Internal gear hubs - sleeper trend

They add a ton of unsprung weight to the rear wheel, fine for touring bikes, less fine for FS mtbs

There were a couple of integrated gearbox/motor makers at eurobike. Orange were showing an intradrive one that fits in a standard shimano motor mount

I'd agree with you Re: fs bikes. I wouldn't want one on mine.

Gearbox the way to go for those.

I'd want an IGH for my mud bike.

Do they @tomhoward ?

An SLX 12sp cassette gives a 510% gear ratio, The mech is 316g, the cassette is 534g and the hub 320g (Hope pro4 MS). So the complete package is 1170g. The 14sp hub from Kindernay gives 543% gear range and is 1400g. So only 230g (probably 200g after shorter spokes) difference in weight, for more range and even jumps between gears...

And a detrimental effect on suspension performance.

What’s the cost of that setup? Normally, looking at IGHs, the cost is comparable to the spendier (and lighter) end of the market.

That's a fair point if your metric is only cost, but the hub needs a service after 5000km and the drivetrain needs replaced. £1200 for the hub/shifter vs £500 for the SLX+Hub drivetrain/shifter, so you'll get 4 drivetrains out of it for the same price. An XTR drivetrain will save you 250g, but will cost you 3x the price.

Curious - Why is it detrimental to suspension performance?

I like gear hubs. They make a bike look much sleeker and cleaner. But, I'll never have the kind of bike I would use one on. Unless I have some kind of epiphany and suddenly need to ride a touring bike along canal paths and stuff.

I'm much more interested in e-bike and gearbox people combining their knowledge to make rowdy enduro machines with zero derailleurs.

Curious – Why is it detrimental to suspension performance?

It's unsprung weight.

So every time it goes over an impact it has to transfer your forwards kinetic energy into vertical kinetic energy, which the compression damper has to absorb, then the spring of the damper pushes it back down and the rebound damper has to absorb that energy.

You get the opposite effect riding a singlespeed, the rear wheel feels like it both tracks the ground better (because it's able to move up and down rapidly without the extra weight) and also bounces over larger impacts easier rather than hitting them with a thud.

Why is it detrimental to suspension performance?

It takes more force to move more unsprung mass through the travel. (A very simplistic description).

I think its going to be the future of E bikes.

My experience of Hub gears ( a couple of alfines and two Nuvincis) is that they feel like the bog down a bit under load.

Great on a pavement bike (not chasing watts) but if you turn it up hill and go down the lower gear i feel like the gears are really loading up against each other, and quite a lot of effort is going in to overcoming gear train friction.

If you can stick in 1:1 (direct drive) then the are super efficient, except things like the alfine, even 1:1 isnt actually driect drive (as i understand it), so there is no where in the range free of "bog"

For all its dingly dangly, a direct chain is always going to be more efficient.

Not an issue on ebikes, pavement bikes, or cargo bike like we have though. The motor and weight of two kids covers up any inefficiencies.

I love the look of that orange. If i was in the market for an ebike that would be high on my list.
Perhaps by the time i am, it will be "a thing" properly.

The most useful metric when it comes to gear boxes for me would be

Is it at the sturmey archer end of drag (ie negligible - but unsealed)

Or rohloff end. - heaps of drag ? (Now Measured with a crank based power meter on my bike compared to my xtr drive train) as noted above it's almost bearable if you are not pressing on but when your pushing hard and the power output goes up - the variance of watts for given speed diverges quite fast.

I could cope with a bit of extra weight if they could eliminate the drag.

Is 200g of tyre weight noted to be detrimental? Was is noticeable when we went from 26" to 29"?

Not at all trying to be annoying - just curious.

I had a hub gear on several tourers/commuters and I didn't like the concentration of weight and increase in drag, but when compared to a 1*MTB drivetrain...those two things ae less pronounced.

Why weight on the rear wheel is bad:

Youve got the ~3kg rear wheel, rear triangle etc. moving around controlled/damped by the shock, and then a ~15kg bike moving around controlled/damped by your ~80kg body.
Theres two "independent" mechanisims in series there. The bigger the 3kg gets compared to the 15kg, the harder it is to control by the rider.

