The availability of this product makes the Shimano Alfine/Nexus hubs the easy choice in my opinion.

https://jtekengineering.com/jtek_bar-end_shifter.htm

But this is what I am really excited about..

https://www.bikecommuters.com/2009/01...ke-first-look/

I want to get my hands on that brifter!

Now that's something to look forward to.

I wonder what the price is going to be. Considering what it may cost to rebuild my traditional road bike into a IGH road bike, it may be worth it just to buy this bike instead.

Masi single speed commuter. 135 mm horizontal drop outs, drop bars. Around $700 plus the alfine wheel. Now if you can just get a set of those Alfine brifters that are supposedly coming to market....

Or just buy the Dynamic pictured above, rumored to be in the $1400 range, not much higher than piecing one together from new parts.

This is in fact in error. All The Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hubs built in this millennium are a significantly improved design.

tcs

Shimano has worked on this; both the regular Nexus-8 and the Red Band have gone through three upgrade revisions since initial release.

Mind you, I don't know if or by how much the hubs' sealing has been improved, but Shimano has tried to address this.

tcs

Actually, Sturmey offers a DLS30 "Rapidfire" style shifter, a TSS33 twist shifter, a TSS31 twist shifter, an OSS30 push button up/trigger down shifter, an SLS3C trigger shifter and an SLS3N trigger shifter for their three speed hubs.

tcs

Yes, there are new-design hubs, but the AW, first introduced in 1936, is still in production. Sturmey Archer was bought out by SunRace in 2001.

Nope. I'm sorry for Sturmey's confusing re-use of model names, but the AW of today is internally an AW-NIG, a different and improved design from the AW that was built from 1937 to 1999.

Best,
tcs

I do not recommend you get the Sturmey Archer 8 hub. What I look for in an internal hub is smooth, fast dialing and well spaced gears and that's not what you get with this hub.

Here are the good things about the SA8:

-It is cheap.
-It is sturdy.

Now here is the bad:

-Direct drive, (the most efficient gear) is first gear. This means that the most efficient gear is the one that you will probably be in the least.

-This hub cannot be shifted while pedaling, even if into a lower gear. You have to completely stop pedaling to shift. Easing off on the pedal doesn't work either. This is especially frustrating when going up or down hill since you lose all momentum on the former and all your cadence on the latter.

-There is a huge, almost 30% jump from 1st gear to 2nd and the same with 7th to 8th, making 1st and 8th almost worthless besides when you have the steepest of hills or a very strong tailwind.

-The smallest cog the hub will fit is a 23T and the hub comes with a 25T. That means on a bike with 650B tires you will have to use a 32T chain ring for a tall gear of 101.5 in. and a low of 33.3in. You could use a 34T ring to raise your top gear to 107.8 in. but then your low end will also go up to 35.4 in. and you said you have a mile long hill to climb?

I used this hub for over a year and wasn't happy with it and after I switched to a Shimano Nexus 8 I then realized just how much I hate the SA8. Now I'm all smiles.

I have two old Sachs Torpedos on bikes w/o any problems so far. I also have the Rohloff on a Civia Hyland and love it. I just finished up a track dropout frame conversion to the SRAM P5 and it is performing well. It does like the power slacked off some for shifting. I also have the iM9 on a Swobo Dixon and it is working well too. I have ordered the new SG-S501 Shimano Alfine hub and Jtek bar end shifter from Harris and it is supposed to be shipping today along with the parts to build it into a wheel.

Best shifting - Rohloff, along with easiest rear wheel removal. The only IGH available with a quick release axle. Real nice workmanship, as it should be at the price. A lot of whirring gear sounds in the lower gears but they sound like smooth gear meshing and the sound does not bother me.

iM9 - the heaviest hub I know of other than the NuVinci but good shifting and working well for me.

P5 - quite compact and it is working well so far. As mentioned above shifting does require more pedal pressure reduction than the Rohloff or iM9. I am using a home machined version of the Hubbub to mount the twist shifter on drop bars. Good overall range but the steps between gears are somewhat wide. It also has the disadvantage of a protruding external shift box on the axle end which might be vulnerable if the bike is dropped, as does the SRAM 7 speed hub. Easy to disconnect for rear wheel removal however. I chose this hub in part due to it not requiring cold setting of the frame rear dropouts so it can be ridden with either the 5 speed hub wheel, the original FG wheel or a 3 speed Torpedo wheel I have for it.

