Advantages of a gearbox are more than minimal. Just to be offset against the disadvantages

Pro:
Bombproof reliability including no dropping chains
Able to shift numbers of gears at a time and when stationary
Do not get clogged up with mud / ice / snow
Longevity

Cons:
Less crisp gear shifting
have to ease off to change gear
Drag might bother some

Do not get clogged up with mud / ice / snow

I’ve successfully clagged up a Singlespeed drivetrain to the point it pushed the chain off. I’ve also managed the same with a tensioner before I had a proper ss frame. I can remember a very cold, wet 40 minutes spent attempting to get the belt drive back on someone’s ‘winter proof’ alfine bike after the local mud had completely locked the thing up. Everything has its failure point- the question in that regard is ‘are rear mechs good enough’ and for most people, most of the time, it appears they are.

I had an alfine 11 on my commuter for 3 years or so because I bought the pitch on hub gears. Put it this way, when it got nicked I didn’t buy another. Pretty much all of the benefits listed above were true- lower maintenance, generally pretty weatherproof etc etc. The point was that they weren’t enough of a benefit to outweigh the downsides that have also been covered above.

And…

Cons: if it does go wrong, you won’t be fixing it on the trail

I remember reading a review of a fancy gearbox-equipped enduro bike where the gearbox had failed and had to be sent back overseas.

interesting point but I don’t think you’d be able to sell a switch unless the gearbox shift was as quick and crisp as a well set up derailleur can be.

Maybe a gearbox will never be as efficient or slick as a derailleur , but it would be sold on its benefits , such as never getting damaged or knocked out of tune from trail impacts , or having a built in oil bath for the chain  , unaffected by mud , etc

and because theres always buyers who want the latest & greatest shiney stuff

====================

it seems many are just considering the short comings , and there are many , of the bike gearboxs available today , where as i’m looking ahead 5-10 years from now when someone has really got stuck into the concept with enough cash to develop real improvements

where as i’m looking ahead 5-10 years from now when someone has really got stuck into the concept with enough cash to develop real improvements

see the solution looking for a problem comments…

brownsauce

Taking the thread in  a new direction………

Although i personally think that a derailleur is currently still the most suitable device for changing gears for the majority of bikes , i also think that they have peaked from a design / development point of view

Actually that’s the direction I tried to point it in in the first place. 🙂

I have hubgears and I agree with most of the negative comments made. My favourite is the Sturmey-Archer 3 speed, light and simple, but not suitable for mtb use IMO. Alfines 8 speeds are ok, but not stellar, Rohloffs are heavy and have an unpleasant gearchange, but are robust and have a decent mtb type range.

However there’s no getting away from the almost impossibility of building a lightweight gearbox that wouldn’t be fragile in mtb use, or the imbalance of having a heavy weight on the rear wheel. I see the future of hubgears etc as being for eBikes.

Current derailleurs are light and efficient – more so when clean.

But I think there’s further development left in them for mtb.

Shaft drive anyone?

I ran an Alfine 8 for a few years with a Jtek then a Verso STI. I had it on a single cross frame and did several quite long rides on it over the 100 mile mark. Then I did the same on a bike with derailleurs. I was about 2-3 mph faster on average with mechs. I didn’t particularly mind the drag when riding, but it certainly had an impact on speed. Utility bike? Sure. Quite liked it. Recreational riding? I’d be wondering how much fresher I would be feeling at the 70 mile mark of I’d bought a cheaper*, lighter option.

*I know, I know, at the point of purchase but not over time. I’ve got more than one bike and more than one wheelset.

it seems many are just considering the short comings , and there are many , of the bike gearboxs available today , where as i’m looking ahead 5-10 years from now when someone has really got stuck into the concept with enough cash to develop real improvements

Is there a big enough incentive to invest in it without a guarantee that it would be worthwhile? It might be that e-bikes supply that, motor + a gearbox could be a sellable combination but good luck hoiking it over a wall 🙂

Ever since I got my first bike with a derailleur I wonder why they weren’t mounted on the seatstay out of the way. They are about the best compromise as an actual mechanism, they are just in the wrong place.

Okay, as someone who has ran both a hubgear and a dynamo for over 8 years and 30000+km, I’ll weigh in.