Yes, but the DIFFERENCE in weight is only 200g. When we went from 3X>2X>1X and all the weight became concentrated at the rear of the bike, I don't remember people moaning too much about the shift in weight concentration being detrimental to suspension performance.

Is 200g of tyre weight noted to be detrimental? Was is noticeable when we went from 26″ to 29″?

For the same sized wheel, yeah. Larger diameter wheels offer advantages, such as not hooking up as easily, so the difference is less noticeable.

On drag. Independent testing as discussed on a previous thread showed a rohloff to be only marginally more drag than a conventional drivetrain. 2%.

Now if you aree racing that counts. But for the rest of us does it really matter?

I think the perception of drag is worse than the reality

Unsprung and rearword weight bias is much more significant for the gnarly riders.

I will trade that for the reliability and longevity and it takes me around 5 years for the reduced maintenance costs to pay back the capital outlay

I've got a bike with a Rohloff. Totally brilliant for what I bought it for, an all year round off road commute. Chain and rear sprocket last 3 years and a chainring 6. Oil change once a year and never clean it. Chain just gets a bit more oil put on it every so often. Currently that's some old gearbox oil I have lying around. I think it's around 15 years old now.

They are simply unbeatable for certain roles but in most cases for most people they probably aren't the best option. The best ones are expensive and some people seem to feel the drag though I don't really notice it.

The integrated motor and gearbox for ebikes seems like a blindingly obvious route to go down, I'm guessing that the reason it hasn't been the norm from the beginning is that manufactures like to use what's already out there and tested, existing electric motors with a few adaptations and existing drive trains

I think the perception of drag is worse than the reality

My power meter is not a perception 😉

Seemed to be about 15 watts at 300watts.

Was alot closer to 2% at 200 watts mind

Both done on the same bike as that's how I built it because I listened to people who said the drag wasn't a thing and it was just the perception due to the noise. Turns out singlespeedstu was the only one who was right about it 😉

Measurements Suggests drag is proportional to power. So are considerably more suited to touring than MTB where short bursts of power are more frequent than touring which is just bimbling at low hr /power all day.

Didn't bother measuring my alfine because it has a whole lot of other issues besides the drag such as lack of range. Being a pig to set up quickly and a bolt through axle.

I don’t remember people moaning too much about the shift in weight concentration being detrimental to suspension performance.

It was the reason I skipped 11s entirely as 10s was still available.

I went 12s because there weren't any real viable alternatives. And while the gearing is nice, the weight in the back wheel is noticeable, especially when I take it off to SS it.

And to keep the weight sensible we went from an XT 10s cassette weighting 270g and costing £40? To XX1 weighting 360g but costing £380! Even NX costs substantially more than XT did, and weighs a whopping 630g! Which illustrates quite how seriously people will take shedding weight in that area of the bike, it's more than £300 price difference to still weigh 100g more than 10s.

A few years back I smashed my rear mech. Took it and the chain off and rode down (a fairly rough and challenging descent). For a few minutes that was the best riding bike I have ever sat on.

5spd di2 IGH with automatic shifting working nicely for me.

5spd di2 IGH with automatic shifting working nicely for me.

Ever take it off any sweet jumps.....

Only joking. Cargo bikes are ideal candidates for igh have one on ours albe it a sturmey 3 speed (with a 9speed cassette on outside)

Interesting trailrat. That would be logical that drag goes up exponentially as power increases. I wonder what my power output is bimbling along

Nuvinci is the most draggy by far. Alfines poor as well

My IGH drag was definitely more than 2%. Maybe if I was continually in 6th (mid gear) it would be fine, but I was usually in 9th-11th and it was much closer to 10% effect on speed.

I ran a back to back test - same bike, same everything except 1*11 Di2 and Alfine Di2 over 2 weeks of commuting, the 1*11 was 2.75kph faster over the total distance. Part of that is weight, part drag. But I found that on the flat, it was VERY noticeable how much more I had to pedal with the IGH than with the cassette/mech.

A few years back I smashed my rear mech. Took it and the chain off and rode down (a fairly rough and challenging descent). For a few minutes that was the best riding bike I have ever sat on.

