Originally Posted by
Jaywalk3r
Once a year is too often for my tastes. And I seriously doubt it would hold up unscathed to a year of spending 40-60 hours each week in overcrowded bike racks. That's a pretty abusive environment.
If you say so... I am in the same environment and have had no damage. I think you're the minority if people keep kicking in your derailleurs.
Yep. They've been around almost as long as internal-geared hubs. But more popular in the US (where any bike rider is an outlier of the general population) doesn't imply more reliable. There are some old IGHs that are still in use. And finicky is a perfect descriptor for derailers.
There's a big difference between a 3-speed cruiser IGH and a Rolhoff touring IGH. namely, the latter is extremely complex, and much more difficult to repair. In fact, I'd put your chances of a field IGH repair at near-zero unless you work for Rolhoff (or NuVinci, etc.) Someone with a dissenting story can chime in, but I've never heard it in my time. Ask yourself; can you field repair your IGH right now?
Yep. In the very unlikely scenario it fails, you'll have to wait a couple days for the Fed-Ex delivery to arrive. That's a very low probability event and a pretty small cost when it happens. I'll take that risk over suffering through derailer issues.
This is what it boils down to, which is good, because it likely means the argument is over. Derailleur "issues," which for me adds up to about an hour a year, if that, is the trade-off for something that is field-repairable and easily replaceable. Your IGH, despite working beautifully the majority of the time, despite having a low probability of failing, has an inherent flaw; in the event of that 1-in-a-million break, you're utterly shipwrecked.
In the UK or USA, maybe that's just an expensive fix and a 2-day wait for fed-ex. In a foreign country, that could mean hitch-hiking a week back to civilization and buying a plane ticket home.
That's why, for me, the ultimate touring gruppo isn't the cream of the crop of IGH super-drivetrains. It's something quickly fixed or replaced. My tour experience has shown me time and time again that NOTHING works exactly as planned. There are no guarantees.