Enviolo is well known for its continuously variable hub gears for bicycles, which can be used with the AUTOMATiQ interface even as an fully automatic transmission. An innovative and unique shifting system, which we have already tried here in our test of the Canyon Precede:ON. The existing line-up of hubs for city, trekking and cargo, however, is usually reserved for rather high-priced bikes — which should now change with the latest model!
Enviolo URBAN is the name of the new hub, which will also offer a stepless adjustment of the transmission — but at a lower price. This is achieved, among other things, by a technical change inside the hub: so here for the first time at Enviolo only four instead of six planets are installed, which leads to a slightly smaller range of gear ratio. While this in the already available Enviolo gear hubs reach between 310 and 380 percent, the new Enviolo Urban offers a spectrum of 256 percent. For classification: this corresponds approximately to a Shimano Nexus hub gear with 7 gears and should certainly be sufficient in the primarily flat urban jungle — in line with the URBAN name.
![Enviolo URBAN: continuously variable shifting for urban and affordable bikes 1 Enviolo Urban Stepless Shiftig E Bikes](http://urbanbike.news/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Enviolo-Urban-Stepless-Shiftig-E-Bikes.jpg)
However, the advantage of this reduction is also a drop in weight: as a result, the new Enviolo URBAN weighs 270 grams less than the larger Enviolo gearboxes, bringing its total weight to 2,180 grams.
Relevant for use in e-bikes is the maximum torque, which is a moderate 50 Nm. Thus, the new hub is likely to be installed mainly in lower-priced bikes with mid-drive motors in the medium power segment, but a combination with the new compact drives Fazua Ride 60 or TQ HPR-50 would be equally conceivable.
By the way, you don’t have to go without the convenience of an automatic transmission: the new URBAN hub is also compatible with the AUTOMATiQ interface and thus enables fully automated shifting operations and particularly clean system integration, since a shift lever on the handlebars can be dispensed with.
Production of the URBAN hub has begun and delivery will take place in the first quarter of 2023. Therefore, it should not be long before the first bikes with this gear will also be available!
P.S.: so we will have to continue to wait patiently for the continuously variable bottom bracket gear Enviolo BB for use with hub motors 😉