That was mainly because you were chainless, not due to the lower weight.

Daffy. Alfines are much more draggy when tested than rohloffs. Even I could feel it

Lets remember the is an Alfine 8 and an Alfine 11, which both work differently & can be maintained differently.

I'm running an Alfine 8 on a 20" wheel and there is perceived drag but its my city bike so I'm not trying to set any records and the lack of maintenance is far more beneficial. I ran an Alfine 8 off road on different bikes, I was still middle of the pack when riding Vs when I had a rear mech setup.

I always find it funny when people are "I wont ride IGH because the drag makes it too hard" and also "I wont ride an ebike because the motor makes it too easy"

I'm going to try a full local cx season on Sturmey 3 speed this year so will report back how it goes. Did one hilly race like that last year and it was surprisingly good. I've already built an "uncloggable" frame, and the next logical step is to make a drivetrain that can't jam up (courses are too mixed fast and slow for singlespeed to be competitive). I suspect the biggest issue will be long term trashing of the badly sealed bearings and innards. In our league Vet men have now been lumped in last race of the day with seniors so the courses are always trashed by then.

I'm commuting 20 miles each way on an early Alfine 8. That is noticeably draggy on the climbs, but the route is filthy 5 months of the year so willing to overlook it. With the extra drag from hub dynamo, mudguards and Marathon plus tyres I'm surprised I even move forward 🙂 Otherwise OK apart from gear 4 has developed an occasional crunch / slip so it can't be fully trusted standing on hills (think that is more to do with the now unreadable indexing marks so hard to get cable 100% correct).

Didn't someone on here machine out the bearing surfaces on a Sturmey Archer and replace them with cartridge bearings?

It was probably Mick - that's the kinda guy he is.

Think he had subsequent issues with something breaking in the hub under high load riding.

That’s really interesting about the drag increasing exponentially.
My mate has an alfine 11 equipped tourer, while I’ve always used derailleurs.
When i ride his bike, it feels draggy to me, not massively, but it’s definitely there.
He doesn’t notice it.
However, we do have different riding/pedalling styles, he tends to go along at a fairly steady power output and pedals at all times unless he’s braking.
I tend to do short bursts of (guess) considerably more power, then coast for a bit.
Could this be why some folks notice the drag more than others?

I've been running a Nexus 3-speed with drum brakes and solid tyres on my city bike. It's like riding through custard, although it's bedded in a bit over a thousand miles or two, so now it's just like riding through a moderately deep puddle.

I certainly think there is something that alters perceptions. Is it riding style? Power output cadence or are folk like me just insensitive clods?

If you have an old alfine 8 i found mine markedly improved with a dumk.in atf

My 4th gear crunches only started after atf dunk - I think more because the gunged up innards were suddenly free to move again 😀.

The soft feeling but silent roller clutches also play a part in the perception that Alfines are absorbing power. The Sturmey feels much more direct, but is then spoilt by constant tick tick tick of pawls.

i ride a rohloff equipped bike. bought it 18 month ago as a super commuter. then i retired, but ride it all the time. 8000 miles on it now with not a single problem.

cons = it does drag a bit i reckon. but is not noticed by me. less so when riding offroad where drag also comes from surface.
it is a touch noisier in 1 to 7 but silent in 8 to 14.
a better shifter design would be ace.

pros = it is maintenance free.
the ability to change gear whilst stood still is awesome.
it is no heavier than my 1x10 mtb.

Could this be why some folks notice the drag more than others?

I think it's just that if you're used to it, and don't have a truly comparable frame of reference, it's just an unnoticed part of riding. I used to commute on an alfine for around 55km each day and it was just riding, and on those rare days when it was dry and a grabbed another bike, I assumed the zip and fun and speed just came from the lightness, lack of guards/racks, novelty, etc. It wasn't until I ran a back2back comparison on the same bike, just swapping the rear wheel and adding a derailleur/chain that I noticed the difference. Weight would still have been a part of that, it took almost 1kg from the rear of the bike.

And another option...

