While this is a clever and interesting idea (I am not going to get into the 'does it work part', cause I simply do not know ... ) the
last time somebody put something mechanical between a wheel and the brake ... things broke and brakes failed.
Ofcourse
last time is a generalisation, but in the 60's Lotus in F1 and others tried to mount their front brake disks inboard to save unsprung weight ... this thus required 'brake' shafts to take the braking force out to the wheel, and they broke ... and thus had to be beafed up (negating a lot of the original advantage). BRM also tried to mount a single rear disc on the rear of the gearbox and thus brake through the gearbox and this caused dangerous failures.
Thus sorry I do not want gears to be the possible weak link on my bikes brakes ... I'll happily stick with 'button's and bolts/nuts. With this concept when you brake there is like 3 teeth taking all the braking load at any one time ... yeah should be okay, but then so should Lotus' and BRM's idea. I think once you over design the gears to ensure safety you will have made the assembly much heavier and thus will this reduce the effect they are after?
While the plantary (sp?) gear assembly is in the centre of the wheel it is pretty large and will have to be made out of some sort of steel ... as you beaf it up (for us scared riders
), it will get larger and heavier.
Just my
... on what appears to be a possibly clever idea, just a little risky.
Pete
ps: When hydraulic brakes were invented many did not quickly adjust to the idea because there was not a direct link from the pedal to the brakes ... ofcourse there really is, but apparently now companies like Bosch have been developing electrical brakes ... the reason why we probably won't see this is because I'm fncked it I am going to rely on a switch and actuator to brake my car ... it needs to be a direct link. Maybe this will change over time ... but it will take many years for Bosch (or whoever) to change our perspective and make people like me think of electrons as direct connections.