I have melted a pair of brake pads to the rim on a long steep twisty downhill on a blistering hot day (from 5000' to sea level in 5 miles). I replaced them at the bottom. Took 10 minutes. The days of blowing tires off the rim from heat are long gone with the advent of hooked rims. Oh, I suppose you could do it if you really tried, but it's also fairly easy to allow the wind to help with braking by sitting up, and pulsing the brakes to let the rim cool.

My ultimate touring grouppo is one that's easy to work on, ubiquitous and rugged. Suntour power-ratchet bar-end shifters, Deore LX derailleurs, 7 or 8-speed cassette, Deore LX hubs, Mavic A719 rims, Alpine spokes, canti brakes, Sugino XD600 crank. (OK, the canti brakes are just a nod to retro-grouchhood. Vee's would be fine too).

And another thing:
Folks who have to commute in the rain have to replace rims because of the wear from the road grit, I'd rather replace a disc than a rim.

Furthermore:
Hydraulic disc brakes are just plain better (whatever that means).

Finally:
Your dog's ugly too -- ;o)

Cheers, Joe

I tried to restore some sanity when I posted this, ... ...

But that obviously did not work.

If they are a bonehead who drags their brakes all the time which is also the only way that you are going to melt a brake pad or overheat a wheel enough to blow a tire off. I commute all year, mountain bike and tour and I have had (maybe) two rims that died due to brake track wear. That's over 35+ years of riding. The brake pads I used for 1200 miles in the Appalachia with 86,000 feet of descending could probably make three or four more trips before they need replacing. Brakes should be used sparingly and effectively rather then just clamped on at the top of a hill and white knuckled to the bottom.

Do you own a set of bicycle hydraulics? I do. Not impressed.

I don't have a dog.

I still think the mix is the way to go. I have never been 100% sold on one gruppo.

My ultimate touring/commuter group would be:

Shifters: Shimano 105 5700
FD: Shimano 105 5700
Crank: VO 46/30
RD: Shimano 9sp XT
Cass: Shimano or SRAM 11-36 10sp
Brakes: TRP Spyre 160r/180f
Wheels: Velocity Touring Disc -- Synergy rims, DT DB spokes, brass nipples, Velocity hubs

For touring with the above, spares I'd bring along would include Shimano DA 10sp bar end shifter set, brake pads.

Two alt setups would be:

1) As above, except Avid Ultimate Cantis
2) As above, except TRP Hylex brake levers, Shimano DA bar end shifters (perhaps mounted on Paul Thumbies)

What has me laughing hysterically in this thread is all the people basing equipment use on worst possible disaster scenario. Breakdowns are an excellent opportunity for getting to know places and people you'd otherwise not, and provide fodder for good stories. I'd not hesitate to chuck the drivetrain above for a Rohloff, but I'm not at all sure it would be substantially better.

Bizzarro ultimate touring setup:

Schlumpf 2sp crank, Sturmey Archer 3sp rear hub w/ 90mm drum brake, Sturmey Archer 90mm front drum brake/dynamo hub...

Either way, it involves a new wheel, which was the point.

BS. People buy what's available. If the US consumers had the same bikes readily available for purchase that people have in places where the typical person rides often, you'd see more people riding in the US.

Funny how it's getting increasingly popular as it's becoming increasingly available.

You have no reason to believe you're seeing a representative sample of bicyclists. You're also ignoring three speeds, despite the fact that they're IGHs. Remember, the plural of anecdote is not data.

The good old appeal to authority logical fallacy. Gotta love it!

Did you have a relevant point to make? It only appears that I abandoned logic because I applied the same "logic" as you did, to illustrate its absurdity.

There is clearly no such consensus.

Its kind of funny, when this thread first started I was thinking about suggesting something like this. But I did not want to start a big debate, and I don't use it myself. I have been looking at the those hubs and sort of daydreaming about it though, even to the point of starting to sell some stuff to fund it.
I ride with vintage SA AW hubs laced into 27s or 700c bikes all the time, and have thought about touring with them. As I agree on the adventure aspect of a breakdown, I have wondered about how easy it would be to locate a bike with an AW in it, and swapping the guts or even just one part if it failed. Even if you could not find a donor hub Harris cyclery sells parts and is just a phone call away. But I like to tinker with AWs, and not everyone enjoys working on the simplest IG hub ever made like I do.

As to the reliability of the more expensive modern hubs, just as a few cited journals and experiences cant be made to speak for all of them in use, I am hoping that a few posters here who seem devoted to them don't speak to the overall personalities of all of the users of these hubs.

