Nupace continuously variable transmission internal gear hub

meb said:

Anyone had any experience with these yet?

www.nupace.com

Anyone had a chance to see the innards?

Any opinions on reliability or efficiency?

Dear Meb,

There was some speculation and (I think) some links to
patents in this thread a few months ago:

http://tinyurl.com/4pzo5

or

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&threadm=77191e76.0407291453.3862d75c%40posting.google.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dnupace%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26group%3Drec.bicycles.tech%26c2coff%3D1%26selm%3D77191e76.0407291453.3862d75c%2540posting.google.com%26rnum%3D1

At those prices, it may be quite a while before anyone finds
out about reliability.

Carl Fogel

[email hidden said:

"]On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 14:13:29 +1000, meb

Quoted message said:

Anyone had any experience with these yet?

www.nupace.com

Anyone had a chance to see the innards?

Any opinions on reliability or efficiency?

Dear Meb,

There was some speculation and (I think) some links to
patents in this thread a few months ago:

http://tinyurl.com/4pzo5

or

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&threadm=77191e76.0407291453.3862d75c%40posting.google.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dnupace%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26group%3Drec.bicycles.tech%26c2coff%3D1%26selm%3D77191e76.0407291453.3862d75c%2540posting.google.com%26rnum%3D1

At those prices, it may be quite a while before anyone finds
out about reliability.

Carl Fogel

Thanks for the info. We had a smaller internal gear hub thread a couple of months back at ARBR in which this hub was briefly discussed in less detail than the thread you cited.
The higher step up ratio of the Nupace might have more use on a recumbent than other bikes, but that is a non-trivial efficiency penalty even relative a mid-drive particularly with that price tag.

It's a ridiculous, patentable development some people will buy.

Later the price will go down. The quality may go up or down.

Yours,
Doug Goncz ( ftp://users.aol.com/DGoncz/incoming )
Student member SAE for one year.
I love: Dona, Jeff, Kim, Mom, Neelix, Tasha, and Teri, alphabetically.
I drive: A double-step Thunderbolt with 657% range.

Carl Fogel said:

Quoted message said:

Anyone had any experience with these yet?

www.nupace.com

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Anyone had a chance to see the innards?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Any opinions on reliability or efficiency?

Quoted message said:

There was some speculation and (I think) some links to patents in
this thread a few months ago:

Quoted message said:

http://tinyurl.com/4pzo5

Quoted message said:

At those prices, it may be quite a while before anyone finds
out about reliability.

Thanks for looking it up.

This subject comes you at intervals and this design has been done in
large scale, externally, on single chainwheels. It is not continuous
as you can see in the drawings that show fine stepped ratchets with
many pawls that trade off the load. These many ratchets articulate
under load by an amount proportional to their extended engagement
angle and the lowest angle. Only one pawl bears the load at any
moment and it speeds up the relative rotation of the ratchet ring with
respect to the core by the angle through which it changes due to the
eccentricity of the core.

The drawings are so crude that details are not visible other than the
concept. These seem to be manual sketches rather than CAD images. I
suspect that the hub would fail if a strong rider were sprint on it or
climb a grade.

The method has been offered a few times in response to the FAQ:

http://draco.acs.uci.edu/rbfaq/FAQ/8i.3.html

Jobst Brandt
[email hidden]

( Doug Goncz ) said:

It's a ridiculous, patentable development some people will buy.

Later the price will go down. The quality may go up or down.

From where I sit, it looks like the price will fall only if one of two
things happen; the hub actually sells well enough to get mass-produced
by a more economical method than prototyping construction, or a
speculative investor has a mass-production run made either for
inclusion on a bike that will be marketed heavily, or for sale as a
separate unit. I doubt that the latter scenario will come to pass for
a variety of reasons[1], and at the current price, there's no danger
that the former will have any chance of obtaining.

[1] Pick one or more: Bike sales are not particularly brisk anyway,
and this thing's not sexy enough to change that; even mass-produced,
it wouldn't get into Wal-mart high-end territory, so it would still be
too boutiquey to attract the mass-market mentality; investors with the
funds are likely to be looking for a much less risky thing to back;
the patent may not be viewed as being defensible enough to keep the
investment from being endangered by copycats if the concept actually
sells; the product isn't viewed as being sufficiently proven to
attract an investor; it isn't available in blue; it wasn't invented by
a name-brand entity associated with somebody that has the clout to get
the backing.
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
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Werehatrack said:

too boutiquey

Let me guess: you're either a salesman or a public-relations flack.

--
"Bicycling is a healthy and manly pursuit with much
to recommend it, and, unlike other foolish crazes,
it has not died out." -- The Daily Telegraph (1877)

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 20:23:41 -0700, LioNiNoiL_a t_Y a h 0 0_d 0 t_c 0

m said:

Werehatrack said:

too boutiquey

Let me guess: you're either a salesman or a public-relations flack.

To some extent, I've been both, but these days I'm a screen printer,
among other things.
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
Some gardening required to reply via email.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.