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Comment by CelestialMystic | Hacker News Reader

The issue with this design is the front 3 geared hub. It says it would reduce maintenance needs. The derailleur and chain are often cheaper and require very little maintenance other than oiling and maybe cleaning. They last literally last 1000s of miles. There isn't a maintenance concern typically. In fact I think it is harder to maintenance hubs from what I've read.

These sorts of issues plague a lot of bike designs where they try to do something radically different. The reason why the derailleur and chains are used so often is because they are relatively cheap, work well and require maybe a few cheap tools to remove/refit parts (I have done this myself many times).

Also as for the modular design. Why would I care about a modular design if I wanted something like this. You aren't going to be a courier one day and then suddenly running Gelato stand the next.

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> The issue with this design is the front 3 geared hub. It says it would reduce maintenance needs. The derailleur and chain are often cheaper and require very little maintenance other than oiling and maybe cleaning.

Internally geared hubs are a mature technology and really require even less maintenance than a chain/derailleur combo, being completely enclosed. Also, not every hub needs to be a fancy Rohloff, so even if it needs to be replaced in toto, it's not bank-breaking.

I've found the exact opposite when looking at this in the past. The last time I bothered looking there are sturmey archer designs which have an odd slop in the pedalling, shimano designs (which are ok) and Rohloff (super expensive).

Contrast that to chain, cassette and the entire wheel is probably cost less than a hub. A new chain and cassette can be found at any bike shop and they are inexpensive. The maintenance concerns regarding chains are derailleurs are vastly overstated by the proponents of such hubs.

I have built and repaired my own bicycles since I was a kid. I've found that anything remotely fancy becomes a PITA. There is a reason why most bicycles use Shimano or Shimano compatible kit, it is cheap, available anywhere and reliable.

>Why would I care about a modular design if I wanted something like this. You aren't going to be a courier one day and then suddenly running Gelato stand the next.

I have a thought like this regarding my compute needs in my house all the time, and then another need pops up, and I'm so glad I can wrangle an existing expensive piece of kit to also cover the new need. Just between the Gelato stand and personal item transport could be one such need

The need to switch between the examples given is niche (I deliberately chose something I thought was ridiculous to illustrate the point), in a niche market. This is probably why this design didn't last long.

Only because the need to haul anything heavy or large by muscle power is niche. That segment has just been taken by larger combustion or electric engine'd vehicles. Where large loads are commonly hauled with tractors, it's a very common theme to have detachable tools, not tractor per tool.

Farming isn't comparable and doesn't have the same needs. You already admitted that the use case presented have been largely taken up by other types of vehicles. There isn't really a market for this.

>The need to switch between the examples given is niche

This is what I argue against, that given it's purpose, a need to switch is important. The use case for hauling things has been taken up by other things, but the use case for detachable loads hasn't gone anywhere where loads need to be hauled.

>Farming isn't comparable and doesn't have the same needs

Farming needs wheeled vehicles to transport heavy materials, I think it's exactly comparable.

> Farming needs wheeled vehicles to transport heavy materials, I think it's exactly comparable.

No because the farmer has to do many different things with the same piece of equipment. The number of people doing a courier job on a bicycle and then running a Gelato stand are almost nobody.

If I wanted to tow something, I wouldn't use a bicycle anyway. I am not even that convinced by existing cargo bikes tbh and this is coming from someone that built their own bicycles for 20 years. I would use my land rover.

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