Cool. I dig this setup. I really like keeping the bar-end shifters in your pannier as a backup. I don't particularly see the merit of brifters on a touring rig, but if I were to use brifters, having a 10sp shifter in hand for an accident seems like a super simple solution. When my bar-end shifters wear out (or fade in my eyes) I'll keep them as spares just like this.

Good idea!

People buy what their peers are riding. Not too many people riding IGH bikes. At the moment, there are more IGH bikes for sale than ever. Most people don't buy them, while similar style derailleur drivetrain bikes sell well.


It is not getting more popular. It might get more press, but that does not mean actual sales. Trek did a full court press with IGH bikes not too long ago, now they have dropped most of their IGH models. Because they didn't sell.


If a shop or co-op is not seeing a representative sample of bicyclists, I don't know who is. Even 3sp IGH bikes don't sell well, if at all. We sell Electra Townies in 8sp IGH, 3sp IGH, 7sp der, and 21sp der configurations. Descending sales order is: 7 (by far), 21, 3, 8 -- 21d + 3i + 8i sales < 7d sales...


Where are you getting your statistics and bicycle ownership/ridership data from?

I used to have that problem. I'd also sweat like a pig in the lightest of high tech rain shells.

Now I pace myself when commuting. Just a nice 13 mph average speed. No sprinting from lights. Try to lay off the brakes.

It's been a long time since I've replaced a rim. Of course I have a handful of bikes to spread the love around with, so that helps, but they're all rim-braked and I ride a lot on gritty, wet roads.

Jaywalk3r is trolling, nobody is this dense. He's just making a scene ignore him and he'll disappear.

When I had to get into one for repairs, I had it all laid out on the bench and my first thought was, "Wow, that's all there is to it?!? What a brilliant, simple system!" And also, find me a 40 yr old unmaintained derailleur equipped bike on which the shifting can be brought back to life as easily as a 60 yr old unmaintained AW-equipped bike...

See, I think most tourers and especially potential tourers overthink things a bit much, especially where "But what if my [insert part here] breaks when I'm in the middle of nowhere?!?" And for some reason, with the touring crowd, brifters are seen as some kind of fragile thing prone to blowing up at the worst possible moment. All while ignoring roadies who get tens of thousands of miles on a pair of shifters... If I was touring North America, Europe, parts of Asia, Australia, etc., I wouldn't even bring backup shifters. Brifters are awesome because in the most used handlebar position -- out on the hoods -- you've got shifting and braking at your fingertips, no hands off the handlebars shifting necessary, as with bar ends.

Don't get me wrong, commuted with bar end shifters for a number of years, but next mod for my commuter is brifters...

If no one was buying them, then international companies wouldn't be making more models available.

Then you don't know who is.

There exist many bicyclists who do not utilize co-ops. Some people only go to bike shops. Some people do all of their own repairs. Some people only let their friends do their repair work. Co-ps are not going to provide a representative sample.

Further, not all bikes require the same amount of maintenance, so we can't look at repairs to figure out what people are riding, at least not without controlling for a many other variables.

Ah, the old "I can't defend my position and have nothing relevant to add, so I'll accuse my opponent of trolling" ploy.

+ 1.

Trek dropped most of their USA available IGH bikes. They sold very much less than their derailleur equipped bikes. Derailleur equipped bikes are still a vast majority of bikes sold by international companies. Breezer went back to derailleur drivetrain bikes. Spot Bikes make sure their mtn bikes can be derailleur-equipped and sells complete derailleur drivetrain bikes alongside their belt-drive IGH models.

You had someone from a co-op tell you that IGH bikes are not popular and I work in in a regular shop... where IGH bikes are not popular. And I'm a fan who as a salesman will try to sell the heck out of IGH bikes. They are an uphill, tough sell to most consumers. And we don't see that many in for repair. I am the IGH-repair-guy in the shop, served a similar role in the shop before that, and I can tell you that people riding IGH bikes are few and far between. And don't even try to tell me that it's because IGH hubs need less maintenance -- the rest of the bike needs just as much as derailleur equipped bikes and IGHs are not maintenance free.

Shimano repair instruction for Nexus and Alfine 8+ speed hub repair: "Replace internal gear assembly." No small parts available via separate parts numbers... They also recommend an annual disassembly and dip service, which is substantially more involved than an annual tune up on a derailleur equipped bike.

You missed two important points. First, international. I know we Americans like to think that the USA is the whole world, but it really isn't. Second, increasing popularity does not imply more popular, so comparing sales of IGH bikes to derailer bikes isn't meaningful.

And neither of those people has any valid reason to believe that they are seeing a representative sample of cyclists, or even US cyclists.

duplicate post

Who cares about fixing it! The back-up plan is to just Fed-Ex a new one anyways, right?