rollagain

I stand corrected.

cyccommute 

Who is the “we” you are talking about? I know it is the US but the number of IGH I see on a regular basis is zero. The number I see per year is very close to zero and I work on 1500 bikes per year and have for the last 10 years. I would estimate that in the 15,000 bikes I’ve worked on less than 1% have IGH. They are uncommon enough here that I haven’t a clue on how to work on one.

And, in 40 years of winter riding in every conditions imaginable, I haven’t had problems with derailers and inclimate conditions.

livedarklions

Do you know where you got the 4x figure? I'm skeptical.

FiftySix

That's because IGHs are "maintenance free".

I-Like-To-Bike

I find it easy to believe a guesstimate of a 4X IGH figure for world wide use if "IGH" also includes bicycles with single speed (with or without coaster brake) hubs as well as hubs with multiple internal speeds.

cyccommute 

No mechanism is "maintenance free". They might require less maintenance but not zero maintenance. And the other parts of the bike require the same maintenance as any bicycle does. If IGH is widely used in the US, I would expect to see at least a few with bearing issues, chain issues, cable issues, and brake issues.

On the other hand, people might be buying lots and lots of these bikes but finding the limitations and just putting them in the garage.

Single speed hubs with and without coaster brakes aren't internally geared. A single speed coaster brake may look like an IGH but they don't have any gears in the hub.

cyccommute 

All of the bikes described in the Wikipedia article are single speed. Again, a single speed bike is not an IGH bike.

FiftySix

Eeeet was a joke. I have a "maintenance free" IGH and I've done maintenance on it.

livedarklions

I would definitely consider single speed a separate category--there's no internal gear, just one external.

ETA--I see @cyccommute beat me to that point.

I would guess world-wide that single gear probably is the most common type, but they're considerably cheaper and simpler than IGH.

livedarklions

Last one I had was probably about 33 years ago. I'd need a refresher in how to get the back wheel on and off to change a tire. I seem to recall removing a nut to disconnect a cable from a small chain, but it may be a false memory.

FiftySix

Depends on the IGH. The cable disconnect procedure for my Nexus 8 is like shown in the video below. Easy Breezy.

Kapusta

I am not sure of the actual numbers, but consider that in much of the world, bicycles are used for urban transportation, and IGH is the standard for that.

All of the bike share bikes I am familiar with are IGH. That's a lot of bikes. Also, look at the bikes people are riding around in cycling-heavy areas like Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Good luck finding an RD, and I do not think they are all SS.

livedarklions

Aren't the largest share of bikes, by far, located in Asia? How common are IGH bikes there?

Also, just for clarification, I think that 4x number would have to be confined to adult bikes. Single speed kid bikes are a dime a dozen.

I-Like-To-Bike

Note that it is not necessary to disconnect the shifting cable in order to remove the tire or tube.

There is enough slack in the cable assembly to remove tire/ or tube after loosening the axle nuts and sliding the wheel forward and out of the frame slots. Just did it this morning on my bicycle with a Nexus 8 in order to remove the tube and patch a slow leak.

FiftySix

My N8 shifter cable is held to the chainstay with two cable mounts. In my case, there's not much slack to work with.

livedarklions

This is more like I remember, but the old ones had a funny-shaped nut with a hole on the side, as I recall:


Oh, here's the funny nut:

CrankyOne

IIRC the 4x number officially came from an article in BikeBiz about 2 years ago but it is generally known in the industry. I do not believe it includes single speed backpedal brake hubs but I could be mistaken. At the time the most prevalent bicycle was a 3-speed which surprised me as I'd think a single speed backpedal would be most prevalent. Saying that they are rare because you've never seen one in the U.S. is like saying that you went to a local lake and didn't see any sand so sandy beaches don't exist.

BTW, for repairing a rear tyre. Best is to just loosen the tyre on one side and pull the tube out where it needs to be patched (without removing the wheel), patch it, stick it back in. Takes about 5 minutes total. Next is a removable rear triangle such as on many Workcycles. Third is probably to use a spreader to spread the stays enough to squeeze the old tube or tyre out and slide the new one in. Last option is to remove the wheel.

