For almost twenty-five years, cycling has been a major part of my life. From building bikes to breaking bones; being that kid hanging out at the bike shop to managing one in college; and racing to the top of a mountain or riding to work, bikes are a part of who I am. As long as I can remember, there has always been issues when assembling bikes from parts… especially when it comes to mixing drive train parts.
Usually, Campy shifters would not be mixed with Shimano derailleurs or vice versa, but it was fairly common to try to use Shimano compatible wheels with Campy shifting as there is just a much wider and usually better selection of wheels. Companies such as Wheels Manufacturing of Colorado do an excellent job reworking Shimano cassettes to work with Campy shifting, but the system of combined parts is still a little finicky. Enter the picture, Kirk Pacenti and his proposal for a universal, ’open source’ cassette body. We are starting to see more standards in the cycling world when it comes to parts, so this is not an unachievable goal.
As reported by Jason Norman of Bicycle Retailer, Pacenti is approaching all of the major component players to hopefully get some traction with his idea. Bicycle Retailer reported:
Pacenti wants to work together with the biggest component makers—Campagnolo, Shimano and SRAM—to help make it a reality. He likened the concept to other industry-wide standards such as One-Point-Five, ISIS, BB30, ISGG05 and ISO disc tabs. Fewer SKUs and less variation, Pacenti said, would be a boon to hub/wheel makers like Mavic, Zipp, FSA and others.
“I think 10/11 speed drive trains represent a line in the sand,” said Kirk Pacenti, vice president of NuWave. “Now that we’ve crossed it we may as well optimize the cassette body for those systems rather than cramming them into an obsolete 7/8/9 speed standard.”
Pacenti also noted that he believes that the cassette body splines are outdated because they were created at a time when cassette bodies were made from steel. He suggests that a polygon shape can be made both stronger and lighter. More importantly Pacenti suggested that the cassette could even be made from composite materials. Currently, Pacenti is testing a single speed polygon cassette body in hubs made in Tennessee, which he has tentatively dubbed it “P-Drive.” While Pacenti may patent it, he has suggested that he would prefer to see an open-source standard for the whole industry.
Pacenti told Bicycle Retailer:
“I think every company will come at it from a different angle and for different reasons, but in the end if we can get to a single standard for all 10/11 speed drive trains by 2014 or 2015 it would be a very good thing for manufacturers and consumers alike.”
This is an excellent idea that we hope Shimano, Campagnolo and SRAM will get onboard with in the near future. The downside is that it will leave those who have the current 7/8/9/10 speed systems with a more limited selection of wheels as time passes, but this is also the type of change that will keep companies like Wheels Manufacturing busy machining up new solutions!
[Via Bicycle Retailer: Pacenti Pushing for Cassette Body Standard]