The complexity and difficulty of gear shifting. It has long plagued the cyclist and limited the growth of the bicycle industry for decades. It is also where the NuVinci technology story begins. In the late 1990s, an avid cyclist from Fallbrook, California and an eventual Company founder, set out to build the world’s fastest bike. He identified the derailleur system and its complex gearing as the biggest opportunity to improve and simplify shifting and pedaling. “If only the seamless-shifting of a continuously variable transmission (CVT) used in new, energy efficient cars could be made to work on a bicycle. If possible, it could make shifting as simple and smooth as adjusting the volume on a radio.” Fact is… it could!
And in 2007, the idea became a reality as the NuVinci N170. This ground-breaking technology would take the name NuVinci as a tip of the hat to Leonardo Da Vinci, who sketched in 1490 what many believe to be the first CVT transmission. The NuVinci N170 would become the first continuously variable drivetrain commercially available for bicycles and it would be heralded by industry experts the world over as the biggest advancement in bicycle drivetrain technology since the derailleur itself some fifty years earlier. Today Fallbrook continues to advance its award-winning bicycle drivetrain technology – further perfecting performance and enhancing the rider experience.
In 2010, it rewrote its own history with the introduction of the all-new NuVinci N360™ drivetrain, a drivetrain that is significantly lighter, smaller, smoother and easier to shift than its successful predecessors. Fallbrook would further redefine the rider experience with the introduction of the first intelligent bicycle drivetrain for e-Bikes in 2011 -- offering the cyclist for the first time a choice of seamless automatic or manual shifting. Never would shifting be easier or give the rider more control and comfort throughout the ride. This game-changing shifting system would soon become known to the biking world as NuVinci Harmony™ and it would mark the beginning of another new era in cycling.
An animation of how the NuVinci® continuously variable planetary (CVP) works including an explanation of the role of traction fluid in the transfer of power. Sept 2012