An all-automatic CVT based bicycle?

Andre Jute

On Jun 5, 2:42 pm, "Tom Kunich" <cyclintom@yahoo. com> wrote:
> "bicycle_disciple" <1.crazyboy.o...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:a1059340-0fff-490a-82dd-40d89a8167e8@z72g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > I think you put that very well there. There is a segment of the
> > consumer market which is composed of new people coming to bicycling.
> > Most of them haven't ridden bikes before, leave along "serious biking"
> > Some don't even know how to shift!
>
> Not to put too fine a point on it but there are few people too stupid to
> learn how to shift in minutes. To imply that they need an automatic
> transmission instead of a few minutes instruction is pretty whacky.

This isn't about stupidity, Tom, but about the perceptions of
potential customers. If they think shifting will be difficult, they
won't even buy a bike. Therefore it is smart to introduce automatic
gears for new bicyclists somewhere near the cheap end of the market.

Second point: for those who fear derailleur shifting, there is the
option of hub gears with a simple, single rotary control. Even simpler
is the NuVinci with its continuously variable control.

Third point, same as first: the problem with automating the 8sp Nexus
and the NuVinci is that the necessary price puts the bike back in a
market where potential purchasers will be people either with bike
experience or those with the confidence to try anything and willing to
bet they will succeed. (Even I first bought a manual Nexus and ran it
for a couple of years for experience before splashing out on the
electronic automatic version -- and I'm pretty electronically savvy.)
In that case, the automatic bike must count on selling to technofreaks
and maybe the terminally incompetent rich. How many of either class
can there be? (Mind you, I know one guy who complained that his
electric bike was too difficult to ride...) So an automatic bike must
be cheap and appeal to new bicyclists -- of which there are
potentially tens of millions -- to have a chance of surviving by
creating a mass market.

Andre Jute
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/...%20CYCLING.html