Torpedo 3 speed - limited gear range for a reasonable high gear along with a adequate low gear for the OP's 8% grade IMO. Excellent reputation in Europe for use on utility and commuter bikes.

BTW Sunrace SA still lists a hub they call the AW but it is not the same as the old ones. It has changes internally to eliminate th false neutral between second and third gears. Per what I have read most parts are not interchangeable between the old and new versions.

For those interested there is now a geared hub bikes Yahoo group available. Here is the link. New members definitely welcome.

https://groups.yahoo.com/group/Geared_hub_bikes/

See the link below for the latest info I have received on the Brifter availability.

https://www.bikeforums.net/commuting/510141-nexus8-alfine-brifter-availability-info.html

Cool. That means a Masi, lets say $750, Alfine rear wheel, lets say $300, and the Alfine brifter, lets say (big guess here, ? $150 ??? I really have no idea) and you have $1200 invested in a IGH bike with a Single Speed wheel ready to drop in, and some labor to do to swap out all the parts and stuff. Personally, I would pay more for the Dynamic bike if I liked it and save myself the work.

My other idea was to use the bull-horn handlebars, put the brake levers underneath near the end, and bar end shifter for the Alfine. Then I could brake and shift from one hand position. I saw a single speed at Navy Pier a few weeks ago riggled like this ( minus the alfine and bar end shifters, obviously) and I liked what I saw. I want a look at the Dynamic before I go that route, and I need to put my Giant Seek1 with the Alfine IGH through some road trials when it warms up to decide if I like the Alfine enough to build a bike around it. Currently the Seek1 with Alfine is set up for winter with studded tires, and that is no way to properly evaluate a bike for summer road use.

All of the 3-speed hubs are basically comparable in performance. The Nexus 3 Coaster has the best coaster brake, the i-Motion 3 has 130mm OLN for wider dropouts, and Sturmey 3's have the best availability of parts for rebuilding/servicing.

In 5 speed the Sram 5 seems to be the most durable, but the Sturmey 5 doesn't force the use of the clickbox. The design of the new Sturmey 5W Coaster seems very promising.

The Sram 7 is more efficient than Shimano Nexus 8 (comparable to Premium/Alfine) and has more even gear steps, but does require that the Clickbox hangs outside the dropouts (does have bonus of faster wheel changes)

SRAM hubs are also INCREDIBLY EASY to rebuild and service. Literally, remove left side locknut, unthread cone and the whole internal mechanism comes out.

I've ridden the i-Motion 9, and it is an excellent hub provided you need the gear range and are considering disc brakes. As configured on the Swobo Dixon, it is damn excellent!


Now...which hub to choose. If you're building a light bike and are used to the gear range of a road double...go for a 5 speed hub...either SRAM or Sturmey. More efficient than the hubs with extra gears at a lower weight.

If you need the gear range similar to road triple, then you're looking at SRAM 7 or SRAM 9.

how does a 4 speed Shimano Nexus rate?

I have that on the cruiser and was considering using that to rebuild a new wheel for my road frame, but I'm thinking when I add up the costs of doing that (and rebuilding a wheel for the cruiser) I might be better off just selling the cruiser as is (and maybe the road bike I was considering converting) and put that cash towards a new IGH bike.

So far as the Nexus4 is concerned it is so far as I know out of production so any new one you find is going to be new old stock and Shimano is not well known for keeping spares available for discontinued products for very long. It is an orphan so I would not put money into building it into a new wheel.

Also the Nexus 4 has the same overall gear range as most current 3 speeds, inadequate for many riders and uses. It does give smaller steps between gears than the three speeds but that is the only advantage. Finally, like the SA 8 speed hubs, it has its direct drive in low gear, making it harder to gear it for an adequate low for hilly riding conditions. With the direct drive first and narrow overall range gearing for hilly riding means spinning out in high due to how low 4th gear will be.

