Bingo, and I'll add to that how tired, or motivated I feel that day. I find that whatever difference there may be doesn't manifest itself in real life.

I've heard of the car wash idea from one or two (or more?) individuals in my area too.

Those who don't want to use a hose just do the wet rag and bucket thing.

Believe it or not, people here are aware of how salt leads to corrosion here in DC.

This is very wise. It means the question shouldn't weigh heavily into a purchase decision.

I was at a mtb race on Saturday, and I saw a guy there who had a Moonlander with a Rohloff, pretty sweet.

There certainly are inefficiencies in various bike component systems, but to the average commuter, they are very difficult to diagnose. That is, I may feel like something's dragging, but I really can't know whether it's my IGH or my brakes or there's a headwind or maybe I just didn't eat enough dinner last night. A friend of mine built up a bike with a Sturmey Archer 8 sp hub, and hated it, felt the hub was really inefficient. So he stopped riding it. Then he wore out the tires on another bike, so he swapped in the tires he had on the SA bike, and then discovered what he disliked about the SA bike was the tires, not the hub. With different tires, it turned out the Sturmey Archer hub didn't bother him at all.

That said... I have a belt drive on one of my bikes now. It feels to me like that belt drive is causing a whole lot more inefficiency than the hub. How do I know? Oh, I don't. I can't test one without the other.

What is a serious rider? Is someone who rides a mile each way to the grocery every day for decades a serious rider? Someone who rides an upright IGH 13 miles each way to work three or four days per week? Only MAMILs? We talk a lot about 'serious cyclists' and 'commuters' and even 'serious commuters' but the average grandma in The Netherlands blows all these serious riders and commuters out of the water when it comes to bicycling experience, lifetime miles, miles in inclement weather, and ability to carry a bunch of stuff, including their morning cappuccino in their right hand, from store to store and back to home. She looks at all of the special clothes and gobs of gook hanging off a bike designed for racing and shakes her head.

There may be some serious riders who want a close narrow range but the other 99% of the population is happy with what's already there and if anything want wider range.

BTW, if fine tuning is your thing take a look at the N360. I love mine though I'm fairly sure it comes with a bit more than 2% loss of efficiency.

Nailed it!

When people say "serious rider" I think they usually mean somebody who is always trying to ride as fast as they can -- distinct from as hard as they can. A fitness rider can be content with some inefficiency, because it's effort that matters most.

one thing i don't think has been brought up yet is that some IGH's are lubricated with grease, and this can cause additional efficiency loss in colder weather.

my winter bike has an alfine 8 that is grease-lubricated, and i do notice a little more hub drag on 8 degree mornings than i do on 28 degree mornings.

but it doesn't bother me too much because it's just my winter bike, and the studded tires are WAY more of an efficiency kill than any losses coming from the IGH.

By serious rider, I mean anyone who puts in lots of miles on any sort of regular basis. I don't mean long rides, but rather many miles per week, week in and out, which would include all those you mentioned. It's not elitist and includes everybody who rides often enough to consider himself "serious" about it. I'm sorry that the reference seemed to irk you, but crankiness is your issue, not mine.

Given that this entire thread is about efficiency, a serious rider would be one cares about efficiency, which has to include not only the bike and hub's, but the totality including his engine's efficiency. Which was my point in talking about closer gear steps. Good engine efficiency calls for maintaining reasonable cadence. It may not matter much to someone only going a mile or two, but after a few miles it does.

Wide range is necessary for hilly areas, but a large percentage of riders live and ride where it's flat to gently rolling, and have little use for a wide gear range. The 25%+ steps of most wide range IGH hubs are too far apart and users choose between a gear which is higher or lower than what they would prefer. They might benefit more from more closely spaced choices within the band where they do most of their riding.

I can't see why my statement suggesting that IGH makers should consider creating choices suited to the flatter terrain many people ride in should irk anybody. But this is BF and there are many who prefer to read some sinister unstated meaning into every post.

For what it's worth, I'm a very unserious rider

I don't know how important this is to 99% of riders. A lot of people in Europe, and possibly a large majority, ride single speed coaster brake bikes and are quite happy with them. This even in hilly areas like southern Netherlands (where the Amstel Gold race takes place). They are much simpler, less expensive and have less maintenance. As the number of speeds increases so does the complexity and thus the initial cost, likelihood of maintenance, cost of maintenance, cost of replacement when stolen, and the drag.

