The springs in the XRF-8 hub push it into 8th gear; the shifter cable pulls it down to the gear you want. Since it's the hub spring that does the work in an upshift, upshifts under load can be unpredictable, especially in the lower part of the range (it may slip into 1st momentarily, or it may not shift at all until you relax a bit, or it may work fine). This tends not to be a problem for me because I only upshift when I need a higher gear, which happens when I'm spinning my pedals very fast and therefore can't put a whole lot of pressure on them. Downshifting under load, where the shift cable does the work, is much more predictable, though it will be harder to turn the shifter.

Remember, my point was that the XRF-8 hub is best suited to small wheels, i.e. 16" (and yes, you nailed it: I ride a Downtube Mini, among other things). Perhaps this harmonious match of hub to wheel size, promoting efficient high-cadence pedaling, is the very magic that makes mine shift better than yours.

True; and though I'm sure there is a reason for that, I should point out there are numerous errors in that manual, especially in the section about disassembling and reassembling the hub.

I agree that Nexus shifting is more comfortable in the hand; it takes less strength to move the shifter. But mine often slips when I'm downshifting, which is annoying because it can mean losing precious momentum at precisely the wrong moment.

In my experience, all IG hubs shift best under no load. Under hard pedalling, both Nexus Inter-4 and Nexus inter-88, as well as AW and XRF-8 can slip; Rohloff can jam momentarily; and the NuVinci shifter is hard to move. I can't say whether Nexus 8 or XRF-8 is better in this regard.

Yes, thanks, I think we've understood that.