Bicycle shifter
AssigneeSram, LLC
InventorMartin Weiss
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A shifter for a bicycle transmission that includes a spring element that functions as a preloaded spring for cable-release operations and a detent pawl. The shifter also includes a housing having a detent contour, a cable spool for winding and unwinding a control cable thereon, and an actuator. The actuator includes a release element, a spring seat and a driver. The spring element includes a detent pawl, a base and a spool driver. The detent pawl is engageable with the detent contour to maintain the shifter in a current detent position. The base is supported by the spring seat and the spool driver is operatively engages and rotates the spool.
Claims14
A shifter for a bicycle transmission comprising:
- a housing including a detent contour, the housing fixedly mountable to a bicycle frame member;
- a cable spool rotated relative to the housing for winding and unwinding a control cable thereon;
- an actuator displaced relative to the cable spool and including a spring detent pawl release element, a spring seat and a first spool driver operatively engaging and rotating the spool;
- and
- a single-piece spring element discrete from the cable spool including:
- a detent pawl engageable with the detent contour to maintain the shifter in a current detent position;
- a base supported by the spring seat;
- and
- a second spool driver operatively engaging and rotating the spool,
- the shifter configured such that during the onset of a cable-release operation the actuator is initially displaced from a rest position relative to the cable spool to preload and reversibly deform the spring element to assist the unwinding rotation of the cable spool without releasing the detent pawl from the current detent position.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.