[jmercouris]

This design is unstable and expensive to produce with a complicated in wheel transmission. It is novel, but almost certainly more expensive and less reliable than existing designs.

[ninalanyon]

In wheel gears have been in use for over a century very successfully. I had a Raleigh bicycle with Sturmey Archer gears as a child. It never gave me any trouble, unlike the derailleur gears I had on later bicycles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hub_gear

[lmm]

> In wheel gears have been in use for over a century very successfully.

They've been barely viable the whole time. Sturmey Archer are the last maker in business; they went bankrupt a couple of decades back and for some years there was serious concern that manufacturing would never resume.

[jerlam]

But modern hub gears are no longer standard, and relegated to specific use cases.

There's a lot of friction in hub gears (at least the one I rode a decade ago), and fixing them is generally impractical.

[camtarn]

You've not come across hub gears on bikes before, have you? They were pretty much the standard before derailleur gears became popular, and modern ones can have up to 7 speeds.

[mrob]

Modern ones can have more than 7 speeds. The Rohloff Speedhub has 14 speeds, and the Shimano Alfine is available with either 8 or 11 speeds.

[jmercouris]

I meant the whole design. The hub gear is no different than on any other bicycle and can be reliable.