One of the most remarkable things about bikes is not how much they have changed over the last fifty years. It is how little one particular part of the bicycle has changed.
We have moved from steel to carbon. We have transformed mountain bikes from rigid machines into highly sophisticated suspension platforms. We have electrified the bicycle. We have connected it to smartphones. We have filled it with sensors, software and electronics. Entire categories have appeared that would have sounded absurd a generation ago.
Yet throughout all this transformation, one assumption remained almost entirely untouched: a bicycle needed a derailleur. Not a specific derailleur, not a specific brand. A derailleur. For decades, that assumption was so deeply embedded in the industry’s thinking that most of us stopped noticing it altogether. And if one company deserves more credit than any other for that reality, it is Shimano. This is not a criticism. Quite the opposite.
Before discussing where the industry might be heading, it is worth recognising the scale of what Shimano achieved.
For much of the last half century, Shimano did not merely dominate the drivetrain market. It became the reference point around which the market organised itself. Product managers benchmarked against Shimano. Journalists compared products against Shimano. Brands built premium bicycles around Shimano. Companies that ultimately chose SRAM often made that decision in relation to Shimano. Even dealers sold bikes based on the drivetrain instead of the frame/brand.
That is not simply market leadership.
That is the ability to define what normal looks like.
And Shimano’s greatest achievement was not building the best drivetrain components in the world.
It was making the underlying architecture feel inevitable.
The industry spent decades discussing gear ranges, shifting speed, weight, durability and pricing. What it rarely discussed was the derailleur itself. Its concept and existence. Somewhere along the way, the derailleur ceased to be a product and became an assumption.
This matters because history has a habit of surprising industries precisely when they stop questioning their assumptions.
The horse did not become a bad mode of transport when the automobile arrived. Film did not suddenly stop working when digital photography emerged. BlackBerry did not collapse because physical keyboards became useless.
In each case, the dominant technology continued doing what it had always done.
What changed was the environment around it.
And that brings us to the modern e-bike.
Because while the industry has spent the last decade obsessing over motors, batteries and power figures, a more interesting story may have been developing quietly in the background.
For most of cycling history, drivetrains evolved around a remarkably predictable source of power: human beings. The strongest riders in the world could produce extraordinary efforts, but those efforts still existed within a relatively narrow operating window. Chains, cassettes and derailleurs evolved around that reality and became astonishingly refined as a result.
Then e-bikes arrived.
At first, the traditional drivetrain adapted remarkably well. Early systems delivered relatively modest levels of assistance and there was little reason to question the architecture. The industry simply carried on. Shimano improved Shimano. SRAM improved SRAM. The basic formula remained untouched.
But as motor performance increased, the priorities of many riders began to shift as well.
For decades, weight sat at the centre of the conversation. Every gram mattered. Every component was judged through the lens of efficiency and weight savings. That logic made perfect sense when bicycles were powered exclusively by human legs.
Modern e-bikes have introduced a different set of priorities. Wear increases exponentially. Hence reliability matters. Durability matters. Smooth shifting matters. The ability to deliver power smoothly and predictably on a steep technical climb matters.
A missed shift halfway up a difficult climb is no longer just an annoyance. It can mean losing momentum, putting a foot down or, in some situations, ending up on the ground. Riders are increasingly asking more of their drivetrains than simply being light and efficient.
The remarkable thing is not that alternative drivetrain concepts exist, it is that the environment has evolved in a way that makes some of their advantages increasingly relevant.
That reality has not gone unnoticed.
What makes the current moment so fascinating is not that one company has identified the problem, it is that multiple companies appear to be arriving at similar conclusions independently.
Pinion was among the first companies to challenge the accepted wisdom. By moving the gearbox to the centre of the bicycle, it questioned whether the derailleur needed to remain at the heart of the drivetrain at all.
Valeo followed a similar direction through a different technical route, combining motor and gearbox into a single integrated unit and blurring the traditional boundary between the two.
More recently, systems such as Owuru brought continuously variable transmission concepts back into the spotlight, demonstrating that alternative approaches were beginning to move beyond niche engineering exercises and into commercially viable products.
At the same time, Gates continued challenging the assumption that a chain was always necessary, while automatic shifting technologies questioned whether riders should manage gear selection themselves. Classified explored another path altogether.
And now Gobao enters the conversation with what may be the most ambitious proposal yet.
At this point, a reasonable reader might ask a simple question.
If alternative drivetrain architectures are so compelling, why are derailleur systems still dominating the market?
It is a fair question.
After all, Pinion is not new. Gearboxes are not new. Belt drives are not new. Even the idea of integrating motor and transmission into a single unit is no longer particularly revolutionary.