I think for many who need or desire the range of a 3-speed the added expense and complications of getting that same range in a 5, 7, or 8 speed isn't worth it.

When I raced I always went for the tightest range I could for the reasons you mentioned. Even today for fitness rides I really like the 22 or 30 or whatever number of options I have so that I can maintain an ideal cadence. Indexed shifting from the brake hoods (and now electronic) are very very awesome from this standpoint compared to downtube shifters that required a surprising amount of extra effort for each shift.

Riding for transportation is very very different though. I don't think about cadence and I'd guess 99% of people riding for transportation are similar. It's not much of an issue. You ride and if you think about it you may shift up or down if you find yourself pedaling too fast or slow. A friend who is a top amateur road and track racer in The Netherlands had the rear hub on his daily transportation bike stop shifting. It was locked in a middle gear. I think he rode it for about a year before finally pulling it apart to fix it. BTW, he owns two bike shops in Amsterdam.

The entire thread is about efficiency which is what I responded to. IMO the small differences in hub efficiency are secondary the other factors, such as correct saddle height. But no matter how you slice it, there are efficiency benefits to gearing appropriate to the terrain and conditions, and that's what my comments about light single stage IGH hubs with closer spacing was about.

Yes, I agree that large numbers of riders ride single speed. I wonder how many might opt for 3s if a hub were offered with 3 gears all of which were usable to them. I know most riders don't think about efficiency, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't appreciate something that made their ride easier. Whether it's to go faster for sport riding or to reduce the needed effort for basic transportation riding, we all benefit from improved efficiency, even if we can't directly feel the effects.

Those are different definitions. But "given that this entire thread is about efficiency", I guess the point is, when you say "serious rider", that is shorthand in this context for "rider who is serious about efficiency". I consider myself to be a serious rider according to your first, more general definition, but I am definitely not serious about efficiency. My commuter is 2x9, the gear steps are already wide because my mtb cassette is 11-36, and usually by the time I feel I need a shift, I shift two gears anyways, so practically speaking I ride a 5-speed 11-36 cassette.

I get what you're saying but you might as well stick with a single speed. A narrowly spaced 3 speed keeps you near your ideal cadence in such a limited variety of terrain and conditions that there's almost no market. Minneapolis is pretty flat. I ride fixed a lot but when I ride a geared bike, I actually use a fair amount of the range.

I think the IGH manufacturers response would be to get an IGH with more speeds. The drop in efficiency is not significant enough to worry about.

It's true though, when I hop on one of those 3 speed bike share bikes the low is often too low, and the high is often too high. When I have gears, I expect more. A 3 speed just isn't enough if you care about cadence.

I had been riding fixed in NYC for decades, and only stopped because I moved to the burbs, and later on it got too trendy. I also own an ultra narrow 3s hub and a 2s fixed hub, so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with this territory.

As you point out the typical 3s hub's gear spacing is too wide for flat urban conditions, and you end up riding it as a single speed anyway. But the argument that narrower spacing us useless because it's too narrow to help doesn't hold water. Goldilocks has it right, hubs can be too wide or two narrow, but someplace in between may be just right, and that's what I'm looking for. Basically a hub with spacing of about 10-15% between gears. Enough for shallow grades, changes in wind, or simply changes in how one feels on any given day.

These may not be for everybody, but will nicely split the difference for those riding single speed and wishing for more, but not the useless (to them) wide gearing on current 3s hubs.

I don't see why people here insist on choices between extremes, and reject something in between out of hand. I see similar attitudes when serious (sorry) riders discuss hybrids, saying they're poor as road bikes, and equally poor as mtn bikes, but fail to say that as such they may be ideal for casual rider who intend neither application.

When I used the word serious I had no idea that it would be a pejorative. As you point out, context is everything, but we shouldn't read too much into every word. A serious rider is any rider who thinks about riding seriously, or has reason to. That includes anybody who'd bother following a thread discussing the relative efficiency of IGH and derailleur transmissions.

