I guess it depends how fast you are. Some people can change a tube in under a minute. It takes me a little longer.

Some tire/rim combinations are challenging and I can spend more time fighting to get a tire back on than getting the wheel off even when I had a roller brake. I used a wing-nut and a hex bolt to make detaching the roller brake easier.

While it can take a bit longer to change a tire (not that much really) I don't see it as a reason to shy away from an IGH, - unless you're constantly dealing with flats.

All IGH need a way to tension the chain (or band). This can make a difference to the ease of use (wheel change etc).
The simplest way is horizontal dropouts.
The crude way is a spring-loaded chain tensioner on a conventional vertical dropout.
The slick way is sliding vertical dropouts.
The creaky way is eccentric bottom bracket (EBB).
My bike has EBB, it is not really so creaky as its rep but there are several ways to keep the rotating eccentric in place:
-external clamps
-set screw
-internal wedge
-internal wedge with a release.
I prefer the external clamp or the internal wedge with a release. The set screw can be hard to make fine adjustments and the plain internal wedge can corrode into place.
You can get external EEB units that fit onto normal bottom brackets.
Phil Woods does an eccentric block for BB30 press-fit bearings, which saves a lot of weight.

If you run disc brakes you need to maintain the pad alignment during tensioning, which doesn't happen with horizontal dropouts.

That doesn't mean it's difficult, of course.

Modern IGHs like the SRAM iMotion3, Sturmey-Archer R-SRF3 and others disconnect their gear cables quickly without tools and reconnect without readjustment.

If you want an IGH with quick release, it's easy enough to select an appropriate model and fit one.

Having used modern hub gears by chance, I wouldn't go back now unless price was a factor. I have two bikes with Nexus 3-speeds and one with SRF3.

If 'only' a 3-speed, it can be worth setting it up in such a way that top gear is your 'normal' riding gear, giving you plenty of reserve for hills/loads/snow. My Shimanos are set up this way, almost all riding is 'single speed'.

I think that IGH is great for a city bike. Flat repair will require having a wrench, other than that it's not a real problem. 3 speeds create a huge jump between gears, I had a Shimano 8speed for a while, until it broke! Long story short, they had stopped making that model, could not supply the retaining ring that broke, and only suggested I buy a new unit. I did, but I bought a NuVinci N360, and despite the extra pound of weight, they are a much better unit. There is no jump between gears since there are no gears, it continually adjusts whenever you choose whether standing or riding. It is a permanently sealed unit and costs much less than the others on the market.

Marc

I've used old Sturmey Archer 3, 4, and 5 speed hubs a lot in recent years; also a new Sturmey Archer 5, several new Sturmey Archer 8's, the Shimano Nexus 8, and also Rohloff and NuVinci hubs. I pretty much gave up on derailleurs for several years, have started using derailleurs on a couple bikes in the last year or two. I still do most of my riding on bikes with old Sturmey Archer hubs.

The main advantage of any IGH is that you can shift while stopped. If you're in the habit of downshifting your derailleur before you stop, this isn't such a big deal.

As for maintenance, efficiency, and the pleasure of riding... well, these are all matters of opinion. I still prefer IGH's but as I've got used to using derailleurs again, I find I really don't care that much.

Some folks say they aren't really comfortable pedaling a bike with fewer than 30 finely spaced gears; others sing the praises of single speeds. It's all good. Three speed IGHs serve some cyclists well - so well, in fact, that the basic layout has been on the world market continuously for ~110 years.

R'off, external shift box, part of Disc brake setup, ads 1 knob to turn to disconnect the EX box from the hub.

Cassettes have gaps between the cogs to fill with crud after a bit of time in service,
single cog is easier to clean that user collection of dirt , mud and old chain oil, up.

I also live in Minneapolis, own an IGH bike and have the same opinion - for winter riding, where the bike gets a lot of snow/water/winter road sludge/salt/etc kicked up onto it, and IGH is worthwhile.

For summer riding, where the worst your derailler gets is rain, I don't see a maintenance advantage. You still have a chain, and that's where most of the maintenance is. I don't think I've ever actually replaced a derailler. I own both an IGH bike for winter riding, and 2 road bikes for summer, and the second I bought because I expected to use the IGH bike for summer commuting but I found that I just preferred a regular derailler - more gears, weighs a little less, feels a little faster.

I do find changing a flat to be more work on the IGH, but it would be more accurate to say that it's more difficult mostly just because it's less familiar.

The OP mentioned the Jamis Commuter 3 - it looks like a good bike if they're going to go with an IGH. Chainguard, rack, fenders - it looks like a good choice to me.

Or hills. If I lived in NYC,I'd still have my Swobo Otis,but I live in DC. Had a Civia Hyland,the Alfine 8 just didn't cut it. Had a Swobo Dixon,the I9 just did it,but there were days when I just wasn't 100% and missed my 3x9. There are of course options like the Alfine 11,Rohloff,and Schlumpf,but then you're talking $$$,not to mention the weight.

