multimodal commuter
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: NJ, NYC, LI
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Bikes: 1940s Fothergill, 1959 Allegro Special, 1963? Claud Butler Olympic Sprint, Lambert 'Clubman', 1974 Fuji "the Ace", 1976 Holdsworth 650b conversion rando bike, 1983 Trek 720 tourer, 1984 Counterpoint Opus II, 1993 Basso Gap, 2010 Downtube 8h, and...
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I agree with Sheldon, tcs, and jur that you could do it, and that you probably won't overtorque the hub.
That said, there's no need for three chain rings; no matter what you do, the middle ring will be redundant. Even with a double, you will have redundant gears; play with Sheldon Brown's Gear Calculator and you'll see. If you did something totally extreme, like 24T and 60T chain rings, you would have only 14 distinct gears; two would be duplicates.
In my opinion the gear range of the Nexus is wide enough for touring as is.