I'm flirting with the idea of a travel bike. For that, a bike without a derailleur or routed cables will be a heck of a lot easier to deal with. I'm wondering if anyone has had experience with internal geared hubs. My knowledge with them is minimal. What's the maintenance like for something like that? and what's the expected lifespan of one of these things? there's a lot of moving parts. even if it's sealed, what are the periodic maintenance work that would be needed?

It would be nice to be able to fit that wheel on a fixie bike with bullhorns. problem with that is that s s couplers and ritchey breakaway are unreasonably expensive. I was thinking maybe I can just put everything in a large duffle bag or something so that the package doesn't have any concrete dimensions. will they let me through the airport with something like that?