In a small village between Stuttgart and the Albkante, two developers are resisting the conventions of an entire industry. With or without E: Bicycles have had chains, sprockets and derailleurs for over 100 years. Pinion has none of that. The derailleur sits in its own weatherproof housing. Shifting is wear-free with a spur gear. Just like a sports car. With the MGU, presented at Eurobike 2023, Pinion has achieved its biggest coup to date - merging the motor and gearstick into a single compact unit.
All of this comes from a parts factory in Denkendorf, Swabia. Hidden in a small industrial area between car parks and beech hedges is an inconspicuous office complex from the 1980s. Only a few blue flags at the entrance and a doorbell sign indicate that this is home to the most radical innovator in the entire e-bike business.
From Porsche to Pinion? What hardly anyone knows about the beginnings of the gearbox manufacturer
The corridors of a gutted building gleam white from the inside. If it weren't for the occasional wheel part, the building could also belong to an expensive private dentist. We are supposed to meet Christoph Lermen, one of the two founders of the company. Lermen, who is still one of the company bosses today, is a tall, reserved man. He is in his mid-thirties but already has a receding brow and a cautious smile. But when it comes to technology, the founder speaks plainly. He predicts a difficult future for derailleur gears outside of the entry-level segment and Lermen also keeps his feet on the ground when it comes to the trendy topic of automatic shifting. "As yet, there is no system that can really look ahead. Humans still have the advantage".
Automatic gearshift: As yet, there is no system that can really look ahead. Humans still have the advantage.
The journey of Lermen and his partner Michael began during their studies. The two were already interested in bicycles and gearboxes and gained practical expertise at Porsche. However, the Pinion founders were by no means experienced developers, as is often assumed. Lermen grins mischievously "The idea for Pinion came to us in the engine and transmission development department in Weissach. But we were both still students at the time." The first gearbox prototype, in which the two had invested two years of development and the equivalent of a small car, didn't even make it to the rubble pile next to the first office. A setback. A short time later, the first investor also pulled out due to the financial crisis.
Competition for Bosch and Co.: How Pinion wants to revolutionise the drive market
But Lermen and Schmitz did not give up. Founded in 2008, Pinion now has over a hundred employees and its gearbox is considered the most compact and durable drive system suitable for mountain bikes. But with the MGU, Pinion is competing with giants such as Bosch, Shimano and Yamaha. Can that work? It will depend not least on the MGU itself whether Pinion can survive in the shark tank that is the bicycle industry. Pinion has been sure to attract the attention of its competitors since Eurobike 2023, where the Swabians set the innovation highlight with the MGU.
The expectations of the partners are correspondingly high. The Denkendorf-based company has taken special precautions to meet these high standards. Workshop and assembly manager Kevin shows us these during a tour of the production facility. From the clean corridors, we enter an older, glass-roofed inner courtyard. Soft light falls through the skylights onto dozens of cardboard boxes in which hundreds of gear wheels and small parts are waiting to be collected for storage. Pinion needs almost 200 individual parts to assemble a single MGU. Most of them come from Germany. But that's only marginally important, says assembly manager Kevin. "The quality standards for precision components are very high. That's why we like to use regional partners."
Patent-protected design, precision components: this is how the Pinion MGU is made
Gear wheels, extra-hard and with minimal tolerances, come from the Black Forest, other gear parts from Switzerland. The highlight of the 500 individual parts that are manufactured for the various Pinion products is also one of the secrets of the company's success to date: the gearshift pawl. An inconspicuous little part, half the size of a thumbnail, on which the entire force of the drive system is temporarily exerted. That's why the shift pawl is an ultra-precision component, harder than a Japanese kitchen knife and milled to a tolerance of a few thousandths of a millimetre. Each individual pawl costs eight euros to buy, seven of which are needed in every Pinion MGU.
A small part, half the size of a thumbnail, bears the full force of the drive.
