Have You Ever Seen an Automatic Bicycle?

Question

I just got an automatic bicycle today from a pile of bikes(25-40 bikes) that were just sitting there rusting over at my grandma's house. You pedal along and when you hit a certain speed, it shifts gears. I had never seen one before.

Answer 1

Yeah. There is a reason it was in a pile of junk bikes. Although the concept might be interesting to some people the execution of it on a cheap bike doesn't do it any favors.

You'll never see it on a good bike because the riders prefer to control their own gears... besides, shifting gears is easy as pie nowadays.

Answer 2

There's more than one type.  Yours probably uses weights around the rear wheel to move the rear derailleur.  There's a constantly variable transmission used by the more recent, extremely fancy bikes which fits inside the rear hub.