FiftySix

Excellent point.

cyccommute 

I didn't say they "don't exist". I said that they aren't all that prevalent. You said "The bikes we use for daily transportation all have IGH." I still don't know who this "we" is. Is it you and your family or are you implying that people who use bicycles for daily transportation all use IGH. If it is the former, then it is the same as your analogy. If it is the later, your statement just isn't true.

And, again, if a bike has a coaster brake or if it is a single speed, it isn't an IGH. The only gear on the hub is external to the hub. There are no internal gears.

livedarklions

I just did a search at the BikeBiz website, and I can't find any such article. Sorry, but the vaguely recalled source of a "fact" that is "common knowledge" has all the hallmarks of an urban legend.

I'm mostly skeptical because IGH is pretty much the most expensive category, and no one's citing anywhere but northern Europe. Not exactly the most populous area in the world.

Happy Feet

Sorry but no.

First or easiest is to remove the area of tube on one side, patch and repair while wheel remains on bike IF you know where the puncture is and the cause is easily removed. This is sometimes called the Dutch method.

However, if the cause is unknown, as is often the case, it's a royal pita to try to rotate and work on a tube while the whole thing is pulled out of the tire (in order to find the source of the flat). At that point it is easier to remove the wheel so you can feel inside the tire for the offending sharp object while making note of where the tube and tire line up. Avid cyclists often carry a spare tube and just swap that out so they can patch the punctured tube later at their leisure, not on the side of the road. But if you don't find the source of the initial puncture you may just wind up with a secondary flat in short order.

To remove the wheel the easiest method is to have a quick release skewer, not a removable triangle or spreaders for the stays - I've actually never heard of that before. With Al or CF you will probably crack the stays and with steel that procedure is called cold setting, usually done for about 5mm or so to fit a modern hub into an old school frame.

I-Like-To-Bike

Finding where the tube needs to be patched sometimes requires removal of the tube first so it can be pumped up and taken to a place where it can be immersed in water to find the leak through the bubbles created by the leak. It would be very hard to find a slow leaker without the bubble test, like the one I fixed this morning that had taken at least 3 days after pumping to feel that the tire pressure was getting lower.

FiftySix

In the areas I ride, the biggest threat to tires is nails and screws. So, the flat is very easy to find compared other sources of flats.

Because of sheer mileage and the quantity of cars under my care (family) I repair far more automotive flats than bicycle flats. 20 car tires (not including spares) versus 6 bicycle tires here. I have a slow leaker (1.5 weeks) on my daughter's car that I can't find even with a soapy water search. Then last night I roll out of the driveway in my car and my right rear tire is all the way flat. I'll be pulling that tire off in a bit to put a plug in it. Arrrgh.

Edit to add: Found a drywall screw AND a finishing nail in the right rear tire. Two high effort plug installations and it's holding air.

Kapusta

That would make sense as that is where the largest share of people are.

Some skimming of street photos from China and India yielded me almost no RDs on bikes that I could make out if there was one. Also, consider the incredible number of bike share bikes there. I have never seem an RD on one.

Now maybe these are mostly SS? Maybe. But if even a fraction are geared, that is a lot of bikes.

This should not be surprising. Again, consider why bike share bikes are mostly (if not all) IGH. Most bikes in the world are left outside, see next to zero maintenance, and are ridden by people who are as interested in the mechanics of the bike as they are about the buses they ride. They don’t spend time on Bike Forum learning how to diagnose and fix shifting issues.

livedarklions

OK, but a good SS can be had for less than the cost of an IGH by itself, so I think it's quite likely that the vast majority of the bikes are SS.

That said, I think there'd have to be some definitions of "IGH bikes in the world". Right now, I suspect there's a very large percentage of that number laying in bicycle graveyards in China due to bikeshare tulipomania. If most of those are IGH, then the numbers get skewed by a bunch of rotting bikes.