Don't know how you missed them Tom, I've been seing these things for sale for years on eBay and even before that on some classic bike sites, although the serious classic guys offered them more as curiosities than something one would actually ride. As a guy with an electrical engineering degree, I wasn't surprised that such devices could be designed and manufactured, even a couple of decades ago. Even then, small electric motors and electronic control systems were used in robotics and industrial controls applications which made producing electrically actuated bicycle derailleurs childsplay by comparison. The greater question is WHY? Aside from innovation for its own sake, what possible advantage is there to an electric deraillleur? It is a classic example of gratuitous technology. Makes about as much sense as installing supermarket-style automatic doors in your home or a motor actuated toilet seat. This has to be the classic antthesis to the the simple, "manual bicycle" that Grant Peterson loves to talk about. Don't know if Grant ever wrote about Zapp in the Rivendell Reader, but if so, I'd love get a copy. Unfortunately, I can't tell you much about the details of their operation. The absurity of the whole idea so put me off as to kill what might otherwise have been a nomal engineer's curosity about such a device.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Houston, TX
Tom Sanders <tsan7759142@comcast.net> wrote:
Just when you think you have heard it all, something new comes along. My buddy Bill, a 40 year bike shop owner and mechanic Par excellence, tells me that in the 'late '70s or early '80s there was a Zapp (sp?) electronic or electric derailleur that cost something like $1300 way back then. He said it was so expensive that bike leagues banned it from competition.
I was flabbergasted...never heard of such a thing. It would seem to be within the CR timeline, yet searching the archives produced no hits at all. I almost suspect my leg is being pulled a bit.
Any of you sages familiar with this?
Tom Sanders
Lansing, Mi