3x3

Turns out singlespeedstu was the only one who was right about it 😉

I gave up caring when I sold my Rohloff.
I've got better things to do than argue with TJ.😏

TraIlrats data gives me a good clue. Not only do I not feel the drag bimbling along but there isnt much. Smashing it the % drag increases so fast riders actually have a higher % drag to the point it is much more noticeable.

Im just fascinated by things where different folk have very different perceptions.

Nuvinci is the most draggy by far.

Like pedalling through custard 😆
Gets worse the lower the 'gear' (though there are no gears as such as it's infinitely variable).
Interesting idea, and probably great on a pedal assist commuter, but not offroad!

Thread resurrection

The Kindernay VII hub looks brilliant. A good bit lighter than a Rohloff, better shifting options, proper thru axle compatibility, and potentially lower drag -- like always being in the smoother top 7 gears of a Rohloff (I can't find any info on this though, aside from an embargoed Norweigen masters thesis)

Also has about the range of a 11-46t cassette, which is plenty for me albeit less than a Rohloff, and the gear steps are large (of course) given there's only 7

Does anyone have one?

not enough difference to make any odds. Quick google gives complete Rohloff weight up to 1825g and Kinderley 1750.

I really liked the reliability, low maintenance and 'nothing to smash on rocks' of running a Rohloff but didn't like the change in weight balance, the impact on the suspension and the corresponding increase in pinch flats and dinged rims.

For touring or commuting I'd go with hub gear every time but for off road use on anything rocky or techy (ie anything other than bridleway bimbling) a gearbox is the way to go.

Nuts that Chain Reaction are selling a 3-speed internal hub gear hydraulic brake hybrid for £260, would make a great commuter and/or pootler with a sprocket change to approx 22T, if living in a hilly area.

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/p/vitus-mach-1-three-nexus?color=graphite&sizeStandard=L

@b33k34 I think you've looked up the weight for the Kindernay 14 speed hub -- the 7 speed is a good bit lighter than a Rohloff

Edit: may be I'm wrong. I thought the Kindernay 14 was a touch lighter than the Rohloff, and the 7 a few hundred grams lighter than that

https://www.cyclingabout.com/kindernay-vii-gearbox-hub/

From that link, the Kindernay 7 is only 200g heavier than a Deore 1x12 setup if you ignore the shifter and cables (and assuming you don't need a tensioner with the hub -- I'm thinking of hardtails here)

With a belt drive, the weight would prob be tied

Gearbox makes more sense with a full sus, with a hardtail I'm not so sure. The slow engagement of a Pinion + freehub isn't ideal

Google reckons the Kindernay is just shy of €1200 (but also out of stock)...

So it's about 10x the cost of a basic 1x10 derailleur setup and while it has approximately the same range, fewer increments means bigger jumps between gears, and it's heavier

So it still kinda falls down on most metrics apart from the removing a dangler thing that lots of people are very fixated on...

I had another look at this

Weight for the hub alone is 1700g for the Rohloff, and 1320g for the Kindernay VII (including the spoke shell to be combarable)

The sprocket, lockring, torque arm, and external gear mech together add perhaps another 200g to each (may be less for the Kindernay, as the external mech could be lighter)

So accounting for everything that's at the rear axle, that puts the weight of the Rohloff at ~1900g and the Kindernay VII at 1520g

By comparison, an SLX boost hub, 10-51t cassette, and rear mech total ~1200g and the same in Deore weigh ~1350g

As for the rest, the shifter and cables add at least 300g to the Rohloff (assuming the standard twist shifter and light-weight cables), and a little less to the Kindernay (I think the weight cyclingabout quotes includes the external mech, which I already added above)

A Deore/SLX may save 100g here due to needing only one cable

@cookeaa, the thing about cost is it's hard to compare, partly as a well-made gear hub could last 100,000km, and partly as depreciation is low

My Rohloff cost me about £600 second hand, which was a bargain (I found older ones than mine going for £700-800) on eBay.

So if I want to sell mine in 5 years time, I'll likely get the same back for if (or more given inflation -- it's probably a better investment than a bank account...)

