Originally Posted by
Winfried
Do they provide more range than a single chainring + 8-10 speeds and would be recommended for touring?
Plug in the numbers and see for yourself:
Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Gear Calculator
On my old commute,I tried several IGH bikes,including a Novara FlyBy with Nexus 8. None worked as well as my 3x9 and 2x10 bikes. Gearing was either too low and I spun down the big hills,or not low enough and I had to mash up. Biggest hub I used was a SRAM i-9;it almost made it,the Alfine 11 would prolly have been do-able.