The assembly manager leads us past the order picking and quality control departments and on to the upper floor. Here, the final components of the Pinion gearboxes are assembled by a good dozen employees. Some of them have been with the young company for over ten years. "The employees have to work very precisely," explains Kevin, in order to fit the many gears, pawls and spacer rings onto the corresponding shafts in the correct order. Click, click, an employee shifts through the gears before our eyes, holding only two roughly pre-assembled shafts together. In between, the software checks whether everything is correctly positioned. The computer recognises even the smallest deviations.
Finally, the housing is fitted, sealed, filled with oil and automatically vented. The logo is added, then an employee presses a click counter. The seventy-fourth MGU rolls off the production line shortly before the lunch break. "We expect that the MGU will soon significantly overshadow our business with conventional gearboxes," says founder Christoph Lermen. Nine major manufacturers now offer e-bikes with Pinion MGU, and this number is set to increase significantly in the future. Derailleur shifting or automatic shifting.
Pinion: The gearbox start-up at a glance
The story of Pinion is the story of a start-up with a good idea. For a long time, the two founders worked alone, but the number of employees has been growing rapidly since 2017. Today, Pinion has a good hundred employees.
- 2006 - Working students Michael Schmitz and Christoph Lermen in Porsche's transmission development department came up with the idea of installing a sports car transmission in a bicycle. The specific impetus: a colleague arrives at work an hour late because his chain broke while he was changing gear on his bike.
- 2008 - The first patents have already been registered, but development and prototype construction are definitely beyond the students' means. Michael and Christoph found Pinion GmbH and bring the first investors on board. The first gearbox prototype becomes reality in 2009, but only lasts a few metres.
- 2012 - After the withdrawal of the first investor and the total failure of the first prototype, Pinion completely rethinks the gearbox. Four years later, the first product was presented at Eurobike 2012. The P1.18 transmission with 18 gears and a total gear ratio of 636 per cent.
- 2016-2017 - Pinion significantly expands its product portfolio with the more favourable C-Line. Significantly more employees are hired. Behind closed doors, development work begins on the MGU, which will be presented at Eurobike in 2023.
About automatic shifting, lightweight motors and the familiarisation factor: an interview with Pinion founder Christoph Lermen
EMTB: In a nutshell: What was the idea behind Michael and you founding Pinion?
Christoph Lermen: Why is there a gearbox in a car that lasts the whole life of the vehicle and why do you have to constantly change it on a bike? That was the spark that kept us going. You have to imagine it the other way round: What would it be like if a sports car had a derailleur gearbox? Which constantly needs servicing? The gearbox is simply superior.
Was it difficult for you to convince investors of your idea?
I think the concept is very tangible, and that played into our hands. However, we had no luck with the first investor. He came under pressure at the end of 2008 during the crisis and pulled out in 2009. In hindsight, that was a stroke of luck. We rethought the whole idea. Only then did our gearbox become as compact as it is today.
How did the MGU come about?
Around 2017, it became clear that we also wanted to gain a foothold in the e-bike sector. And what could be more obvious than combining our transmission technology with a motor in a single housing? The realisation was more of a challenge. We had no experience with e-drives and software. We had to convert our mechanical engineering company into a mechatronics company and we did quite well.
The MGU has clear advantages, but there are still some peculiarities, such as the double shifting process. How do you deal with this?
Familiarisation plays a major role here. We have also got used to the peculiarities of derailleur gears over the years. I would say that our system is much more intuitive for a newcomer.
Sram and Shimano are already moving strongly in the direction of automatic shifting. In principle, the MGU is also predestined for this.
Yes, but the fact is that even with the best sensor technology, the bike can only analyse what needs to be done in the situation. Looking ahead is technically very difficult and currently doesn't even work in the automotive sector. I wouldn't trust anyone who promises a simple solution. However, with the means at our disposal, we will get very close to the perfect condition.
Our system is much more intuitive for a newcomer to cycling than derailleur gears
What else will change in the MGU in the coming years in terms of installation space, volume, functionality and price?
This is now our first generation and we are already starting at a very high level. But development never stands still and we still see potential in all the points mentioned. We are also keeping a very close eye on current trends, such as lightweight e-bike drives. On the subject of price: In the long term, we can also imagine the MGU in the upper mid-range. But Pinion will remain premium.
Adrian Kaether
Editor
