Originally Posted by
mtalinm
I have a love-hate relationship with my IGH. My commute is 15 miles each way, a mix of downtown city (stops & starts) and rolling suburban hills.
loves:
+ in the city, the IGH is invaluable for the frequent and often unexpected stops. being able to shift while sitting at a stoplight and thus not having to brake while shifting while pedaling is huge fo rme
+ shifting seems smoother than my derailleur was, though it was low-end so maybe that's not a big difference
+ I used to always be tweaking my derailleur setup, but I haven't touched my IGH in the months that I've had it
+ once I fell over on my old bike, which pushed the derailleur into the spokes
hates:
- the 8 gears on the Nexus don't give enough range. heading down hills, I could use another gear or two on the top end. going up the hills, which is a more frequent problem. there just isn't a true "granny" gear, so I stand up on the really steep hills. the Alfine setup may have more range, and I'm told the Sturmey-Archer IGH has a much-lower low gear and much-higher high gear
- not sure that I have an opinion on the whole "efficiency" debate, but the direct-drive 5th gear does seem more responsive than all the others.
The Nexus 8 speed and Alfine have exactly the same internal ratios. The new 11 speed reportedly has wider overall gearing and more even steps between gears in addition to oil bath lubrication. It will be interesting to see if the wheel bearings area of the 11 speed hub is also oil lubricated as the Rohloff and NuVinci are.
The new version Sturmey Archer 8 speed has a slightly wider overall range than the Shimano 8 speed hubs but the direct drive gear is the lowest gear. I feel that it is designed more for small wheel folding bikes than standard wheel size ones. Difficult to get a really low gear ratio when fitted to a standard wheel size bike unless you fit a very small front chainring. This would also raise the input torque to the hub, potentially shortening the life.
IMO most IGH makers went to grease lubrication for low mileage and ignore maintenance type of users who did not oil their oil lubricated hubs. Grease is not a permanent lube. As others have pointed out high mileage IGH users do need to perform maintenance if they want the hub to survive. The old oiled SA hubs could do 40,000+ miles reportedly if treated right.
For high mileage IGH use I would recommend the Rohloff or possibly either the new Nexus 11 speed or recently announced NuVinci N360. All of them use oil bath lubrication and the NuVinci claims theirs is good for the life of the hub. The new NuVinci claims to be 33% lighter than the current one and has a slightly wider range.
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Gear Hubs Owned: Rohloff disc brake, SRAM iM9 disc brake, SRAM P5 freewheel, Sachs Torpedo 3 speed freewheel, NuVinci CVT, Shimano Alfine SG S-501, Sturmey Archer S5-2 Alloy. Other: 83 Colnago Super Record, Univega Via De Oro
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