Yet despite all these developments, the overwhelming majority of premium bicycles still rely on the same basic drivetrain architecture they used a decade ago.
That reality deserves consideration.
Because perhaps the question is not whether Pinion was right.
Perhaps the question is whether Pinion was early (and it is possible that product performance, its size and initial weight had some influence too).
When Pinion first challenged conventional drivetrain thinking, e-bike motors produced significantly less torque than they do today.
The maintenance burden associated with traditional drivetrains was lower. Riders were still discovering what an e-bike could be. Manufacturers were largely focused on adapting existing bicycle architectures to electrification rather than rethinking them altogether since performance was not still there for trail riders.
The environment was different.
Today, the industry finds itself in a very different place.
Motor outputs continue to rise. Riders increasingly expect lower maintenance, greater reliability and a more seamless user experience and the reality is that SRAM and Shimano parts don’t work well with the high torque and high power anymore (after 20 good hours of use relevant signs of wear can be noticed).
Integration is no longer viewed with the same suspicion it once was. Software plays an increasingly important role in how bicycles behave and how riders interact with them.
Most importantly, Pinion is no longer alone.
What once looked like an isolated, pioneering adventure is beginning to look like a broader industry trend. Pinion. Valeo. Revonte. Owuru. Gobao.
Different technologies. Different technical approaches. Yet all are moving in a remarkably similar direction. The debate is no longer about how to improve the derailleur. It is about whether the derailleur should remain at the centre of the e-bike drivetrain conversation in the first place.
That is what makes Gobao significant.
Not because it is the first company to ask the question. That distinction probably belongs to pioneers such as Pinion. What makes Gobao interesting is that the list of companies asking the same question continues to grow. And once multiple companies independently begin questioning the same assumption, it becomes increasingly difficult to dismiss the discussion as a niche experiment.
The question is no longer whether alternative drivetrain architectures have a future. It is how quickly they will move from the margins into the mainstream.
More importantly, it raises a far bigger question: does an architecture designed around a chain, cassette and derailleur still represent the optimal solution in a world of 120 Nm, 150 Nm and increasingly integrated e-bike systems?
That distinction is enormous.
And that is where the story becomes particularly interesting because SRAM never truly challenged Shimano’s worldview.
They challenged Shimano’s dominance and specifically their market share but the worldview remained intact given that revolution took place within the same architectural framework.
SRAM challenged assumptions about gearing, but not the fundamental architecture underpinning the modern bicycle: power was still transmitted through a chain, managed by a cassette and ultimately controlled by a derailleur.
The new challengers are questioning whether that architecture remains the best answer at all.
History suggests those are the challengers incumbents should pay closest attention to.
Not because they always win. Most do not.
But because they force the industry to revisit assumptions that have remained unquestioned for years.
The debate is no longer whether alternative drivetrain architectures have a future. That debate is effectively over and now the real question is how quickly they will move from the margins into the mainstream.
The implications extend far beyond Shimano and SRAM.
Historically, the motor and the drivetrain occupied separate worlds. One generated power. The other managed it. Innovation happened independently.
As integration increases, the future competitive battlefield may look very different from the one the industry has known for the last thirty years.
The next great battle may not be fought between drivetrain manufacturers. It may not even be fought between motor manufacturers. It may be fought between complete systems.
That possibility should concern every major player in the industry: Bosch, Shimano, Yamaha/Brose, Mahle, TQ and Avinox. Because if the future belongs to integrated systems rather than individual components, the question fundamentally changes.
That transition may still be five years away. But within the next two years, we could see the first evidence that the shift has already begun.
What seems increasingly difficult to ignore, however, is that the bicycle industry is beginning to discuss something it has not seriously discussed for a very long time: not which derailleur deserves the crown, but whether the crown still belongs to the derailleur at all.
The king is not dead. Not yet. But for the first time in decades, the throne looks highly in danger.
The derailleur remains one of the most successful pieces of engineering in cycling history however the e-bike market is beginning to move in a different direction.
For decades, Shimano and SRAM fought to determine who would dominate the drivetrain conversation and today, companies such as Pinion, Gobao, Avinox, Valeo and others are asking a different question entirely: what if the future requires fewer drivetrain components in the first place?
As this transition continues, the challenge that Shimano and SRAM will be facing will no longer be about market share. It will be about relevance. Because the most dangerous competitor is not the one trying to build a better derailleur. It is the one trying to eliminate the need for one.
For riders, that’s good news. Competition accelerates innovation and challenges long-established assumptions. And few parts of the e-bike have remained as ripe for disruption as the drivetrain, which continues to struggle with wear, durability and maintenance despite the rapid progress made elsewhere.
Words: Juansi Vivo Photos: Divers
