140 pieces are not really that many when it comes to a puzzle. 140 pieces are beginner level, like cat picture puzzles for five-year-olds. But what Dragica Vlajic is working with here are not curvy pieces of cardboard, but 140 angular metal parts: Gear wheels, drive shafts, snap rings, ball bearings, pawls, tiny little springs and more gear wheels. And Vlajic stacks and sticks and clamps these little particles together so quickly that the eye can barely follow her fingers. So once again: axles, cogwheels, springs and so on... And finally a few drops of oil. Put the lid on and that's it.
Waiting times despite high performance
Only half a dozen employees are currently working in gearbox assembly at Pinion. Corona has struck, and it's the school holidays at the moment anyway. But if the people at Pinion could assemble and deliver as quickly as the bike market would like, 1,000 gearboxes would have to leave the nested industrial building in Denkendorf in Baden-Württemberg every day for destinations all over the world: It can currently take six months for an ordered gearbox to arrive at the bike manufacturer. But this is more due to the spatial limits of growth. Only recently, the entire company moved to a neighbouring building with more open space and charmingly polished remnants of old industrial culture: natural stone slabs, tiles and mullioned windows are definitely older than the new owners. The third floor is currently being extended.
How the twelve-speed gearbox from Pinion works
The gearwheels directly involved in the transmission rotate around two shafts. The lower seven gears are located on the bottom bracket shaft, the upper seven on a hollow shaft to which the shift cable engages from the outside.
Four gear groups
Gear group 1 sits immovably on the bottom bracket shaft. These four gears (the 18-speed Pinion would have six) therefore rotate exactly with the cadence.
Gear group 2: The opposing gear wheels in group 2 rotate continuously. They run in an oil bath on a hollow shaft. This hollow shaft has small windows under each of the upper gearwheels. When changing gear, a pawl folds up under one of them. This is how it engages. This cogwheel now transmits the power from the pedal crank to the upper shaft. The locked gear wheel turns the upper shaft at the speed resulting from the respective transmission ratio of the lower and upper gear wheels. We have coloured one pairing for better understanding.
Gear group 3 are the three cogwheels to the right. They do roughly what three chainrings used to do: The respective combination of one of the four cogwheels on the left and one of them multiplies the number of gears. They rotate with the same hollow shaft, and here too a pawl (activated by the shift cable) determines which of the three picks up the speed. The coloured gear wheel on the right would be the "small leaf", so to speak.
Gear group 4 also sits on the bottom bracket shaft, but rotates freely on needle bearings independently of group 1. The small cogwheel from group 3 now rotates the large cogwheel from group 4. This rigidly connected group of three protrudes from the housing behind the right-hand crank (not visible in the photo). The chainring sits on its outwardly projecting part - which rotates independently of the crank at the speed specified by the gearbox.
Pinion from its foundation until today
Things are going well at Pinion - and there is no end in sight: the two company founders Christoph Lermen and Michael Schmitz recently sold the majority shareholding to the Canadian company "Bombardier Recreational Products". The company has 20,000 employees worldwide. And even if many of the brand's products - such as jet skis, snowmobiles and quads - would rather not be encountered in an otherwise peaceful environment, the investor will make it easier for Pinion to grow than it would have been with equity capital.
Christoph Lermen, co-founder of Pinion, comments on the sale of the company shares:
We had wanted to develop the brand further for some time, including in the direction of e-mobility. This requires more capacity than we had.
A big step for the relatively young company, and a step from motor to bike and back: when Christoph Lermen and Michael Schmitz presented their baby at Eurobike in 2010, all they knew was that their gearbox worked technically. Lermen and Schmitz are gearbox professionals. The two hobby bikers met in the development department at Porsche, and their bicycle gearbox is similar in its basic structure to a mechanical manual gearbox found in millions of cars. Only with 18 gears instead of five or six. And much smaller. And with a clientele that did not develop its propulsion from premium petrol, but only from sensitive muscles before the e-age. In any case, with a clientele for whom the gearbox is not just some unavoidable car part, but a key purchase criterion.