No,but how much do you want to deal with when coming home at the end of a long day in the dark when it's raining?

Um,so yeah,as I said,"no IGH is that simple".

IGH's have def have their uses,it just seems that their fans like to claim they're always the answer. Sure,if you're somewhere flattish or have really bad winter weather,but for hilly and/or temperate climes derailleurs work just as well or better.

A key benefit of IGHs not mentioned: easy to attach a chainguard to protect slacks. My Nexus 8sp w/Alfine rapid-fire shifter has been nearly trouble-free for three years of daily commutes. The shifter gear indicator rattled, so I surgically removed it with a dremel tool. The chain-line makes for quiet operation. Another plus with the Nexus is performance--you can shift into larger gears under load (i.e., when sprinting away from a stop).

I wasn't going to say anything, until I got to that last sentence.

It's true that it makes it easier to find a bike with a chainguard. I have a chainring guard on my derailler commuter, but it wasn't easy to find.

A shifter that needs something removed with a dremel tool is not "trouble free".

My IGH bike has taken some work to get to stop being noisy, but the only part of that that's the IGH's fault is ironically the chain guard - the chain will slap against it when going over large bumps (like when going from the street onto the bike trail).

IGH's are traditionally worse than deraillers at shifting into large gears under load. A derailler has to be pretty messed up or bad to be worse than the IGH at shifting under load. Shimano IGH's - and probably some others - have gotten a lot better and you might not notice the difference nowadays, but they're not better than a derailler.

The IGH's advantage is usually being able to shift when it's not under load at all, like when stopped at a stoplight, something that you can't really do with a derailler.

that's odd, i have an alfine 8 and it makes angry crunching noises when i've mistakenly tried to shift under load. in the 2 years i've been riding the bike i have come to master the little split second stutter in my pedal stroke when shifting. it's like the clutch for a manual transmission in a car.

I've used an internal gear Specialized City 6.1 Globe (heavier bike, fenders, dyno hub, rear rack). I had to replace my original wheel (Nexus 8 hub, Alex Rim) after 3K miles due to shifting problems, spokes going bad and rim wear/problems and the nail in the coffin was an S-hook on a bag that wrapped itself into the rear gear. I replaced it with an entirely new wheel at over $350. (Alfine-8 hub, Sun Rim). Much higher quality rear wheel. Pretty much problem free until I felt rolling resistance and decided to have it serviced after 8k miles. Bad idea. In hind sight, I would really research who would be opening up an internal gear hub. The shop ruined the wheel, but admitting something went wrong, they purchased a new wheel for me, keeping my old one to perhaps fix or use for R&D or parts. I admit that was very generous of them. My new rear wheel had some rolling resistance at first, I think due to the shop mounting it wrong.... after a few hundred miles it seems to have freed up (I should have just requested they don't touch the new one). Things seem back in order now... 11,750 miles. So.... pay attention to quality of components and if a shop working on the bike really does or does not understand internal gears. I've discovered some bike shops (LA Area) really don't even know a difference between Nexus and Alfine, let alone the other brands of internal gear hubs. Going internal gear may cost you $ and require learning/understanding more about your rear wheel than some bike mechanics. (Things like this happen in the car world too!)

I love having an IG-8 hub for LA traffic. Ideal for shifting much like a manual transmission car as you accelerate from a stop. Clean looks, easy to change a tire (but only if you practice removing that shifter ring), shifting at a stop, quite operation... things like that. Cost of wheel replacement is going to be an issue, sooner or later. It's a trade off.

You are overblowing it. It takes maybe 30 seconds more time, if that. It is a non-issue. I don't even have an IGH bike anymore, so it's not like I am an IGH evangelist, but it is misleading to say it is some kind of big hassle to change a flat on an IGH bike as opposed to a derailleur bike. In some ways, I find it easier. I often have to take the skewer out to get the wheel past the rear derailleur on my other bikes, which is annoying, and I sometimes have to push the RD out of the way as well, which gets me greasy. This is not a big deal, but I'm saying this hassle is no worse or better than changing the flat with an IGH bike. They both have little hassles--none of which are major.

Its in the rain and dark when my rain cape is draping over my hands, I turn the grip shifter controlling the IGH
and 1234567,etc. all the ratios are in a line , I i dont have to see the drivetrain at all
to make my way through the sequence of ratios.. that is why i find it better than the derailleur bikes

for riding in the dark and rain..

I agree with lostarchitect. At least with a Sturmey Archer AW (3-speed) hub, it's very easy. Disconnect the shift cable, unbolt the wheel. It's out. When reassembling, reconnect the shift cable and adjust the gears. I can literally do this with my eyes closed. Seriously.

IGH truly does take less maintenance. Snow and salt and road grit are hardly concerns. Chains are wider and intrinsically stronger. The fact that you don't shift also contributes to their life, and chainguards that keep them clean help also. A self-closing door can bend a derailleur hanger. It happens a lot, and then the resulting failures from shifting the derailleur into the spokes can be pretty bad.

