COOLWALL! Was BIOPACE cool?

[Lid]

I seem to have this terrible habit of ending threads.....?

 

[Neil G]

Cool? in a word no

 

[felixdelrio]

It wasnt THAT bad

+1

 

[hamster]

WAS Biopace cool? Well yes it was.....when it first came out it was the next index/hyperglide/spd step forward by Shimano. Probably their first banana peel.

Oh no, they had loads of other duffer ideas over the years to try and reinvent things.

If I remember correctly they also tried (amongst other things):
1 Metric Chains (for the life of me, why?)
2 Freewheels on the chainset (great idea, if freewheeling, throwing the chain off will cause you to crash)

 

[marc two tone]

Biopace rings

cool? in a cult sense,i dont think so.however they appeared on a massive number of bikes and spares are available even now! so they dont fall short of popularity,durability,affodability,etc.
and afterall,retro!

 

[greencat]

Biopace looked kind of cool - but were horrible horrible.

I nearly killed my left knee riding biopace in the early 90s - it got so bad every pedal stroke would send a shooting pain through it. I thought I'd have to give up cycling it was that bad.

As a last ditch attempt to fix it and on the suggestion of a mate I ended up dumping the outer ring and swapping the two inner ones for round Onza buzz saws. Result - it was "cured" within a week.

I have only ever ridden round rings since and no knee problems.

 

[Lid]

Greencat that is very strange but it of course did not happen to the hundreds of thousands of others that use/d these rings. In our litigeous society any hint of a problem and the lawyers will be all over it. (What was the name of the glasses from the Jerk?)

 

[ekiborter]

Anyone remember watching the rear derailleur on your buds biopace who was riding ahead of you. I seem to remember it moving (tightening and slacking) with the biopace.

ummm no not at all.

A biopace ring is designed to keep consistant contact with the chain and as such can be run on a track bike (fixed)

the chin line moves up and down with the ovoid rings orientation but a rear dérailleur will not move perceptibly.

Now with this in mind it would explain how no real advantage could be gained with biopace.

On the flip side a more radical shape to the ring which would affect the rear dérailleur would if put in the right place have (potentially) a dramatic effect on performance.

no?

;]

 

[Neil]

Something is very wrong with the voting on this...

I mean, cool is, well, axiomatic. And Biopace, whether it had valid purpose, or not - most definitely was cool.

That's an unequivocal thing - can't be argued with, it just is. Biopace was cool.

Whether it worked well, or not is a separate issue, but cool-ness ain't about function.

So lets not have any more of this Biopace wasn't cool talk, it was, it is, and it always will be - who cares whether it worked or not - just like ED209 ;-)

 

[blueyes]

totally agree with Neil

just installed a set of Biopace 46-36-26T chainrings on the SR Sakae SX crank of my '92 GF Procaliber

can't wait to try it out tomorrow and gi'll certainly give my comments on it's function