I’m an internally-geared hub kind of guy because I hate doing maintenance and keeping shit clean. My most recent ride had a 5-speed Sturmey-Archer hub with a built-in drum brake, which was good. The drum brake was amazing, but the gears less so. They were always kinda finnicky, but they finally gave out a few months back and I lost everything but first. For a minute I was considering trying to rebuild the hub myself, but it seems like a lot of work, and I might not even be able to replace the parts anyway. Besides (I told myself) I bought this bike for $140 mostly as a “let’s see how often bikes get stolen here” test, to which the answer has been “basically never if they’re locked up”.

So I went and spent $600 on one of these used from a guy who seemed to be transitioning to all e-bikes, which made sense considering his house was on a massive hill. This bike has a NuVinci/Enviolo continuously-variable transmission which is absolutely wild. Essentially endless gear ratios, and that plus the belt drive mean it’s quiet as hell. The only issue is that it has kinda cheapo hydraulic disc brakes that don’t let you adjust the bite point, but custom fenders, built-in dynamo lights, it’s a pretty nice machine.

Also I had to get new tires for the e-bike I use when my wife and I are going places together (she rides on the back) and the tires I got are called “Carless Whisper” which I think is pretty funny.