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the other downside of regular gears is potential grease marks on my wife's smart work trousers...
I really like the idea of not having to worry about cleaning/relubing chains from November to March. When i get back from nursery/school with kids, i don't generally have time to clean the bike and by the time they are in bed and i've done house chores, i'm unlikely to want to go back outside and do it again.
Will have a think about what models have nexus 5 and gates drive I guess - other than LvH ebullit, any others?
gillies
Thrustvector
I think the nuvinci is fine for folk who do a lot of city miles, and unexpected stops and starts, and for those who aren't regular riders, they are user friendly to folk who aren't "up" on bikes. Have heard of folk getting thousands of trouble free miles out of them, same for alfine 11, but have heard of way more where thwy have issues (main one is they become "notched" internally so it will tend to slip into one particular ratio of its own accord (and the shifters imploding, but had hoped they'd made a better shifter by now).
Alfine 11 btw is also bad for cargo, ok for manual bikes and for hub driven motors, but not for mid drive. Alfine 8 are better, and nexus 5 better again. But any igh will fail given enough bad shifts/user error/abuse. Imagine mashing gears in a manual car, you get away with it, but only so many times before stuff goes wrong.
For me I like to be able to ride around in silence with no motor (when there's no hills lol) , and a geared igh/infinite igh would defo make that experience more hard work.
Negatives of regular derailleur gears... Chains and cassettes are going to wear faster than on a regular bike, and then a powerful mid drive compounds that. But any old bike shop or end user can take care of it, changing chainring (well bosch need a special tool but they don't cost much), chain and cassette is no harder than a regular bike. Can't change gear when stationary so you have to change down on expectation, though the instant torque of most mid drives means any old gear is going to make the bike go forward when you want it to