Da Vinci’s bike: No more derailleur needed+

Leonardo da Vinci maybe was a marvelous polymath. He created the basic system later reused by Fallbrook, an engineer company, to issue a new way of transmitting mechanical power based on spheres instead of gears. Up to now, the patented system was invisible to the public attention; it’s usually the kind of mechanics hidden into another engineering system. But now, some first models of bicycles start appearing on the market.

Bikes of the Ellsworth’s The Ride series are stylished design two-wheels, made in aluminum and come in red and in black colors. And because they rely on the Fallbrook’s NuVinci transmitting system, they don’t need any derailleur gears while keeping the pedaling easy.

According to FallBrook, the NuVinci transmission is “the only practical CVT to combine the smooth, continuous power transfer of a CVT with the utility of a conventional planetary gear drive.” It “reduces energy consumption, such as fuel, through its seamless speed changing characteristics, allowing the power input such as a gasoline engine to operate in its most efficient speed range.”

While The Ride are clearly expensive bicycles, they also clearly sound incredible. (via core77)