Originally Posted by PaulH
Interested provided a very detailed review, I agree. However my experiences, based on riding every workday for nearly five years and over 12,000 miles (20,000 km) could not be more different. This involves a heavy salt/sand environment in the winter. In the summer, I tow my child to day camp with it. I have a Nexus-7 with roillerbrake.
Hi
Well, my discussion regarded another version hub than yours (Nexus 8). But when reading your post, your experience probably match what I said. Let me explain; it looks like (from what you write below) your LBS service your hub every year (2.400 miles), this is somewhat over what my colleague's LBS recommended, but they are probably on the safe side. But since my colleague reached your yearly milage in perhaps 4 months, he should have serviced his hub at least 3 times a year. He didn't and his hub was destroyed. If your average service period was 3 years, meaning that your hub would only have been serviced once in 5 years, it too would probably be in a worse shape than it is.
Internal gear hubs aren't magical devices that never needs maintenance; in fact I suspect Shimano Nexus hubs to need much more frequent maintenance, and are more susceptible to water penetration than a Shimano 105 or Ultegra hub.
So I honestly don't think that a Shimano Nexus 8 (or 7) hub is a good choice for long distance commuting.
Originally Posted by PaulH
Before getting my bike, I commuted for three years on the same route, under the same conditions, with a derailleur bike. I did not find the derailleur the least bit convenient or reliable. In fact, it made me think of driving a 1910 car with manual spark advance and an exposed chain drive. I'd routinely have just half of my gears available. One time, the whole rear derailleur came apart, scattering small pieces in all directions. Meanwhile, the rim brakes would reliably destroy the time, requireing a new wheel at the end of each winter. It was like using a violin to drive nails.
I have no problem understanding that you had problems with external gears. With all due respect however, I suggest that the problems you mention, mainly where caused by cheap shifters, derailleurs, and cables, and likely lack of knowledge on how to adjust the indexing (something one needs to learn, nobody is born with that ability). A lot of internal gear riders are refugees from derailleur experiences like those you describe. OTHO, the derailleur-camp where I live, is full of refugees cursing their internal gear hub experience.
My guess is, that if you got a bike with modern quality shifters and derailleur you wouldn't have the problems described above, eg. having just "half" of the gears available looks like a cable/indexing problem, and is therefore unrelated to whether one uses internal or external gears, since they both depends on cables. Regarding rim wear, then that is independent of gear-system choice too.
Originally Posted by PaulH
[some snipping done]
Flat tire? Call a cab, take it to the shop. I'm not going to get my hands dirty on the way to work.
Preventative maintenance? change the grease and replace the shifter cable once a year. Costs about $30 at my LBS.
Weight? Who cares? Most bikes these days are too light and fragile for routine use.
Expense? Who cares? If I drove to work every day, it would cost me about $2,000 in parking.
I am not questioning your logic here, in fact I think it looks sensible much of what you say. However extra weight, drag, cost, and difficulty of wheelservice, etc, may not be showstoppers in them self, but they are hardly selling points either. Besides, what is no problem for you, like getting a cab when needed, may be a serious problem for others, so one cannot disregard the fact that the rollerbrake version of the Nexus makes the wheel much harder to service than a normal hub+derailleur would do.
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Regards