I’ve ran a Alfine 11 in one guise or another since early 2012 and a series of SA hubs long before that.

1. In mechanical form (cables) they are no more reliable than a derailleur, cable tension is critical and more frequent oil changes make-for better performance.

2. They are HEAVY! My alfine 11 gives up over 1100g to a 1×11 XTR drivetrain and its all at the rear. You can feel it, all the time.

3. They are draggy, and you can definitely feel it. This is especially true for the first 1000 miles after servicing.

4. They’re not cheap. Alfine 11, motor, shifter, battery ~ £600. XTR cassette, shifter, mech, hub, £450. You can go a whole lot cheaper and still be significantly lighter.

5. If they get damaged (and they do because they’re easy to abuse) the repair costs can be very high, sometimes requiring the hub to be replaced.

As a test, I’ve just bought a Di2 XTR rear mech and will be swapping my Alfine 11 Di2 and Exposure Revo for a set of CKs and 1*11 Di2 for this winter. That’ll be about 1500-2000km of commuting in shit weather on basically the same bike but with mechs instead of hub gears.

My suspicion is that becase of di2, the bike will behave exactly the same, but will feel much lighter and will require more maintenance.

Never had probs, they’re great on MTBs. Cheap, light (until dinner plate cassettes arrived) and a piece of piss to maintain compared to other options. Deore my favourite. Hub gears on town-utility ftw.

cromolyolly

Ever since I got my first bike with a derailleur I wonder why they weren’t mounted on the seatstay out of the way. They are about the best compromise as an actual mechanism, they are just in the wrong place.

With the modern range of gears there is so much chain slack to tension that you couldn’t really put them anywhere else other than where they are. Same goes for a seperate tensioner really.

The 7 year break even point seems a little optimistic. A 11 speed SRAM steel 10 42 seems to last and last, certainly at least 3 seasons. Chains are £12.99 at worst.

In 28 years of mountain biking I still haven’t broken a rear mech even on “fashionable” x1 (since 2009) so in my experience they are not fragile delicate parts, they’re bloody over engineered and in the case of the M8000, well out of the way. If the worse happens, they’re £50, not exactly going to break the bank.

Is there a big enough incentive to invest in it without a guarantee that it would be worthwhile? It might be that e-bikes supply that, motor + a gearbox could be a sellable combination but good luck hoiking it over a wall

The trick that has apparently been missed (or maybe not, neither are really my bag at present TBH) seems to be standardisation on a single mounting format that accommodates both Mid-drive units for Ebikes and Gear boxes in the same position (Replacing the BB with whatever box of tricks you want).
At present there seem to be several competing versions of what is basically the same thing that perform near enough the same function.

The co-ordination isn’t quite there (yet). To my mind manufacturers should be harmonizing on this one point if they want to make Ebikes AND Gear boxes economically viable to manufacture (at least the big Corp’s; Trek/SBC/Giant/etc).
Of course the marketing prize for doing it is making Derailleur based Drivetrains “Obsolete” in several subsets of the MTB market (and possibly utility bikes?) and driving some new sales… The comics would love it.

Obvious solution to the vulnerability of position is for everyone to learn to pedal backwards. Derailleur position is now above the dropout.

Job jobbed.

Recreational riding? I’d be wondering how much fresher I would be feeling at the 70 mile mark of I’d bought a cheaper*, lighter option.

This is it, for me. I don’t want to break speed records, but the more efficient your bike is the further you can ride, the faster you can get the climbs done and the more energy you can put into speed and hence thrillz. And when riding from home, a quicker bike means I can get further out and have more choice of trails (in the bigger hills) in the time available.

I had an Alfine 8 for a couple of years. I hated the squishy feeling and the drag, but loved the chain out of the way. Unlike others on here mine needed the cable tension checking regularly.

My bike was actually a Genesis iO and eventually a cheap SS wheel came up I thought why not have a go. I never put the Alfine back on selling it straight after and I’ve always had a SS in the shed since!

If there was a light 3sp hub I would definitely give it another try but for me, but until then I’ll keep an SS and bikes with mechs.

