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I've just acquired a Nuvinci N360 hub and shifter for free 🙂 and am wondering what it would be like on an MTB.
Has anyone here run a Nuvinci hub offroad, and if so what was it like?
Bear in mind I run an 8 speed Alfine on my main bike, so I'm a lover of hub gears.
Obviously the Nuvinci is a different beast to the Alfine, but the idea of 'infinitely variable' gears has me interested, as my only bugbear with the Alfine is that I find the gear spacing a bit big sometimes.
I've got a rim and spokes that'll work, so I'll probably give it a go over the summer anyway 😉
Isn't it massively heavy? Cant imagine those steel balls are light. What's the efficiency like?
I also run an alfine on my winter mtb. Awsome things
2.45kg according to various sites, so about 1kg more than the Alfine.
Hmmmm, it's a biffer!
Mind you I'm thinking about putting it on my Krampus, which is no svelte racing bike as it is. So I'd probably not even notice the extra weight!
It's not the weight you'd notice but the loss of power due to efficiency. I'll say now that I've never ridden one but I was in the market a while back and did plenty of research, ending up with a rohloff hub over a nuvinci.
The main problems that'll affect MTB usage are weight, resistance due to efficiency loss and that the grip shifter could be better. Shifting is fairly stiff especially when shifting under load so some people break the plastic body of the shifter. Sometimes it slips under high load and needs holding in place. Even when it's working it's hard to get the precision to have an infinite range, you end up with a few go-to positions on the shifter.
Give it a go by all means since you have one already but there's a reason these hubs are commonly paired with a mid-drive motor, it makes the efficiency not matter so much.
I had a NuVinci hub on a commuter.
Wouldn’t consider it again despite it working fine, no issues at all.
As campgareth said, drag and very low efficiency coupled with the extra weight.
Alfine or Rohloff are the better options here.
Ok as a commuter,
The only warning I'd give about using it on an MTB is that the shifters can be a bit fragile. If you're someone who shifts rapidly and with lots of force, find somewhere that sells the shifters and stock up. They take two cables and the adjustment can be a bit fiddly, so either you're going to make friends with your LBS or you're going to spend a while fettling and replacing shifters.
But I'd be interested to know how you get on!
If anyone's interested (you never know!?) I've built up the hub into a wheel, and going to take it on a maiden test voyage this arvo. Will take some pics.
Rear wheel built up and with tyre + disc on is 5kg! So pretty hefty. It remains to be seen if it will be at all rideable off road, or just horrible.
At least the cost to me has only been time, as I had all the bits (spokes, cables, etc.) See if it's crap I'll just chalk it up to experience 😁
Well, that was interesting!
I was fully prepared for it be shite, but it was in equal measures weird, cool, and totally normal.
The weight was not an issue at all. I ride with an Alfine on one bike, so I'm used to a bit of extra rear weight bias. But I was able to hop logs and pop of a few lips, and it really didn't feel rear heavy at all.
I did a 17 mile loop with my mate Joe (he was on his Rohloff equipped bike for a bit of comparison) and we took in a bit of everything from some technical climbs, woody singletrack, and a couple of quite lumpy downhill trails.
In the lowest 'gear' it felt a bit draggy, but didn't seem to actually be slower, just felt different.
In a middling 'gear' it cruised along swoopy trails quite nicely. It was weird to be able to adjust the gearing so that I kept a pretty constant cadence without having to choose an actual gear. I did quite often twist the wrong way though. It's a bit counter-intuitive having lower gearing twisting away from you and higher towards you.
I never really used to highest 'gear' on the ride, but we didn't have any long downhill road sections. I might try lowering the gearing a bit with a 20t instead of an 18t on the back. Would give a proper crawler gear that!
All in all a pretty good experiment, and I can really see me putting some miles on this hub over the winter.
Screw all you guys moving up to 13 gears next season. I've got ∞ gears 😉
Never heard of these hubs before, interesting concept with the gearing.👍
Nice. I've got an N-330 on my commuter at the moment. My plan is to fit a servo on the seatstay and use a speed sensor to do the gear changes automatically. Something like this:
It's on my list of projects 🙂