I like that a lot. Only downside I can think of is that you lose the possibility of a backpedal brake which are not the best but seem to go on forever. Brake adjustment, cables and ripping tyres always seemed the biggest problem on do everything bikes
Proprietary parts and expensive are 2 major problems with it.
It's very cheap for what it is - those bikes are sold for about $100 and SRAM are making the freewheel almost as a charity side business. The WBR programme means that every village has the same bikes, every village has people trained to fix them and it's one set of parts. Plus there'a not a lot to go wrong with them in the first place.
The bike (and/or the freewheel mechanism) won awards at Eurobike last year and has been successfully distributed ever since, there are hundreds of thousands of them out there now.
There's been various other articles on the bikes on STW and various other media channels.
I am not sure i follow the gearing.
Does the back ledal effectively change gear. Or does the pedaling act like a retrodirect system?
We did this a while back (the thread includes a good video on the S2).
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/bike-forum/a-life-changing-bike-now-with-2-speed-buffalo-bike/
Even further back, it was in my 'Best things from Eurobike 2024' too 🙂
https://singletrackmag.com/2024/07/eurobike-2024-chipps-went-so-you-didnt-have-to/
SRAM are making the freewheel almost as a charity side business.
Is anyone else allowed to make them other than sram, will other parts fit? Or would it have to go to a WBR shop to get it fitted? Are the parts still made in India and China with just the "assembly" in the local regions.
Yeah it's cheap for a western market bike...
Interesting that they are not using V brakes. I would have thought they were simpler and much more powerful
