Infinite number of gears?
 

The Ellsworth Ride. It has CVP (continuously variable planetary) gearing. The deluxe model has belt drive, the "regular" ride, at nearly $3k, has chain drive. Crank-forward, neighborhood coffeeshop cruiser.

Anyone familiar with this gearing technology?

LINK

http://files.myopera.com/BryanCox/blog/IMG_3710.JPG

LINK to a review here

More gears are better, it's like stereo speakers. I have an infinite number of stereo speakers in my setup, it's pretty good, ...for the car.

$3000 for a heavy cruiser? hmm.

They're acutatly mostly CF.

The shop I work at ordered two of them and theyve already been sold on pre-order. Should be coming in any day now.

Be sure to test ride one and tell us what the gearing is like.

Im sure the shop will post it on their website, and yeah im going to test ride it no doubt.

I was wondering when CVT would hit.

Exactly.
Our current derailuer system has been around for a several generations. Something newer (and hopefully) better is long overdue.

Any pics of the actual system? I'd love to know how this works...

Honda and Toyota hybrids use CVT transmissions too. Very interesting to drive, actually. You never feel the transmission shift.

Here's an article I found--I'm guessing the bike version is very similar:

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/tec...4/article.html

Here's a link to a CVT for bicycles. http://www.fallbrooktech.com/

And some vids: http://www.fallbrooktech.com/02_Demo.asp

That's really cool, and with a little work I bet they could make it light enough to be a viable option...

Where would the twist shifter go on a roadie?

good bye cross chaining! welcome back friction shifters! lol, this design has been around since leonardo thought it up, since then most of the effort has been put into finding a suitable belt material that grips well and last's long without being to abrasive. although the nuvinci design looks interesting aswell, ultimately you know it's going to come down to weight, servicablity/durability, and direct effeciency that will determine weather or not we'll start seeing it on road bikes.

More than just the hybrids. CVT's have been around for a long time; I believe Audi was the first to come to market with the latest version (meaning in the past ten years or so). Before that I believe some low power vehicles in foreign markets had CVT's as well.

Ah? It doesn't need to be a twist shifter. It's the same cable movement as derailer systems, just not indexed. It would be as simple as brifters without clicks.

and dont forget ATV's and snowmobiles.

There are quite a few different implementations of CVTs such as belts and planetary gearing.

I like the CVT on my Camry. I don't miss the feel of the old 4 or 5-spd automatic shifting. Besides having more ideal gear ratios, it also avoids the inefficiencies of most torque converters.

Man that thing's ugly. I'd be interested in a CVP conversion kit in 120mm spacing, though.

Fluid=Problems later

Just have your legs powering a generator and an electric motor on your rear hub.

Fixed gear ftw