Former pro downhill mountain biker Gregory Zielinski has been quietly developing a new mountain bike over the past five years and now, finally, it’s ready for primetime.
The Nuseti IDS (Inner Drive System) hardtail uses a completely enclosed drivetrain with a 16-speed planetary gearbox to deliver a virtually maintenance free ride with a full range of gearing. Starting life as various alloy prototypes, Zielinski’s been riding test mules for a couple years to prove the design’s durability and usability. For production, he’s looking to raise (a considerable amount of) money on Kickstarter to put it all on board a lightweight carbon fiber frame.
Slip inside for all the details…
The bike’s propelled forward through a sealed gearbox using 16 distinct speeds. Like other internally geared setups, shifting can be done standing still or under full pedal load, and it can handle quite a load – up to 326 pounds of force on the pedals. It provides a 570% range, which is the equivalent of a standard MTB triple, just with fewer steps between:
Frames will weigh an estimated 4.3kg (9.48lbs) and complete bikes are targeted around 10.7kg (23.58lbs) with the build shown below. Perhaps part of the reason for the rather large ask of £500,000 is the breadth of frame sizes and wheel options planned…something that might be better off trimmed down to lessen tooling costs and complexity in our opinion, but kudos for thinking of everyone. The plan is to offer:
- 26″ in S/M/L
- 27.5″ in S/M/L/XL
- 29er in M/L/XL
You can nab a frameset for a pledge starting at $3,415 USD (£2,045). Complete bikes start with pledges at $6,292 (£3,750).
Interested? Check out the Kickstarter campaign here for more info or to get on board.