But having said all that, I still use derailleurs. IGH can be a very good choice for many people. It's more costly, and it weighs more.

Repairs on a 3-speed hub are simple and cheap, and they are rarely needed at all.

Repairs on 7- and more-speed hubs are expensive or difficult. I believe 5-speed is somewhere in the middle. So some of the great attributes -- long term reliability and durability -- given to IGH really apply mostly to 3-speed hubs.

And as some have pointed out, 3-speed hubs have, duh, only three speeds. That's fine if you don't mind slowing way down when you downshift, but some of us like to sustain a certain amount of effort throughout all terrain.

I do have one three-speed bike, a 1962 Rudge Sports. It came with a 48T chainring and an 18T sprocket. I replaced the 18T with a 24T, so now all of my gears are low. I can tow a heavily-laden trailer with it and climb hills doing so. When I go fast down a hill, my top gear is too low to pedal, so I coast, which is fine with me.

If I have to remove the rear wheel to change a flat, the number one issue I have is the awkward bolt on my older Nuvinci hub. The number two issue is getting the wheel out around the chain tensioner (I have a rear-derailler-style tensioner to make my hub compatible with my vertical dropouts and my two front chainrings). Most IGHs don't have my weird bolt issue, so if I had to choose between a bolt-on IGH and a quick-release derailler, based entirely of ease of tire changing, I think I'd still rather go IGH. I feel like wrestling the wheel around the derailler pulleys is at least as obnoxious as having a bolt-on wheel. But that's just my opinion. In reality, I don't mind at all having an extra tool in my emergency kit, and beyond that extra tool, the only real issue I have with changing a flat is to make sure I'm able to do it. The extra time that may or may not be involved to remove a bolt never really figures in given that I go for months at a time without a flat. That might be different if I were getting flats more often or if I routinely had to remove the tires to squeeze my bike into a car. Although I'd probably change my tires before I looked at a whole new drivetrain to address frequent flats. And I've seen a few options that allow for a quick release with a rear hub, if that's a big issue for someone.

As for shifting under load, some hubs handle it and some do not. I know my Nuvinci sort of shifts under load. It's harder to shift, but theoretically possible. I worry about breaking a cable, so what I do is apply moderate pressure to my grip shifter, and when my pedal rotation hits a dead spot, the shifter moves. The newer Nuvinci is made to shift easier under load than at a standstill, as I understand it. So if you like the idea of an IGH, but also want to shift while under load, there are still options.

Use both on my commuter bikes. The IGH layout is cleaner and easier to put a chain case on (with fenders you get less road grime - than deraileur). For my uses a 1 x 8 or 9 (10 even) deraileur set up is optimal, much of the simplicity of Hub, no FD takes away a lot of deraileur issues. I've run a pretty slush covered RD with good reliability. A 12-36 nine speed cassette provides a good gear range.

That's pretty slick! Of course not necessary if you're on-the-ball enough to shift down before arriving at the stoplight, but we all forget sometimes, right? I'm going to not shift down on purpose on my way home tonight to try that out!

I have been riding a nexus 7 for over a year. Here are the points I think have not yet been discussed:

The wheel is a pain to get off. I dread doing it. But not because of the hub or cable routing, that is a snap. I dread taking the wheel off because the lock nuts strip like crazy due to the notched thread on the axle and the fact that you have to get them on VERY tight to avoid slipping (in horizontal dropouts). I can usually only get three or four wheel removals out of one lock nut. I have purchased several spare lock nuts to solve this problem. Before you say it, this is not because I am an incompetent mechanic, it is well documented problem and the great Sheldon Brown had this problem as well. His solution was to grease the axle, which does help, but at the end of the day it is still difficult and nothing like a quick release hub.

Also, you need to get a J-tek shifter for any Shimano hubs. The stock shimano shifters suck as they are marketed to the casual rider, and not built for serious use. Once you solve this problem, the internal hub with a J-tek shifter is about as high quality shifting as can be had. It is like shifting a winchester rifle.

At the end of the day I use the internal hub because I like it better. I think it is a better solution for a commuter bike. 7 gears are plenty. I live in Denver where I regularly have huge ascents and descents on my rides. I could certainly use more gears, but you loose a lot of health benefit to riding if your constantly flattening out the hills with a wide range of gears. The fewer gears force me to push hard on the steeps (build muscle) and keep to reasonable speeds on the downhills so I dont die (30mph top speed). Granted, I could get better times with a full range of gears, but thats why I said its a good setup for a commuter, not a race bike.

HSC, great points. By your name and size, I can guess that you're a very good IGH tester!

I've seen old B&W Photos of people in British village time trial Meets and the competitors were using 3 speeds .

Derailleurs , just So 'French' ,

I just read this post by Dave Moulton, talking about old school British time trials on fixed gear -- sometimes even "restricted" to all riders having the same numbers of teeth!

Just discovered Moulton's blog yesterday, I already subscribed and enjoyed many of the articles there!