Originally Posted by
CliffordK
Do you have the bike yet?
I'd take it out for a spin before planning hundreds of dollars worth of upgrades. You may find the small tires gives you a significant low gearing boost that you hadn't anticipated.
I have an Air Friday that came with the Sachs Dual Drive (which has a 7s freehub, but mine came with a 9s cassette cut down to 8s, and Ultegra 3x9 brifters).
However, I've only done about 20 miles. My brifter setup still seems a bit awkward.
According to the specs (p 18), the DD3 hub has gearing: 73%, 100% (direct drive), and 136%.
One of the advantages of it is the "Overdrive" which is a significant benefit for folding bikes that often suffer from too low of gearing.
If going with the IGH hub upgrade, I'd also consider maybe an 11s Alfine.
Thanks for your input, Clifford.
I did a test ride at the store in New York. At the store location there is a fairly sizable hill for New York City, and the stock low gear handled it fine, but where I live and work, hills are steeper. I am basing my target low gear-inch on my experience with my Brompton. It has a Schlumpf Mountain Drive installed, which gives the bike a range of 12 evenly spaced gears - 16.1-87.2 gear-inches. I can dispense with the two lowest gears, and am aiming for around 20 or low 20s. Now you just brought up something I hadn't though of. My Brompton has 16" wheels, while the S18 has 20" wheels. I didn't think that made any difference in comparing gear-inch range, though. Please correct me if I'm wrong. We're comparing distance travelled in one turn of the crank.