Is a Gearbox Better for Mountain Biking?

So today I wanted to do a video on my Zero Katipo and talk about the Pinion gearbox. Gearboxes are becoming more and more popular in the mountain bike world now, mainly just because of their reliability and durability. I've had the chance to use the gearbox now on the Zero for the last four weeks, so I wanted to just give you guys a little bit of insight into the gearbox, how it works, what I think of it, pros and cons, and where I see it going in the future. So for me, gearboxes first came around when I first saw the first generation Zeroed bikes, which used an actual gearbox in a hub that was built into the frame of the bike. Since then, they've actually evolved to what the Zeroes are today, which is Pinion gearbox at the front here, which is belt drive. The cost and prices of derailleurs has always baffled me, and the fact that manufacturers like SRAM and Shimano still make these bloody things that are really expensive now, that hang off the back of the bike, off the lowest point of your bike. So they are always in sight of danger, and if you smash one off, it's very hard to get replacement parts for, and you generally have to buy a new derailleur or a new part, which can be quite costly, especially when you start taking into account like price of cassettes, chain wear, and everything else that goes along with a groupset. So what's the difference between traditional gears and the Pinion gearbox? Well, obviously, as you can see, all my gears are housed in this box. There is no derailleur to smash off rocks. There is no chain to wear down, really. It's a carbon belt drive. There's no cassette on there. It's all done inside this little concealed box. Now, with the traditional gears, you'd have everything hung off the back of the bike. It would be exposed to the elements. The chains generally wear faster. Chains generally snap. Cassette teeth wear down. Derailleurs are more prone to hitting off things and smashing off the rolls on the derailleurs. Inside here, I have nine gears, which is more than enough. This actually has a 600, roughly, percent range, which is the same as, or if not better, than a SRAM XX Eagle. What about maintenance of these things? Traditional gears, you'd generally have to wash, clean, and oil the chain generally after every ride, or most rides, depending on where you're riding and what the condition's like. This gearbox, I don't have to do anything with the belt. It maybe needs an oil change once a year, if that. The belt doesn't use any oil or lubricants. It's just dry. And as long as you keep it aligned and clean, then there shouldn't really be any issue. And then just check the belt every now and again for wear. Same as you would do with a car, really. They say that the belt should last for like 10,000 kilometers, I think, which is around about four or five times longer than a traditional chain. Shifting is also done instantaneous. So we've got the smart shift system on here. Previous gearboxes on the Pinion had a grip shift, which has moved on now. We've got electric shifting. So shifting is instantaneous. I don't have to pedal when I shift. So on a traditional bike, you would have to shift gears and then pedal, and then the chain would jump from the cogs on the cassette. Let's go down the trail. The bike is so quiet. So as you've probably heard then, there's literally no noise on the bike either. There's no chains to rattle off the frame. The belt doesn't touch anything. So the bike is literally quiet. There's a little bit of noise from the fork and the cables in the front of the bike, but the actual bike itself was silent. That brings me on to how the bike rides with the gearbox. Because the gearbox is here, we have all this weight directly under where we are sat, which is perfect for descending. We don't have any extra weight in the back of the wheel. All the weight is here, which means we don't have any unsprung weight at the back of the bike. This means the bike descends better. I think it descends really well, tracks the ground really well, and I'm absolutely loving it. So what about changing gears on this thing? That's a little bit different. I said before that you could change gears without pedaling, which is great. So let's say, for example, you're riding on a trail and you have a steep section of trail that goes directly into an uphill. You can prepare for that and shift down to make sure you're in a lower gear for that climb without having to spin your cranks like you would on a normal geared bike to change the gear of the bike. Same goes, for example, if you're in the air. You can change gears and be ready to land and pedal or go around a turn. You can change gears also without pedaling. What's interesting though is you can't just pedal maximum torque and change gear. So say, for example, you are pedaling really hard on a traditional gear, you could essentially just change gear and the chain would eventually change. There probably would be a lot of strain on the chain moving through the cogs by putting maximum torque through doing that. So the way I like to think about this, it's like driving a car. So you want to be letting off the clutch or letting off the gas and then changing and then it'll change gear inside the pinion gearbox. If you try and shift gears under maximum torque and load, the pinion gearbox has a sensor and then it won't let you change. So what it'll do is it'll wait until there is the correct amount of torque and it'll then change gear. And this generally happens when the cranks are at the top of the bottom of the pedal stroke where there is less torque. So that's something that's been a little bit interesting to get used to, but it's not anything massive. It's just a little bit different than a traditional cassette and chain setup. In terms of weight and compatibility, although I've not weighed them side