Innovation and progress
There's no question about it: the fundamental decision of "hub or derailleur" required a completely independent alternative - especially as Pinion's customer, the bike manufacturer, had to develop a special frame that was compatible with nothing other than a Pinion gearbox. Apart from their own ingenuity, two developments in bicycle technology played into the hands of the two founders: the practically maintenance-free Gates belt drive complements the gearbox to create a carefree package. The Pinion box requires 60 cubic centimetres of fresh oil every 10,000 kilometres, that's all. The Gates belt needs none at all. The combination sets this drive variant even more clearly apart from the more maintenance-intensive derailleur gears than the gearbox alone would have done. The majority of Pinion drivetrains are already supplied with a belt pulley instead of a cogwheel.
The second, rather unexpected sales booster is the e-bike. Although Pinion gearboxes are located exactly where the mid-motor is usually screwed in, the gearbox is interesting for heavily used road and touring pedelecs in order to reduce costly wear and tear: In combination with a rear-wheel motor, only the rider's pedalling power reaches the gears, whereas with the usual combination of mid-drive motors with derailleur or hub gears, the gear components also get the motor power. This is wear-intensive. Around half of the gearboxes are used in e-bikes and extra-strong S-pedelecs such as the new top model from Stromer.
"The eye can hardly follow the fingers. So once again: axles, gear wheels, springs and so on... And finally a few drops of oil. Put the lid on and you're done."
Pinion remains at the site
Despite the sale to the Canadian group, the founders remain loyal to their location. At the Pinion headquarters near Stuttgart, the majority of the 60 or so employees are busy developing, improving, testing, purchasing and managing parts. There is not much to see on the upper floors - at least for visitors: there are offices that look like offices. And then there are the doors, behind which everything is secret or visitors would be disturbed. The actual gearbox construction is concentrated manual labour. Everything is supplied from outside, with just a few fitters combining the many parts into ready-to-ship gearboxes that are sent directly to the bike companies from here.
Pinion made in Europe
Nevertheless, Pinion gearboxes are as European as it gets. A good 90 per cent of them are made in Europe, with over two thirds of the value creation taking place in Germany. If not in-house, then sometimes almost around the corner. And, as co-founder and co-owner Christoph Lermen emphasises, this is a very sensible decision. "Some parts, such as gear wheels, come from the Black Forest. Some manufacturers are successors to the companies that once made watches. Gearwheels in particular often involve tiny details, and these people know their stuff. In the beginning, cooperating with regional manufacturers also helped us to improve the product. We looked at it together instead of sending things or people around the world."
"Pinion gearboxes are as European as it gets. A good 90 per cent are made in Europe, and over two thirds of the value creation takes place in Germany. If not in-house, then sometimes almost round the corner."
Pinion now holds over 70 patents in the field of drive technology. But even without this protection, the manufacturer fears little competition: the product is very complex in detail, and the German suppliers are not only technically competitive, but also competitive in terms of price. Christoph Lermen: "These are companies that also work for the automotive industry. There is a high degree of automation. And whether this machine is located here or in another country makes little difference to the costs." Apart from that, this collaboration has developed from pragmatism to conviction: It is simply a good, productive collaboration - also because communication, understanding of quality and design culture fit together.
Pinion compact
History: In 2006, founders Michael Schmitz and Christoph Lermen met at the car manufacturer Porsche. In 2007, they applied for the first patent for their bike gearbox. The first bike brands exhibited Pinion models at Eurobike 2011. The company has been 80 per cent owned by Bombardier since mid-2022, with the two founders holding the remaining shares.
Production: Assembly, development, sales and administration take place in Denkendorf near Stuttgart with a good 60 employees. The suppliers of the individual parts mainly produce in Germany, often in the region.
Model range: Pinion only builds manual transmissions with 6, 9, 12 and 18 gears. The more expensive P-series comes with milled housings and 12 or 18 gears. In the C-series (6-, 9- and 12-speed), the housings are made of die-cast magnesium. This includes a twist grip and in-house aluminium cranks.
