BikeTales 

Has anyone ever used an internal gear hub with a derailer on the front? I thought I saw a thread about it somewhere but couldn't find it when searching. Would it be possible or even plausible?

madman451

Should be fine as long as you use something (like a singelator or rear derailleur) to keep tension on the chain.

antfrogboy

or you could just get an internal hub with a better range of gears... that's a pretty odd thing to do, the hassle of having the front deraileur surely makes the internal gearing pretty redundant, no?

BikeTales 

Yea I'm not going to do it or anything. I was just wondering if anyone had done it

pluc

Can be done, no problem.

Ex Pres 

This is Sheldon's 63 speed bike. (Click the bike pic for more details). Check out his others while you're there, too.

no_petrol_ed

Some of those internal hubs have very big jumps in gears. I was thinking of having a double change with bailout granny against an internal gear. The two maiin chaing rings would be sized to give half of the average jump.

K6-III

I run a Sram S7 with a triple in the front. Better range than rolhoff and better efficiency, at a lower cost, but weighs more.

n4zou

An old 3-speed hub and a triple crank will give you a very wide gearing range at a very low cost. A rear dérailleur locked down in front of the cog will keep the chain tight.

alecw35

I did it to my Lil Blue bike.
Its got 20" wheels with a SA hub.
Cranks from an old racer.
Its got a 18 tooth shimano cog on there as its thinner and can take a narrow chain.
Still low geared though

anielsen

I currently have this set up. It's a nexus 8 in the rear and a triple in the front. It started off as a converstion to an IGH, but I had just started towing a trailer and wasn't sure what front gearing I wanted. This gave me some room to play. I discovered that I never actually switched rings, so I'm going to get rid of the front der and simplify the arrangements.

reverborama

I have a Nexus-8 with a 48/19 and it is almost exactly the same range as a 50/34 compact crank with a 12-28 cassette. There's a woman in my area that runs around on recumbant that has either 63 or 81 speeds. She's using that SRAM internal gear (3) w/freehub on the rear (7 or 9 speeds, can't remember which) and a triple on the front. She admits to not shifting that FD very much!

KrisPistofferson

Isn't the small chainring on a triple put out a dangerous amount of torque for the hub or something? I thought it wasn't recommemnded to go below a certain amount of teeth. I've got a Sugino 48/38/28 I'v been wanting to try with either the Nexus 8 or SRAM 9, but I was under the impression the 28 was too small.

K6-III

Shimano recommends a minimum of 2:1 for the chaingring/sprocket ratio. So, with that 28t, you'd have to run a 14t sprocket.

SRAM S7 has a higher limit, particularly for the cargo i-Brake variant. On mine, I have a 26/36/46 going to an 18t sprocket and it works perfectly.

The Sram i-Motion 9 has a lower limit than the S7, so if you definitely want to run low gears, I'd suggest the S7 over the i-Motion. Now, the i-Motion does give you a wider gear range by itself, so what you get with the triple on the S7, you can get with a double on the i-Motion.

no_petrol_ed

I don't like how the click box sticks out on the SRAM S7. Has anyone experience frequent damage to it?

K6-III

The S7 clickbox comes with a protective bumper. You should have no concerns about damage with the bumper installed.

reverborama

I don't know if you understand how low that bike would be geared with a 28x19 or 28x23 combo.

In first gear, the 28x19 through a Nexus 8 would be the same as a 28 chainring and a 36 rear cog. With a 23 rear cog it would be the same as a 28x44. You should play around with Sheldon's gearing calculators. Enter some common mountain bike derailleur values and then come up with a chainring rear-cog combo that does pretty much what you want and if it's a usable gear range, you'll probably be fine.