Utility Cycling - Internal hub vs. external drive train

Is it possible to scrounge a 3 speed hub off ebay and have it hooked up to a 700c rim?

Absolutely...as long as you can get a rim with the same number of holes and have/can get the odds and ends required to make the hub shift. Stuff like a shifter, cable, fulcrum, pulley wheel, etc. Parts for the Sturmey Archer hubs are still pretty much available from places like Harris Cyclery (http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/sturmey-archer-parts.html), or parts bikes or Fleabay. FWIW there are several people here on the forums that have done it. Dirtdrop is one that comes to mind. Check in the C&V forum. I am building up a SA 4 speed hub into a 700c rim for my club racer build.

Aaron:)

I know the idea came from the racerboys and for that reason it's considered suspect by many utility cyclists, but for me--and especially with a full load of groceries in the panniers--maintaining high, steady cadence works best. The only way to do that over varying terrain, shifting winds and changing traffic conditions is with close ratios--and by close I mean 5%-7%.

Even the Rolhoff is 13.6% between gears, or double what works for me. Until that changes, I ride externals.

Check out the NuVinci. It has "steps" of 0.00000001% :D Actually it doesn't have steps as such, it shifts like a volume control.

Is it possible to scrounge a 3 speed hub off ebay and have it hooked up to a 700c rim?

I pretty much just did that, with help from people on this forum. (I used a 27" rim, but same diff.)
I got the hub off ebay, the extra bits I needed from Harris, and built the wheel. By the way, the Sturmey archer is great. The gear range is covers most of the useful range of a bike for me. A lower gear than I have wouldn't be any faster than just walking the bike up the hill, and at the point where I couldn't spin fast enough in the high gear I would be going to fast for comfort anyway.

Thanks, sounds great.

Since I have an $80 bike from the co-op (pretty nice, actually and a good deal for the money), I love the idea of a 3-4 speed IGH city bike. Just not the idea of putting a brand new $150-250 modern IGH on that frame.

Thanks, sounds great.

Since I have an $80 bike from the co-op (pretty nice, actually and a good deal for the money), I love the idea of a 3-4 speed IGH city bike. Just not the idea of putting a brand new $150-250 modern IGH on that frame.

I would shoot for an AW Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub without the coaster brake. Sheldon "Epicyclic" Brown (who else) has an excellent reference chart (http://www.sheldonbrown.com/sturmey-archer.html#at3).

Aaron:)

Anybody tried fitting up a pair of cogs to an internal hub and arranging a derailleur to give the hub a Hi-Lo range? When I was using one of my SA 3 speed wheels for some experimental trials with a bike I kept two different sizes of cog on the hub just so I wouldn't lose the one that I wasn't using. It wasn't until later when I was putting the wheel away that I looked at the two cogs and had one of those 'Hey, what the......' moments.

Cyclo used to market just the thing from the late fifties until the late eighties. You'd buy a two, or three speed set of cogs that just replaced standard SA cog, added a rear derailleur and hey presto, instant six or nine speed. The conversion cogs come up now and then on ebay, but are pricey.

I'm also sure that the late Sheldon Brown did something like this. Forum member Sixty Fiver has recently made up a Hi-Lo conversion on an AW for a Phillips Twenty he has set up as a grocery bike.

BTW Sram, formerly Sachs, do a similar hub called the dual drive (or 3x7). It is a wide ratio three speed internally geared hub that instead of a single cog, has a 7, 8 or 9 speed cassette on it. It is usefull on small wheeled bikes such as folders, and on recumbents where putting a front derailleur can be problematic but you still want a wide range of gears.