Oh aye, what’s all this

https://www.bikeradar.com/news/shimano-gearbox/

Ever since I got my first bike with a derailleur I wonder why they weren’t mounted on the seatstay out of the way.

Because a) they need to derail the chain on the way into the sprockets, not the way out b) the tensioner needs to be on the slack part of the chain (i.e. the bottom). As per above, learn to pedal backwards and you can do it.

where as i’m looking ahead 5-10 years from now when someone has really got stuck into the concept with enough cash to develop real improvements

Rohloff have been making the speedhub for 20 years now almost exclusively developing it as their only product. It still uses that shitty twist grip, it still has cables all over the place, and it still weighs the same as a small moon. Also it’s not a bomb-proof as folk in here seem to suggest. I remember a poster on here complaining that a few water crossings would have it throwing its guts, and would be needed to shipped back to Germany for repair, and that’s not cheap postage. I think I recall Rohloff admitting that to them hub deep water would be “extreme” conditions, but let’s face it, that pretty much a “feature” of mountain biking in the UK in Winter.

The Shimano thing is a variation on a derailleur in a box, so Shimano obviously don’t thing that derailleurs have “had their day”.

I’ve got a Rohloff on an all year round off road commuter. In efficiency terms its miles ahead of a derailleur system. In the morning I get on it ride to work get covered in mud get off at work do nothing. At the end of the day I ride home get covered in mud and put in the garage and keep repeating. Maybe once a week the chain gets a wipe over and then a generous application of old Toyota gearbox oil I have lying around. Once a year it gets an oil change and every three years or so a new chain and sprocket. The  twist shirter worked for 7 or 8 years on original cables despite all the outers being cracked and they were only changed because I swapped to an external  box so I can convert the frame to disk brakes at some time. If you think it’s better to get home a minute sooner and then spend 10 minutes making sure the bike will be rideable the next day then you might not see it as more efficient but if you think you’d rather ride for a minute longer and spend the time you’d be cleaning the bike indoors with a nice cup of tea then it seems a lot more efficient.

In short my view is they are a very efficient tool but not such a good toy. I’d only ever have one for a bike that I just want to work everyday whatever the weather with an absolute minimum of maintenance. They are not the best option for a bike you ride primarily for fun, more for one you ride to get a job done. That’s not to say it isn’t fun to ride, it is and knowing you haven’t got to clean it when you get home only makes sliding in and out of work more enjoyable. An alternative now would be  something like running a cheap 1x Deore  cassette and chain, you could use that without cleaning and grind it into the ground but it would still need more time spent on it as bits need replacing.

In the morning I get on it ride to work get covered in mud get off at work do nothing.

Same as I do with my derailleur bike now I’ve got Putoline on the chain, I don’t even oil it.

if you think you’d rather ride for a minute longer and spend the time you’d be cleaning the bike indoors with a nice cup of tea then it seems a lot more efficient.

It’s not about overall time spent, if you’re not commuting. More speed = more satisfaction, more drag = more frustration.

They are not the best option for a bike you ride primarily for fun, more for one you ride to get a job done.

This is the consensus.

Same as I do with my derailleur bike now I’ve got Putoline on the chain, I don’t even oil it.

A point I made, much easier option now with wide range 1x gearing but if it’s getting utterly plastered in mud twice a day you’ll still have to change bits more often an the 3 year cycle I’m on.

didn’t we just have a big thread about gearboxes and hub gears? As someone who rode Rohloff on both full sus and hardtail for some years, then a Pinion for another few but runs conventional gears on my off road bikes my view is –

Gearboxes are shockingly bad on bikes, heavy, draggy, expensive, not repairable trailside, sloppy and with terrible ergonomics.

