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This design is unstable and expensive to produce with a complicated in wheel transmission. It is novel, but almost certainly more expensive and less reliable th

This design is unstable and expensive to produce with a complicated in wheel transmission. It is novel, but almost certainly more expensive and less reliable than existing designs.

camtarn 1y ago
You've not come across hub gears on bikes before, have you? They were pretty much the standard before derailleur gears became popular, and modern ones can have up to 7 speeds.
- mrob 1y ago
  Modern ones can have more than 7 speeds. The Rohloff Speedhub has 14 speeds, and the Shimano Alfine is available with either 8 or 11 speeds.
  - lostlogin 1y ago
    They are so so nice to ride. I’ve ended up with some electronic road SRAM which is seriously quick in comparison (except for the slow rider), but do miss the smooth internal hub and the stationary gear changes.
  - camtarn 1y ago
    Oh, nice, the state of the art has advanced since I last read about hub gears, which was ... oh dear, about twenty years ago? No wonder things have improved :)
- jmercouris 1y ago
  I meant the whole design. The hub gear is no different than on any other bicycle and can be reliable.
ninalanyon 1y ago
In wheel gears have been in use for over a century very successfully. I had a Raleigh bicycle with Sturmey Archer gears as a child. It never gave me any trouble, unlike the derailleur gears I had on later bicycles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hub_gear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hub_gear
- jerlam 1y ago
  But modern hub gears are no longer standard, and relegated to specific use cases. There's a lot of friction in hub gears (at least the one I rode a decade ago), and fixing them is generally impractical.
  - puzzlingcaptcha 1y ago
    Shimano Nexus is from 1995. What did you ride twenty years later, in 2015? I call BS on the friction argument.
    - codersarepeople 1y ago
      It's true that internally geared bikes are common, especially in Europe. But internal gear hubs that are coaxial with pedals are almost unheard of. The only production one ever is the Schlumpf Unicycle hub, which costs $1500 and only a few hundred have ever been made. It also has only 2 gears. It's certainly possible to do, but I have doubts about a company opting for that incredibly expensive option of creating a new hub instead of reusing standard bike parts.
- lmm 1y ago
  > In wheel gears have been in use for over a century very successfully. They've been barely viable the whole time. Sturmey Archer are the last maker in business; they went bankrupt a couple of decades back and for some years there was serious concern that manufacturing would never resume.
  - WJW 1y ago
    ...what? There's a whole bunch of manufacturers, so many that there's an entire Wikipedia page disccusinge them at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_hub_gears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_hub_gears. There's at least 8 different manufacturers on there, some with many different models. Some were introduced as recently as 2023, so it's hardly some abandoned legacy technology.

This design is unstable and expensive to produce with a complicated in wheel transmission. It is novel, but almost certainly more expensive and less reliable than existing designs.

camtarn 1y ago

You've not come across hub gears on bikes before, have you? They were pretty much the standard before derailleur gears became popular, and modern ones can have up to 7 speeds.

mrob 1y ago
Modern ones can have more than 7 speeds. The Rohloff Speedhub has 14 speeds, and the Shimano Alfine is available with either 8 or 11 speeds.
- lostlogin 1y ago
  They are so so nice to ride. I’ve ended up with some electronic road SRAM which is seriously quick in comparison (except for the slow rider), but do miss the smooth internal hub and the stationary gear changes.
- camtarn 1y ago
  Oh, nice, the state of the art has advanced since I last read about hub gears, which was ... oh dear, about twenty years ago? No wonder things have improved :)
jmercouris 1y ago
I meant the whole design. The hub gear is no different than on any other bicycle and can be reliable.

ninalanyon 1y ago

In wheel gears have been in use for over a century very successfully. I had a Raleigh bicycle with Sturmey Archer gears as a child. It never gave me any trouble, unlike the derailleur gears I had on later bicycles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hub_gear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hub_gear

jerlam 1y ago
But modern hub gears are no longer standard, and relegated to specific use cases. There's a lot of friction in hub gears (at least the one I rode a decade ago), and fixing them is generally impractical.
- puzzlingcaptcha 1y ago
  Shimano Nexus is from 1995. What did you ride twenty years later, in 2015? I call BS on the friction argument.
  - codersarepeople 1y ago
    It's true that internally geared bikes are common, especially in Europe. But internal gear hubs that are coaxial with pedals are almost unheard of. The only production one ever is the Schlumpf Unicycle hub, which costs $1500 and only a few hundred have ever been made. It also has only 2 gears. It's certainly possible to do, but I have doubts about a company opting for that incredibly expensive option of creating a new hub instead of reusing standard bike parts.
lmm 1y ago
> In wheel gears have been in use for over a century very successfully. They've been barely viable the whole time. Sturmey Archer are the last maker in business; they went bankrupt a couple of decades back and for some years there was serious concern that manufacturing would never resume.
- WJW 1y ago
  ...what? There's a whole bunch of manufacturers, so many that there's an entire Wikipedia page disccusinge them at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_hub_gears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_hub_gears. There's at least 8 different manufacturers on there, some with many different models. Some were introduced as recently as 2023, so it's hardly some abandoned legacy technology.