Your comments ...| From: Stephen Nurse ([email protected]) on 30 March 2004 |
Well Here's a bit of it tranlated: Went to the website http://www.online-translator.com , found through google and did a text dump of the title page and lo and behold got the usual gibberish, and no hint of a technical description. Here it is:
"Dear sirs! With the offer of partnership in mutually advantageous co-operation address to you patentovladeltsy and developers of technical decisions modern bestsepnyh velomashin with considerably improved consumer qualities guaranteeing stable growth of your incomes and huge commercial success. Having united on conditions of productive individual share in joint activity, having increased greatly thus the creative potential and opportunities, we could for quite decent "
Regards
Steve Nurse, Victoria Australia |
| From: andy scaife ([email protected]) on 30 March 2004 |
| So it's some poor hopeful trying to get our money by attatching a tupperware container to his rear axle and posting a website. Nice try, but i find the Nigerian banking scams more convincing. |
| From: Ralf Grosser ([email protected]) on 30 March 2004 |
| Is someone trying to "Sputnik" us with a hot air sandwich? |
| From: Huw ([email protected]) on 31 March 2004 |
| From the Russian guy next to me, whose English is a bit better than my Russian, they're looking for investors, saying it can be used front and back and not just on bikes. |
| From: Huw ([email protected]) on 01 April 2004 |
| I don't know where the rest of my first comment went, but it said that one of the pages has a certificate on it. It's a patent, with the number clearly visible. If someone can find Russian patents online then we might have something more than sales-speak to go on. |
| From: andy scaife ([email protected]) on 01 April 2004 |
| Hmmm...I think Florian Shlumpf has my vote on the geared-hub front. I just dream of Rohloff posting a press release announcing that their gearbox is now available as direct drive. Even Sunrace would do! |
| From: Warren Berger ([email protected]) on 03 April 2004 |
You can get a crude machine translation at:
http://www.freetranslation.com/web.htm
View the patent at:
http://l2.espacenet.com/espacenet/bnsviewer?CY=gb&LG=en&DB=EPD&PN=RU2204490&ID=RU+++2204490C1+I+
It has at least two gears. His main claim is that it allows for very compact bike designs.
Warren |
| From: TandemFlyer ([email protected]) on 05 April 2004 |
Hmmmm compact it may be, but pretty it aint. Looks like a Bantam has crashed into the back of a sunlounger - I wondered where my salad spinner had gotten too !
I think Florian can rest without fear of a major competitor here then. Do you think the concentric axle spindel rotates like one of those clown bikes ? |
| From: Huw ([email protected]) on 20 April 2004 |
| A bit more translated from the Russian patent above, for anyone still following this - it's derived from a 1937 USA patent number 2072611, ref 115-19 |
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