I've no idea how much a secondhand Kindernay would go for

Also, can you really find a hub, shifter, mech and cassette for £120?

To go off at a bit of a tangent...

I recently acquired an Alfine 11 for my commuting bike. It has big racks on it for shopping, etc. - not quite a cargo bike, but it can take a pretty heavy load. I'm currently running 42/20 gearing on it, but it could do with a lower gear for heavy loads on hills.

I hadn't thought about it before, but gearing it lower means you're putting more torque through the hub and Shimano specify a lower limit of 1.8 (2 on the Alfine 8). Rohloff seems to be 1.9. Based on my current gearing, that doesn't seem like masses of extra headroom so I'm wondering how that works with cargo bikes where presumably you need massive gearing to start with a big load?

That may be a limit with the Alfine, but prob not the Rohloff

The lowest Alfine gear reduces to 53% of the actual cog ratio, but the lowest Rohloff reduces to 28%

Ah ok, fair point about the Rohloff.
<p style="text-align: left;">But a couple of people up there before the thread resurrection mentioned using SA 3s and Nexus(?) 5s IGHs on cargo bikes. Lowest ratio on the Nexus 5 is direct drive, but recommended gearing is 1.3-1.5, so presumably less gears=beefier gears=can take more torque. But you'd need a primary ratio of 1 to get the same as the lowest recommended ratio on an Alfine 11 (1.9x0.527~=1).</p>

the thing about cost is it’s hard to compare, partly as a well-made gear hub could last 100,000km

Trouble is it costs 1200+ quid to find out if that 'could' is a 'does'.

Also, can you really find a hub, shifter, mech and cassette for £120?

Yep I reckon so. I'd perhaps not factored in a hub but mech/cassette/chain/ring/shifter can be done for that sort of budget if you shop about.

Plus a shifter could well last for 3 or 4 mechs, similarly a mech will out last several cassettes and chains, the differential wear rate of parts in a conventional drivetrain can be seen as a bit of a strength.

That said a sturmey archer 3 speed will last 40+ years, it's just not quite got the range of the newer options...

I had a Roholf for a good while.

They have there place.

I do regret selling it on a tiny bit as one of the main points of paying out is that it last ages and thus saves drivetrain wear costs!

But I now wax my chains as I have more time so that issue has gone recently.

It was on a on road bike,  You could feel the drag  which was only an issue on a ride that had meaning, I.e an event / audax.

For a commuter it was fab, esp in winter.

Shifting was an issue , esp if riding in a group, no one following had that second sense view of seeing gear changes ,

It was hard to maintain momentum changing down on a hil, not great in a group either.

I think a new range of shifters now available , they were coming out as I sold my bike on, but they were costly.

The Classified hub looks an interesting concept for loaded gravel=touring bikes.

A modern take on  3x ranging of gears

Still not a full 3x range but I watch their development,  but very pricy as well.

Edit:

The low  range gear was good., I can see them being a benefit on cargo bikes with the shifting while stationary.

A bike packing trip, did mean begging to put the bike inside the hostel, when it snowed and a sevre overnight  frost, the gears shifter had a tendancy to freeze!

I never really manged to ever stop that happening
<p style="text-align: right;"></p>

Trouble is it costs 1200+ quid to find out if that ‘could’ is a ‘does’.

So the same price as the new GX groupset, which won't last close to 100,000k

I'm not trying to argue that a top-end gear hub is the cheapest way to gear a bike. Only that it most likely costs about the same as a mid range gear set up, given the typical lifetimes

Plus cost isn't the main thing here. It's maintenance (I rode traditional gear set-ups for 20 years; I'm done with them), and material consumption in general. I like technologies that prioritise durability but still perform well, partly for environmental reasons, partly as I just find them satisfying

Edit: also if you shop around for a gear hub, you can pick up a second hand Rohloff for £600, that's basically just broken in (what I did)

^ that Soma is lovely, you have posted pics before. The kind of bike I am saving for...

Thank's Matt 🙂

On gears, if I can be bothered, I may set up a spreadsheet to make a rough estimate of the amount of steel, aluminium, and plastic required per 1,000 miles to run external and internal gear systems

That Soma looks really nice.

