interesting tactic to reduce drag..

[Bionicman]

 

[WoodsWeapon]

Im no engineer, but seems the torque of our Altas would round that sprocket off in a few hours?

 

[Philip]

I like it. Interesting.

 

[Philip]

Once the chain stretches a little though, this rear sprocket will get destroyed.

 

[Jon]

This seems like a very bad idea.

Right from the get go, I don't think it will reduce drag much. The normal force on each sprocket tooth (or more specifically, each roller in the chain) will doubled... this doubles the frictional loss. Half as many teeth but with double the frictional load comes out to be about the same. You can't get something for nothing.

Beyond the lack of performance increase, this will greatly increase the chance of skipping under load, and will wear out the sprocket very quickly. Hopefully they ran the torque numbers, but there would be a small risk of shearing the teeth right off if you pin it in mode 4... much more so once the teeth wear down.

If the goal is rotating un-sprung mass reduction, there are much better options. Tires, tubes, rims, spokes... and there is always rider weight