Yet another sealed drivetrain

Planetary gears, this time. Sealed into the bottom bracket of course. And no, not for the first time! Still, it's  a good idea, especially when you run in mud, dust and grit. The downsides will as always be weight, weight and weight, followed by serviceability, longevity and, yes, weight again. You can throw in friction losses as well, but that may be quite minor compared with, umm, weight. We shall of course see!



Nuseti mountain bike features a sealed drivetrain

Life goes on, even for Froome.

I watched Froome drop for maybe the 4th time in this year's TdF and thought to myself, "he'll stop now". He has an amazing acceleration on steep climbs, perhaps better than anyone else, yet he always looks ungainly, as if he is about to lurch sideways off his bike. He also has bike skills I can only dream of, although clearly he could improve on those a bit, too. He was also in pain, clearly. And he was about to reach the first cobbles.

Nibali appears better than most at predicting "what happens next" and avoiding the worst of it. For some reason when riding and racing I could 'usually' sense when it was about to go pear-shaped, too. Sometimes that worked well, in that I missed going over the top, other times it was a false alarm and I had to work harder to regain lost ground. Sometimes I just hit the deck anyway. But stopping in a club crit is very different from stopping in Le Tour. But Froome stopped anyway.

In my case I have fallen, recovered and ridden again. I have trained, lost or won, and ridden again. I've managed to block an artery and be hospitalised, yet here I am riding again. I think it's just life. You go on. Froome will pick himself up and ride again. Some riders are luckier than others, of course. Froome has had a bit of bad luck and only he knows for sure how much of that luck he attracted to himself. Was he unfocused? Was he too fearful? Was he too far back or on the wrong wheel? I can't be sure, but he knows. Whatever the truth of it, he'll be back.