by side, the pinion gearbox is going to be slightly heavier. It just is. Like it's a bunch of mechanical cogs inside a box versus the cassette and derailleur on a traditional setup. I think it's going to be a little bit heavier. So as you can see here, the nine speed gearbox I have is about 2,000 grams and the SRAM AXS groupset is about 1,533 grams. And plus you can't run a pinion gearbox on every bike. So traditional gears you can pretty much run on any bike. Pinion gearbox, I think you have to have like a six bolt mounting system. There are only a number of frames that this will fit, which I think will increase as the years go on and more bike companies see the benefits in gearboxes and motors inside gearboxes. That's probably why if you're watching this, you may not have seen too many pinion gearboxes on mountain bikes. You probably have seen them on a lot of commuter bikes and things like that. And they are becoming more popular in mountain biking as well. So another interesting feature I want to share with you, which I only just discovered this morning. So I have an app on my phone, which is the pinion smart speed gearbox. There's two or three features in here, which I absolutely love and want to show you. I'll jump onto my phone now and I'll share the screen so you can see what I'm doing. So what we're going to do now is we're going to connect the app to the motor with Bluetooth. I'm just going to shift this once on the bike and it should connect. Okay, so we've connected the app. The first feature is the fact that you can change the shifting around. So when this bike first came, these were like backwards for me. I need to switch them around basically. There's a button inside the app. You can switch the shifting around to have it to your personal preference. Now, this is where it gets interesting. There's two things in here called start select and pre-select, right? So start select, safe and efficient start is very important, especially for e-bikes. Start select can be activated to support this. Set your desired start in Kaga Korn to your preference and it will automatically engage after stopping. What this does is if you finish a trail and the pinion gearbox notices that you have stopped for an amount of time, it will then reset your gear to whatever you want to set it to. So then you can set off in the same gear every time, which I think is pretty cool. It then has a feature called pre-select, which I haven't used yet. When coasting, pre-select automatically shifts into the gear that matches your speed. For example, following downhill sections of the function allows you to charge into a climb without having to manually shift down first. When stopping, pre-select automatically shifts into the pre-selected starting gear. So if I turn this on, the bike is making some funny noises. I can select my start gear, so we can select how many gears we have, let's go five. And then it'll do a target cadence as well. So that's how fast the thing will be spinning or the goal it's trying to reach. Okay, so I think that is set up. I'm not sure, I've never actually used it, but that's quite, quite cool. And it also tells me the battery percentage, which is interesting because you have to charge the battery on this thing, which powers the gearbox. And I've had to charge that once. Bearing in mind, I've been in Canada for three weeks. I've ridden it here for about a week and have charged it once. Charge time on these things is not exactly something you really need to worry about. So I'm going to continue peddling up, and this brings me on to talking about the sound and the friction. There is some drawbacks with the Pinion gearbox, right? It's not all sunshine and rainbows. Most of it is, but there is a slight drawback. Because it is a belt, there is some friction, and there is a little bit more friction than you would get with a conventional chain and cassette. I like peddling, like endurance fitness, I barely notice this. But what you will notice when you're going up climbs, and you can hear it, if you're putting some power down, there's like a very, very light whirring noise. And that is just the friction between the chainrings and the carbon belt. It's not noticeable, like to the point where you're like, oh my God, I can't pedal up the hill, I'm struggling so much. I barely even notice it, it has to be pointed out. Other than that, I don't really know why you wouldn't have a gearbox and a belt. I really don't see any other drawback. I really think more bike manufacturers are going to start using gearboxes in the future, because I think they are the future, especially when e-bikes start bringing in motors and gearboxes in one unit, which has already started happening. So that's my video on the Pinion gearbox. Again, I've had this bike now for like four weeks, I haven't really put it through its paces just yet. Loads of cool videos planned for this year, which is going to be really exciting to put this thing through some even tougher challenges, and see what it's actually like for racing, for free ride, for all sorts of other stuff. Right now, I'm like super stoked with it. Like the thing is silent, it requires literally little to no maintenance, like change the oil in the gearbox once a year, like every 10,000 kilometers. This belt should last, probably last longer than me, or last longer than the bike, maybe, I don't know. Really happy with how it's performed so far, and just love how quiet the bike is overall on the trails. It means I can focus a lot more on my riding. I like listening to feedback of my bike as like a feedback loop. It helps me read the trail better and understand what my bike is doing, under the pressures of riding. I really like that, and nobody likes a bike that is just loud. But bib, gearbox, super quiet, super efficient, durable. Loving it. See you in the next video, guys. Hope you enjoyed it.