nauboone

I am thinking about building a travel bike with a Shimano Nexus 8-speed rear hub. And I want to use S&S couplers on the frame, so that I can put it in a suitcase. And travel to fantastic places far away, like, the Czech Republic... in September 2009!

I know that with S&S couplers I have to install a cable splitter on the cable connecting the shifter to the rear hub, in order to take the bike apart.

Is there any potential shifting problem with doing this? I am afraid that after connecting and dis-connecting the cable many times that maybe the shimano nexus will not shift correctly anymore.

Has anyone out there tried doing this? thanks.

Dan Burkhart 

Should not be a problem as long as you know the adjustment proceedure and verify adjustment after assembly. It's a simple proceedure, and something anyone riding a Nexus hub should have a handle on.
If it were mine though, I think I would forgo the cable splitter and just disconnect the cable at the cassette joint. That may entail carrying a few zip ties to re secure the cable housing after assembly, but I never travel without a supply of those anyway.

HillRider

Cable splitters can very accurately rejoin shift cables. I have Bruce Gordon's splitters on an S&S equipped Co-Motion with a 3x 9-speed drivetrain and both the front and rear shifting remain spot-on after the cables have been split and reconnected many times.

You will also want a splitter for the rear brake cable for convenience. Bruce Gordon doesn't make one but daVinci Designs does.

reverborama

For the Nexus, I think Dan B. has it right. You are going to need to take the shifter cable off the hub when you repair flats so adding a couple of zip ties to your bag will save you the cost and trouble of installing a cable splitter on that run of cable. You could also just disconnect the shifter from the bar end but since you will need to remove the rear wheel anyway, you might as well do that. If I were doing this with a rear derailleur, I'd go for a cable splitter.

tatfiend 

For convenience in removing the rear wheel Rohloff hubs with the internal shifter have splitters on both shift cables. Mine has the external shift box so I have not actually used the Rohloff shift cable splitters. Should be no worry there with shifting adjustment changing as the indexing is in the hub itself.

The Sram iM9 also has a quick disconnect splitter arrangement on the shift cable for convenient rear wheel removal which has not caused me any problems so far.

Both IMO are more convenient than the Shimano setup so I may add a splitter to the Shimano Alfine shift cable too just for the convenience. Thanks for the idea.