Originally Posted by
chroot
BTW, I've never even heard of Sturmey Archer, and that makes me a little leery. At least the Breezers come with Shimano stuff, which I consider a generally pretty reliable name. Hrm. Decisions, decisions.
- Warren
You've never heard of Sturmey-Archer?
They're probably
one of the best-known and oldest bike parts makers in history (though now bought-up and moved to Taiwan as of 2000
). The Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hubs powered basically every 3-speed English bike made from the early twentieth century on. Many of which were very much designed for practical commuting use for many years and thousands of miles with low maintenance. Sheldon Brown is a fan, too:
http://sheldonbrown.com/english-3.html#sturmey
The old Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs are somewhat large and heavy, but verrrrry reliable and can shift when standing still, which is great in traffic.
I don't know of any significant differences in reliability between internal-geared hubs from Sturmey-Archer, Shimano, SRAM, or Rohloff (which I believe are the four manufacturers today). I bet Sheldon Brown, or someone else who has built a lot of internally-geared bikes, could provide more information there.