[snogglethorpe]

My reading of the article suggests that it's targeting more casual riders that bop around town, but maybe live in a hilly place, haul kids, etc, and could use some extra gearing.

All your criticisms may be true, but seem to be more about the needs of "enthusiast" / "serious" riders (a category which includes many bike commuters in the U.S., but not so much in other countries).

So despite the issues you mention, there may very well be a place for this tech—and the "non-serious" market is much larger (especially outside the U.S.)...

[hkmurakami]

The cost of this system worries me. The "casual rider" around the world rides very inexpensive bikes. For instance, it's rare to see someone in Japan commute with a bike that's over $150. Low end Shimano components are pretty inexpensive due to their massive volumes. I'm concerned of the possibility that this product is being developed without having rigorously tested for product market fit.

[snogglethorpe]

> It's rare to see someone in Japan commute with a bike that's over $150.

Lots of people have cheap bikes, but there's also a big "mid-market" (~$500) for Japanese casual bikes.

I think a robust and trouble-free multi-gear front could be a great alternative for recently popular electric bikes (e.g. on those small-wheel bikes with kid seats)... even if it adds weight and cost, it's surely much less weight and cost (and hassle) than an electric motor and battery...

[chmike]

In france there are pools of bikes to rent in big cities. There are many pools in many places so that you cant pick a bike in one place and leave it at another. These bikes could benefit from such gear system. It has to be extreamly robust to common usage with user not carring about the bike or hardly now how to bike. The bikes are cheap and I think the first half hour is free. Howerver it is a profitable business. So there might be use cases where this product could be a good fit. Its weight seems however to be a bit excessive. Its called vélib.