You have to be aware of the inferiority complex fred-commuters have compared to the lycra-crowd, who consider themselves "serious" and turn their noses up at bikes weighing more than 20 lbs, wheels with more than 24 spokes, tires wider than 23mm, etc...

I've been riding a 1950's IGH/Derail hybrid set-up that uses a SA/AW hub with a 3 cog Cyclo adapter for decades.
Although it has both the advantages and disadvantages of both the IGH and a rear derail it provides a useful gear range of 41-106 GI with the ability to shift at a dead stop. Heavy, complicated, fussy and requiring advanced math to determine which lever moves which way to shift into the "next" gear it has proven ideal for my town bike requirements.

Sometimes the old tech is still most appropriate or even "just right".

-Bandera

I'm not responsible for other people's problems, complexes or attitudes. Bicycling is a big tent and includes everyone who opts to self propel a two wheeled vehicle, plus some who prefer 3 wheels, and some who want some motor assist.

If anyone has a problem with what others think of him or her, or people like him (or her) then that's something they might take up with their shrink. Likewise, those who feel they need to look down on others.

I reject all group think terms which classify people as in or out of some subgroup, and so reject your reference to the so-called lycra clad as reverse snobbery, as much as I reject the attitude of some of the so-called lycra clad who think they're more special than others.

There's a certain irony in bicycling these days. Decades ago, bicycling tended to attract iconoclasts who didn't want to be joiners, and took up this uncool sport (or whatever you want to call it) of bicycling, and simply didn't care what others thought. Nowadays bicycling is cool and attracting the very people along with their attitudes that we sought to avoid back then.

In many ways I prefer the days when riding a bicycle in the USA put you below the radar and nobody cared either way.

FWIW - I wear lycra much of the time for sport riding and commuting because it's practical for the purpose. But I've toured for thousands of miles in all conditions wearing cut down jeans and oxford cloth shirts because that was practical for that purpose. I'd like to believe that I'm still the same person no matter what I opt to wear.

The problem is that there needs to be enough Goldilockses in the world to justify making something like that. From their standpoint a 5 or 7 speed covers a wider variety of potential buyers than a 3 speed that splits the difference between a narrow and wide range.

I accept that, and have been around long enough to know that most people don't really know what they want until they're told that's what they should want.

What's sold in the any marketplace is very self-fulling. People choose among the options that are available, and there's no way to gauge potential demand for something not being offered. Keep in mind that there is a large and diverse group of riders out there, and even a smallish niche can be large enough, and once established grown.

In the early days of mtb, the established players rejected that as something that would only attract oddball, misfit tinkerers who thought riding in the dirt would be fun. The same can be true of every sub group or segment. So while the market may be a bit of a niche right now, IGH gearing wide enough to be useful, and narrow (close spaced) enough to be used can find it's niche. In fact the initial target market might be those non-hipster single speed riders who could appreciate some gear choice with minimal penalty.

I'm sure you do, yourself, but as an extremely frequent participant around here, I'm just saying I'm surprised you didn't anticipate that use of the word "serious" would stimulate defensiveness in others. It is easily interpreted as elitist, because it implies "non-serious" which is pretty close to "shouldn't be taken seriously"

As I said, I'm not responsible for other people's problems.

I don't go out of my way to offend people, but I've been around too long to worry about how people might parse a phrase to find code words or something to get worked up over.

BTW - it might have surprised you, but I really had no idea that anyone would have a problem with the word "serious" in the context. I guess I'm simply not programmed to think that way, which may why I put the warning about thick skin in my signature line.

By the same token, I had no idea that my suggestion of an IGH hub tailored to the needs of urban riders, would annoy people reading a thread about IGH efficiency in a commuter forum.

OTOH - I think my 27,000 posts over my years here on BF should have established my bona fides, and people would read my posts in context. However, I after all those posts, I feel free to not worry about what some people might think. Hopefully, my not caring won't be another source of offense, but I guess I can't worry about that either. It's like what I often say to Deb (my wife of 30 years) "I'm like Popeye --- I am what I am, and that's all that I am". (toot, toot)

fify
That's why I tried to help by suggesting that "serious rider", in this thread's context, is shorthand for "riders serious about efficiency"