Originally Posted by
jackbombay
Have you ridden one?
One of my house mates has one, its a neat novelty, but all in all its fairly pointless and somewhat annoying IMO. I suppose you could slowly twist the grip as you accelerate to keep your cadence steady, but the reality is that you'll pedal till your cadence gets to 85 or so, then rotate the shifter a bit to bring your cadence down to 70, then pedal for a bit till your cadence gets back up to 85, then rotate the shifter a bit till your cadence comes down to 70. So while you can select "any gear ratio" the reality is that you still end up using only 8 "gears" or so. I used to be totally intrigued by them, but it only took a ride of a few miles on it to wear off ALL the luster, for me at least.
Yes, and I described my experience with them. I like them moderately. But you raise a good point. I wonder why Citi Bike chose the NuVinci instead of a Shimano or Sturmey Archer 7- or 8-speed hub. That would be better. I don't know what you mean about my cadence going up and down. I keep it steady on the NuVinci. The NuVinci is quite expensive. I wonder if the rationale is that it's more durable than the IGHs out there. But I don't like the 3-speeds much.