Installing the NuVinci n360 Hub

After cold setting my Ross frame, it was time to install the ultra modern NuVinci hub on a 27 year old bike. Installation was actually very straightforward and fairly easy. After figuring out the alignment angle using the numbers on the shift assembly and lining up the axle flats to the angle, I slipped the shift assembly on, bolted in my wheel, and then built the rest of the bike. I would say that if you can change a wheel, you can install the NuVinci on your bike. Just be careful, and whatever you do, don't accidentally drop the wheel - I did and my shift assembly came apart - luckily, it's pretty simple to get back together. I wish I'd had the foresight to take pictures while it was open, but I was too worried about getting it back together to grab the camera.

I was going to take some photos of the install process, but I only have two hands - so I'm just going to post the video that Fallbrook has up instead. If you Googled this article looking for insights, I have none, except the "dont drop it" part. Watch the video, installation is easy.

NuVinci actually brought me a prebuilt wheel with the shift cables already installed so there isn't much to discuss there. I had planned to build the Ross up with red cabling, and will probably do so when I need to replace the cables in the NuVinci shift assembly - look for that article in a couple of years.

I will do an article on taking the wheel off soon, as I think that looks more confusing than it is - but I have to arrange a photographer.

The Bloggipede in the stand after completed install. 

As you can see, the setup looks very clean, with no cable and derailluer clutter at the rear wheel. The shift interface is actually behind the dropout when the NuVinci is installed, and as such it's a much more streamlined look than anything out there. Some other internally geared hubs have an outboard shift interface to clutter up the rear drop, and exposed cables as a result. This is almost fixie clean.

Oh so very clean. I still have to zip tie the cables down. 

I had planned for this installation article to be much longer with lots of techy photos, but the installation was a snap, literally. The hardest part was spreading the dropouts to 135 mm on my bike to make the hub fit; if you don't mess with old frames then installation on your modern bike should be a ten minute affair.

I have ridden the bike around a little bit, and the best way to explain my first impression of  the ride is "different". Adjusting the tension constantly is a big change in riding style. Instead of upshifting and downshifting,trying to find the right combo of gears, you just twist the shifter like you would a volume dial to find the sweet spot - and the sweet spot is always there. It's easy, but a little strange at first.

The little hill gets steeper as you lessen the tension. 

I let my neighbor (and sometime riding buddy) ride the bike and the only word he had was "slick" - both for the shifting and the setup. He was impressed, and threw around phrases like "ultimate commuter" a bunch. When he stopped talking about me, he mentioned that the hub was pretty sweet as well.

Tomorrow I will put up some "data" on the hub - I did a fairly unscientific spin test to compare friction between the NuVinci hub, a Shimano internally geared hub, a free hub with cassette, and a freewheel hub.

The NuVinci website is here, and a list of distributors is here.

The N360 Hub kit is $399.

As In the Tour De BBQ Days, I'm Doing a Quick Check in today.

I hope you have enjoyed the last two days of questionably good content in the blog, but I'm afraid that I have some bad news to report. I was injured in an epic bike battle over Thanksgiving weekend, and I hurt my wrist enough to prevent me from either riding or wrenching for a few more days. I had put some articles and reviews in the hopper, hoping to get ahead, but I ended up waiting for parts anyway, so I have come to a dead stop, bicycle wise.

Adios

I did sell my Suteki for my asking price (which was a bargain) to some happy cyclist that had just discovered "skinny tire vintage bikes", moved to Uptown, and decided that he needed one. He told me that no matter what he looked at, he kept coming back to this bike - even after going to a bicycle shop, it was mine that he wanted. He came over, raved, asked a ton of questions, goggled my collection, and drove away with his new bike folded into his Honda - a very happy Craigslist customer, ready to ride his bike.

I have received a bunch of stuff in the mail - the Monkeylectric light showed up, as did the BikeConsole and Bikecharge generator - and as soon as I am healed I will be installing everything on the Bloggipede.

The Bloggipede

This is just a sneak preview of the Bloggipede as it sits now - unfortunately the crankset that is on it has been ruined by pedal cross threading - once I removed the old crappy pedals that were on it, I could no longer thread a new set of pedals in. I did, however, fall in love with that style crankset and had a hell of a time finding one. I'm hoping to get it in the mail today and finish up the bike by Saturday- and then I'll have a ton of articles to put up.

I am also setting up some clothing reviews and should have a pretty good run of content before the year closes out. The rest of this week might be me phoning it in, but I will put up some good stuff (?) after that,  until Dec 15 - when all will go silent until after Christmas.

 FTW's fundraising auction that I wrote about here closed and raised $4200 for his friends, along with some other anonymous donations from non bidders - if that was you, that was mighty nice of you. If, by some chance, one of my readers won, then I'd love to check it out in person.

Finally, since I am getting a new bike mount for my iPhone, I thought I would ask you, gentle reader, to let me know if you have some program that you use on your cycle - I have used Runkeeper for a while, but I have also downloaded Bikebrain recently, and I will be doing some comparisons between apps as well - so if you have a different one that you use, please let me know and I'll add it to the list.