Saturday, August 13, 2016

Nihola updates

Change comes slowly in the Nihola world, and the mother company often says nothing about the changes it does make, so its my solemn duty to comment on it when I happen to notice from my remote perch.  When I spotted an unusual example while on a Nihola-spotting vacation on Ærø, I ran right over to take a picture.


So, this is by the look of things a pretty newly manufactured specimen and has some features I've never seen before:
  • Mechanism to prevent axle movement, which is often a problem in my experience
  • Huge massive roller brake, apparently from the factory but I can't really know that, possibly the optimal choice for rear brake in relatively flat areas
  • A different version of Nexus 8 (SG-C6000-8R), which might be a simple re-skin of the existing SG-8R31 but anyway is a hub I haven't seen standing around before
A few more things of note:
  • The new crank-mounted electric motor
  • The very-low stepthrough frame (difficult to see above)
  • Apparent contact between the shift cable and the chain... appears that they used 7L-7R gray-black anti-rotation washers while I used 5L-5R brown-yellow on mine, which I actually got from the Nihola store in Copenhagen... also looks they switched left for right in order to make it sort of work
They used a regular brake lever for the roller brake, which is a bit of a missed opportunity I think, because a roller brake should have the right cable pull for the locking brake lever.

Also I think that its not too much to ask that the versions of Nexus 8 that come with superior bearings be used, for example the SG-C6010-8R.  Its a lot of hardware being pushed around by a pretty modest hub as sold.