Just saw a video clip on NuBike. Doesn't look like it's on the market yet. The review below says there's a kickstarter campaign going on. Here's a link to a review:
https://newatlas.com/nubike-lever-drive/58096/

Sounds like an interesting idea - wondering how it would feel over a long ride.

From their video, it doesn't look like their riders were fit to any of the bikes correctly. Too much knee bend at the bottom of the stroke. We all know the sweet spot between not enough knee extension and over extension.

Given a chance to try one, I would just to see what it is like. If properly fitted it could be set up for optimum joint angles.

Treadle bikes aren't new. This guy did it in 1812:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkpatrick_Macmillan

In the early 1980s there was the Alenax:

Alenax: the Ultimate Vintage Freak Bike?

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/alenax.html

It looks craaaazzzyyy heavy, I get the feeling it'd be a tad harder on the knees going uphill than a standard lightweight road bike.

It does seem like it would be more difficult to ride up long and steep hills - kind of like a step ladder although it seems like you might generate more power per stroke?? And would be interesting how the fit would work for someone who wanted to use it for long rides. Regarding weight, I think the article said it came in at 22 pounds so, on the heavy side although some of that may be solvable as the design gets refined.

btw, my title is inaccurate ... I believe it's not out on the market yet so wouldn't be much opportunity to test ride!

4 bar mechanism drive is nothing new. There are reasons nobody uses it...

The power that my bike can deliver is limited by the motor, which works by converting sugar and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water. I don't see a subtly different mechanism making that process significantly more efficient. All of the marketing claims are empty without quantitative evidence, which will be remarkably difficult to gather.

$3,800 interest-free loan. Gotta be kidding.

Nope. Of course not. People gambled $5,000 on SpeedX. Remember them, know what happened to them?

Wellllllll, maybe in 1839, or maybe not, the claim based on the personal recollections of a relative some fifty-odd years later, submitted without proof or artifacts. Good story, though.

An actual successful (relative to its time and place) treadle bicycle was the American Star of the 1880s.

Why, a fellar could buy a top of the line Stringbike for that kind of money.

Yeah, I posted about this some days ago over in the Folding Bikes forum. The kickstarter for that failed pretty hard earlier this year; don't know if they're doing another. Weird drive mechanism aside, I think the potential selling-point is actually in how it takes down. See about 1m 10s here:



Dunno at that price, though.

Not a good sign if the kick-starter campaign failed. And, yeah, $3,800 would be pricey ... for me, anyway.

Spinergy wheels and a threaded fork? So we're building the Bike of the Future with 1999 technology?

So much B.S. ("more power because of leverage") in that video.

I caught that too.

They claim 2x longer levers = twice the power.

It makes one question whether they know the difference between power and force or whether they are using the word power loosely for marketing. It is difficult to take and engineering company seriously when they can't be specific.


-Tim-

Yeah, when they make it one of their key selling points they lose much credibility.

Oh No! Another one of those Kickstarter campaigns. I wonder what the efficiency of their lever drive train works out to be. How does that compare to a standard drive train which is reasonably priced and darned efficient (up to 98% power transfer from some posts I have read).

Agreed. They should have tried to sell users on the portability.

Why not make it 3x longer and get 3x the power?

My levers go up to 11.

The thing in the video that caught my interest was about how the chain drive made of links has been around for more than a century without any major design improvements. I thought..."Well the wheel has been around much longer than that without any major design improvements. After all these years it's still round."

Dan

And using 1992 marketing to sell it.

My favorite part at 1:55:

<proceeds to pull out the wheel still attached to half of the bike.>

The levers are for prying the $$$ out of your wallet.

Besides, it's carbon...everyone knows what happens to carbon.