Originally Posted by
corrado33
You could say the same about an automatic transmission in a car, yet they're still massively popular in the US.
Sure, bikes are a bit more of a niche market, not really having a lot of people interested in them that don't know how to shift, but maybe shifting is the activation barrier that most non-bike people can't overcome?
But I think the Nuvi constant gearing thing already solved that honestly.
Personally, I'd love to have an automatic shifting bike as long as I could play with the algorithm, simply for scientific and programming fun.
Automatics in cars is a far different situation. I still remember driving in San Francisco on a steep hill and when the light turned green the stick shift artist let his car drift back into mine, trying to get it going.