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How their site looked the last 2 years:
I first contacted Kindernay 2019-5-2 with a few questions :
I just saw a reference to your hub and it looks interesting. I tried all sorts of hubs, but for my own purpose I'm still looking so I am interested in trying such a hub out to replace a derailleur system, esp. as you're not using a rotary shifter which I hate and which suck in the rain (I tried Rohloff, Nuvinci, Nexus/Alfine). I am curious about the shell, will the wheel stay ok during long periods if you remove the inner hub? And what about a 36 spoke version for loaded touring? Have you done efficiency measurements and comparisons with Rohloff? (it's not that important as the hub's efficiency doesn't impact the speed much, but it would be interesting)
The reply was:
- they felt 28h was good enough as e-mtbs were going in that direction (I disagree, MTBs usually have dual suspension which removes a lot of the harshness from bumps in the road which spokes then need to absorb),
- They were working on a device to test efficiency and couldn't say anything about it yet.
- The wheel with swap shell will stay fine without being bolted to the hub for long periods.
As I didn't like the fact that the shell was only available in 28h, I didn't really think more about it also because I was busy with other matters. I only thought back to this hub again and at that point was ready to buy one, after selling my house in 2022. No more renovations so I now had all the time to pursue this :) I sent an email as their contact form didn't work, on 2022-7-1. In their reply they stated that they didn't have any 14 seed hubs for sale due to component shortage. Hmmm. They recommended the 7 speed hub which I considered and which led to the section in which I analysed how many gears you need and what step sizes can be, should be. This resulted in deducing that the optimal step size has to be based on what cadence region you like to pedal in and I found that the 1.27x step size of the 7 speed hub was just too big. The 14 speed hub has, just as the Rohloff hub, a pretty good step size, only the Pinion 18 speed gear box has a better step size that is very close to optimal.
I wrote them again, for example about the fact that the 7 speed hub was not right for me, and I asked them to email me when they had the 14 speed hub again for sale.
This is part of what I wrote, 2023-2-16:
Thank you for the reply. I got it when I was travelling in Poland. I was on a 3 month trip in total (after Poland I went to Ukraine) so I was thinking about your comments while cycling in Poland. There I made several longish trips, of 50-100 km per day, and thought about the Kindernay 7. I measured my cadence, the low and high end that I find comfortable, and gathered thoughts about the gear step size which eventually resulted in my analysis of the 'comfortable cadence range' and what the gear step size should be.
Getting back to the Netherlands, I thought more about it, refined it and recently finally put it on my website:
https://swhs.home.xs4all.nl/fiets/tests_2/versnellingen/kadans_en_versnellings_stappen/index_en.html
The result of the gear step size being about 1.27x in the Kindernay 7, which is the same range as my 'comfortable cadence region', means that there are speeds at which you need to cycle where any small change in wind or inclination of the road means you need to switch gears. I think an overlap of 2 gears is optimal (see my page), which means about sqrt(1.27)=1.127 is very good, this is just under the gear step size of the Rohloff and Kindernay 14, so I decided that for my purposes of all year long cycling, slow riding for heavy touring, fast riding on short trips, the 7 speed hub would not be the right hub.
Their reply also from 2023-2-16 was that "As part of Kindernay’s OEM strategy, we are now scaling up our production for delivery of current orders to our OEM customers. As a consequence, we are not taking new B2C / retail orders until further notice."
And so I wrote on this page which was just a stub page at that time:
2023-2-16: I tried to buy a Kindernay 14 since mid 2022 but they were not available and still aren't and I have no idea when they might be as they say they will focus on bike manufacturers, so I'm going to try something else. Perhaps a Alfine 11 after all.
To come when they are available again in 2023.
And now to the end:
2024-1-31: Kindernay bankrupt, report from 2023-11-24 (in Norwegian). This is a pity...
I hope a company buys the assets and continues with this hub, I want push shifters and less noise than the Rohloff hub!
Searching on the net I found some issues with leaking oil, well, some Rohloff hubs have that as well. There is a sort of clicking sound (there is a video on youtube about it) when riding similar to some old 3 speed hubs, which seems to me no problem and far more palatable than the grinding noise of the Rohloff hub in gears 1-7.
Otherwise experiences seem to be positive.
Perhaps the company will get a restart, but in any case, if anyone has this hub and wants to sell it, send me an email...
| To email me go to the email page |
Last modified: 2024-2-2