Nuvinci Developers Kit worth building around?

[addicted2climbing]

Hello All,

I bought a Nuvinci Dev kit for electric bikes in 2103 and never did anything with it. I am considering building up an Ebike with a BBS02 or BBSHD and may try and use the Nuvinci Hub if it can take the torque of these mid drive motors. The Dev Kit has a crude setup for shifting and curios also if the newer Harmony or manual shifter works with the older Dev Kit Hub? Anyone build anything with the Dev kit hub and were there any issues mechanically on these? Can I run a Gates setup?

Or my other option is convert a bike with standard derailer and forget the hub... Im considering a Cannondale Contro 3.

I am open to any advice and or suggestions.

Marc

 

[Rassy]

I'll start by saying I love my NuVinci Developer Kits. They are great on my "loaner" trike since a rider can just get on and hit the throttle with no worry about stressing the motor, even on steep hills.

But, I have two of them mounted on tadpole trikes with a hub motor as a mid drive. On a trike there are more options for carrying extra stuff, and these kits require a lot more than I would want to attach to a bicycle. Plus they are quite heavy and relatively inefficient when compared to a derailleur system.

As far as other shifting options are concerned, the developer kits require four full turns of the shifting rod from the lowest gear ratio to the highest gear ratio. None of the other NuVinci shifters are compatible with it either mechanically or logically.