Originally Posted by edtguy

Hi Experts,

I'm considering replacing my external freewheel gear cluster and derailleur with an internally-geared hub, but first I want to be sure that when the chain pulls forward, the gear engages immediately, as it does on the external freewheel. In other words. if I were to remove the rear wheel from the bike and the chain, grab the freewheel and turn counter-clockwise, it will turn freely, and when I turn clockwise, it will immediately lock, with no travel before it locks. I want to be sure that the internally geared hub performs the same way.

The reason this is important to me, is because this wheel is on my Rowbike 720 sport, not a conventional bicycle. Drive for the gear is from each rowing stroke, not from continuous pedaling (for a visual, see the video on www.rowbike.com), so there are alternating pull and release cycles. I don't want to lose any performance in the stroke due to latency of the gear engaging at the start of the stroke.

Do internally geared hubs hubs perform differently than external gear clusters with respect to this concern, or is this not an issue?

TIA,
Ed