Adequate for a cruiser IMO but inadequate for a road bike. To me a road bike needs a range of 250% or more which means SRAM P5, Shimano Nexus 7, SRAM S7, Shimano Nexus8/Alfine or SRAM iMotion9. If you have more money than sense, as I apparently do, then the Rohloff is also a viable choice. I leave out the SA 8 speeds due to the direct drive first. In my book this makes them more suitable for a small wheel folding bike. The SA 5 speeds do not have the 250% overall gear range I suggested.

IGH Gurus, I have a quick and related question, are there any other hubs that allow quick and easy wheel removal like the Rohloff and iMotion9?

Sturmey 3/5, Sram 3/5/7/9 are all about the same speed for wheel removal, provided you don't use a drum or coaster brake.

One the Sturmey 3/5 or Sram T3. you merely release the indicator chain from the cable either via a few turns of a barrel or a quick release button on the Sram T3.

The Sram i-Motion 3 has a quick connector inboard of the chainstay.

Sram 5 and 7 speed hubs have the clickbox, which is removed very quickly by turning the shifter to 1st gear and unthreading the thumbscrew which secures the clickbox. While very quick, you have to be careful not to lose the shifting rods.

i-Motion 9 is really no faster, but with disc brakes it is the only hub brake option for quick wheel removal, except for i-Motion 3, again with disc brakes.

Actually they started making the AW-NIG somewhere in the mid 80's...(I can never remember the exact date)

Aaron

Wheels with the shimano IGH are actually much faster and easier to remove than the SRAM and Rohloff if you use an Xcelite tool. The tool can be found on Amazon for only $16.99 now and can be used for quickly removing disk and rim brakes too.

https://www.amazon.com/Xcelite-Diagon...489706&sr=1-56

1984, in limited numbers for, apparently a single OEM customer - but they didn't quit making the regular AW for everybody else until they went out of business. SunRace picked up the AW-NIG design, added improvements of their own and never returned the older design to production.

Best,
tcs

Sturmey has announced a range of new five-speeds, the S50 (W) series, that have a 256% overall gear range. Announced, but I haven't seen them for sale anywhere.

Best,
tcs

The Sturmey 8 has been a troubled hub since introduction. It was the very last design work of the British crew and SunRace surely wishes they'd never heard of it.

A redesigned 8-speed has been due out from SunRace Sturmey-Archer in a month or two for the last year.

tcs

I have run a Nexus 8 speed for 14 months in all weather and love it. I don't have a comparison with other internal hub systems, but the convenience is far superior to a derailler system. I would not have enough leg to do 8% with my Nexus (I'm 66). What hill in Boulder is that steep? My commute from south Denver to near Wadsworth and Quincy runs me through all 8 gears, and the hills aren't THAT steep.

I think you're being a little harsh. The direct drive in first gear is actually the main advantage of this hub; but only in certain circumstances, namely if you have small wheels. Go to Sheldon's gear calculator and try the options with all the different IG hubs, assuming 16" (ISO 305) wheels. You will find that the Sturmey Archer 8-speed is by far the best option; all the others require an unusually large chain ring.

I have two of these hubs, one of which has about 5000 miles on it. I am not entirely delighted with it; the cable adjustment is very finicky. But if you need a versatile bike that folds up small, this is the hub you want.

Other than that... well, forgive me, I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but some of your details are simply wrong. You can get a 19T cog for it. You can shift under load. And so on. None of these are big deals, of course, and I don't mean to nitpick; I respect the fact that you tried it and decided you prefer the Nexus. Cool. But the SA 8 is a good hub and a good option for those who need it.

I do not think I am being harsh with this hub. I think I am doing a service to the OP with my review.

I assume you own a Downtube Mini? I owned a DT8H with this hub on it so that's how I know about the hub. Even though this is perhaps the only IH option for a 16" wheel folder it is almost worthless on a full sized bike that the OP is riding.

I Never said this hub wouldn't last. I rode it for over a year and the only hassle was having to fine tune the cable every few weeks and of course having to stop pedaling to shift (God I hated that).

I didn't know it can take a 19T cog since the manual specifically states 23 or 25T only. The manual also also states that you must stop pedaling in order to shift.

https://www.sturmey-archer.com/hubs_8spd_XRF8.php#

If you do a search for reviews of this hub here you will find that stop pedaling to shift is mentioned a lot.