Touring - Touring on internal hub?

Hi there,

This is a question I have been meaning to ask for a while. I have experience touring on my mountain bike and an older 10 speed. However I recently built up a 3 speed bike which I am finding very comfortable to ride. I would like to take it touring but I don't know if it is a good idea.

I am running a Sturmey archer 3x fixed gear hub. Three speeds fixed hub, but I run it with a freewheel. Apparently these hubs are a little more robust than a non-fixed Sturmey. But I have also read that Sturmey Archer can be less than reliable in general.

My question then is, has anyone had experience touring on this type of hub? Can it handle the load? Will it work if I distribute the load to the front as well?

I am mostly worried that the axle would break during a tour.. I assume that it is more complicated to replace an internal gear axle than a regular one?

Any and all comments welcome!

I had a sad experience a few years back (well, a few decades) with a SA 3-speed. I basically wore the thing out climbing the hills around home. The dealer replaced the hub, but told me I needed a bike with a derailer to climb the hills (he lived near us), so I donated that bike to my little brother and took off for the steeper hills. and I was 100 pounds lighter back then!

All that said, it might suffice for some touring on the flats. I'd go with another one for touring in hills or mountains. You might be able to get it changed over, but I'd expect a purpose-built touring bike would be better for loaded touring, and possibly cheaper, particularly when you factor in the lack of fatigued components in the new bike.

You can tour on anything...

I do shorter light loaded tours on a 40 year old Raleigh 3 speed. I have a 41 year old Raleigh 3 speed that I have had for over 30 years that still hauls loads home from the grocery store, it was a daily rider for 7+ years. I also don't mind walking up steeper hills.

Depending on the terrain, your strength and the amount of weight you plan to haul you possibly can do it. Moving weight to the front on a tour bike is usually a good idea anyway to get some of the weight off the rear wheel, which is already taking the bulk of the load.

Aaron :)

has anyone had experience touring on this type of hub?
the S3x, Is it ? is fairly recent introduced in what, last 3 years?
range is a bit limited , when you have a load on , walking the hills will be probably in order..

The AW3 is well proven.. 1 planetary with 2 pawl rings to drive thru Reduction and overdrive gears..

changing the driving and driven relationships,, low 3/4, high 4/3..

they have a plain bearing, except on axle and the sprocket driver,
which makes keeping Lubricant in the hub pretty important.
my Brompton has an AW3 in it, and a Schlumpf Mountain drive, to tackle the hills ,
2 speed planetary crankset, low range uses the 3 speeds over again, 6 in a row.


Misters Sturmey and Archer started making their hubs 100 years ago.
every single part of an AW3 is available,
that is something that is a challenge for troubles with Shimano and SRAM hubs, in the US.

the world traveled German precision IG mountain bike hub from Rohloff
is excellent.
I got one built into a Bike Friday, with 406/20" wheels..

Thanks for all the tips and insight guys! I may try out some shorter tours first to see how things go before trying anything major, or component trading.

Cheers

world record breaking tourer hienz stucko

" Heinz Stücke is still travelling on the same 3-speed bike he started out with."
http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2010/02/lessons-from-heinz-stucke.html

600,000km

thats all the hype i need :)

^^That was a Sachs Torpedo 3-speed, and according to Stucke's web site (http://www.heinzstucke.com/index.php?mmod=staticContent&IDf=67), he nowadays mostly rides on either of his two folders (Bike Friday and Brompton).

Still, he proves loaded touring is more about getting out there and riding than it is about equipment details.

--J