I think the problem with your spreadsheet is that you have to find a way to accommodate the fact that 'trad' gearing out sells gearboxes by, I dunno, millions*  of units maybe. If you take into account all the sub Deore and SRAM SX/NX bikes which outside of the world of this forum are pretty high end groupsets, For every speedhub sold, the factory out-churn of generic no-name stamped derailleurs that will go on bikes that will last 20 years is pretty much endless.

* certainly hundreds of thousands

The UK is a bit of an outlier.   Most of Europe hub gears are common.  100 000km is a very low amount for a rohloff - they should do ten times that or more.  Takes 10000 km + just to run them in.  Chains and sprockets last a long time as well

You either care about the wee bit drag and weight or you don't.  They ain't for racing thats for sure ( apart from on tandems) but if you do lots of miles in all weathers then the sheer consistency and reliability wins.  Last years 3000 mile tour I broke a split link and putolined the chain once.  thats the sum of drivetrain maintenence and even the chain has loads of life left.

Well, I just bought a Kindernay 7

I've got 4 years of work in Switzerland and I would have been mad to keep my single speed

I hope it turns out to be as reliable as a Rohloff

I think the problem with your spreadsheet is that you have to find a way to accommodate the fact that ‘trad’ gearing out sells gearboxes by, I dunno, millions* of units maybe. If you take into account all the sub Deore and SRAM SX/NX bikes which outside of the world of this forum are pretty high end groupsets, For every speedhub sold, the factory out-churn of generic no-name stamped derailleurs that will go on bikes that will last 20 years is pretty much endless.

Ah, fair point. If I do it, I'll do so for a typical trail/XC bike with a midrange groupset

So the same price as the new GX groupset, which won’t last close to 100,000k

Well a full GX AXS group maybe, assuming you wandered into a shop with the word 'MUG' stamped on your forehead... But that will at least weigh less, have more clicks and be more efficient in line with the market it's being sold to, you pays your money, etc...

I'm not against hub gears, I own a couple, but I really see their natural home more as utility bikes not Road/Gravel/MTB bikes where a level of performance is desired. A £1200 hub with a handful of gears and 100k mile design life makes perfect sense on some yoghurt weaving hipster's Cargo bike where it's going to be largely neglected, put under significant loads and passed from Shuttling Hermione and Hugo to delivering baked goods and eventually sold on to a keen uber eats operator over the course of 25-30 odd years.

But for Billy IT manager who want's low weight, the ability to access, maintain and replace drive parts and to allow for suspension movements a gear dangler still makes good sense. It's mostly edge cases (and edge lords) that seem to be seriously into the idea of killing the derailleur...

Serious question, as I don't know any thing about rear suspension design: does the constant vertical chainline of gearhubs not allow for a better suspension design that offsets some degree of unsprung weight? (though perhaps not the weight of heavier gear hubs)

On that note, electronic gearing seems to have added a chunk of unsprung weight (GX AXS mech is 150g heavier than the cable version)

As for performance, I'll report back on the Kinderney 7. They do seem to be the only IGH aimed at performance MTBs

Edit: high end Sram mechs got 200g heavier; that puts the unsprung weight much closer to a light IGH

https://r2-bike.com/SRAM-XX-Eagle-Transmission-AXS-Derailleur-12-speed
https://r2-bike.com/SRAM-XX1-Rear-Derailleur-Black-11-speed-Type-21-X-Horizon

The UK is a bit of an outlier.

This is true.
I borrowed hotel bikes in Salzburg to get around on. They came with SRAM's AutoMatix two speed auto-shifting hub on - which while not perfect was great as town bike 'singlespeed', but with more hill climbing as a two speed...

https://tegowerk.eu/posts/sram-automatix/

The UK is a bit of an outlier.

In that the rest of Europe has realised that good robust long lasting and maintenance free bikes are the best method to get around town? Yep you're spot on. There's (another) hire-bike scheme in Manchester that's looking increasingly likely to go the same way as the previous iteration - no bikes to hire and loads off the road due to massive back log of maintenance to catch up on. We seem to be so shit at this stuff it's depressing.