Is nearly all just plain wrong. Draggy – all the efficiency stats for Rohloff and Pinion suggest this is psychological. They feel different but they’re not materially inefficient to an extent that would matter to anyone other than a pro racer.
Expensive – not in the long term as the expensive parts don’t wear out and they’re worth good money second han. I never had anything break trailside on a Rohloff or Pinion in all the years of riding and frankly theres nothing repairable trailside on a conventional gear system.
A badly bent or broken mech/hanger is pretty much a ride ender. As is a snapped cable (whereas with Rohloff or Pinion can lock reliably in one gear)
Sloppy? don’t know? slow pickup? Yes, but not a problem. Also have the big advantage of shifting while stationary which is great for slow techy riding – shift a few gears while track standing is great
Terrible ergonomics. You don’t like twist shifters but the advantage is just how many gears you can drop in one go, and it really never bothered me. They’re overdue electronic solutions

So whats’ not great? They’re heavy. A hub gear does change the feel of a bike and ‘deaden’ the back end (though conversely the Pinion improved it as the weight is low central and unsuspended – rear suspension on a pinion bike feels brilliant as you take well over 600g off the rear wheel)

Pinion – integrated into the frame so frame is useless without it and can’t really be transferred to a future bike as you can’t BUY a frame without gearbox.

Mechs are a consumable for me. Pivots get sloppy and never work perfectly even if you don’t smack them on something. If you ride anywhere tight and rocky you do smack them and I’ve seen people write off new mechs within days of fitting them.

On a commuter bike however? I’d not ride anything but hub gears again. Great for that. I think we’ll see integrated bike motor gearboxes before long and they’ll kill off conventional gearing there.

Oh, look, Shimano seem to be agreeing with me.

The derailleur can be improved. 🙂

Yeah but that’s the company that brought us the Alfine….. The only hub gear worse is a nuvinci because it has its own gravitational pull

I won’t hold my breath.

They feel different but they’re not materially inefficient to an extent that would matter to anyone other than a pro racer.

Why do you think only pros care about efficiency? I hate extra drag whilst climbing. It doesn’t feel good. I run fast tyres and tubeless, to make climbing more fun and more enjoyable.

Pivots get sloppy and never work perfectly even if you don’t smack them on something.

That’s not derailleurs, that’s you 🙂 I can run them just fine slop-free. And tbh even when they get sloppy (using cheap old kit like I used to have to buy – or is on my commuter) they still work well!

Mechs. Those of us who can set them up well, do.The rest use hub gears.

So, the most advanced design Shimano can come up with is a derailleur in a box. The answer to the OP is therefore a No.

That will no doubt confer certain advantages of external derailleurs while at the same time not having the in-built inefficiency of a geared hub or gearbox but let’s see how much it costs and weighs.

Let’s see if it ever makes it into production .

Those of us who can set them up well, do.The rest use hub gears.

Or better mechs. You should see the nick of the plastic Altus on Iona’s bike. Funnily enough the only mech I ever destroyed outside of a (possibly) badly set up DH road setup was an Altus.

See also front mechs vs 1x, 13floorezzi sums up my thoughts there, all the unsprung weight, mech closer to the ground etc. can be overcome with something that weighs a fraction of a dropper post.

I’ve an Alfine 8 hub, ran it for a few years and grew to hate the ****** thing.

Neither me, nor multiple bike shops could get it working well for any length of time. Going single speed was the best thing I’ve done with that bike. The rest of the fleet will keep mechs on.

*I didn’t really hate it, more a consistent source of disappointment.

They had there day a long time ago but the huge amount of sales is OEM .
Sram Shimano ain’t bothered too much on the sales from us buying the odd upgrade mech it’s less than 1% the OEM business is where they make there money
Shimano and sram have bought out over 22 prototypes from other companies of gearbox designs since 2002
The biggest thing you are all missing is not there vunrability or exposure to the elements the biggest thjng is the effect it Hashim suspension.
Remove your chain and feel how great that arse end feels
Bosch are about the make an announcement for there own gearbox for e bikes that works along with the motor and I for one look FWD to the Denise of the rear mech

Bosch are about the make an announcement for there own gearbox for e bikes that works along with the motor and I for one look FWD to the Denise of the rear mech

Denise the Derailleur? Is that the name they’ve given for it? I must say that it’s a little old-fashioned, but I like the alliteration.

JP

Big-Bud

…Remove your chain and feel how great that arse end feels…

Good point.

The biggest thing you are all missing is not there vunrability or exposure to the elements the biggest thjng is the effect it Hashim suspension.
Remove your chain and feel how great that arse end feels

That’s your free wheel not deraileur
.

trail_rat

That’s your free wheel not deraileur

I assumed he’s referring to the varying effects of the chainline pull as it works its way up and down the cassette or front chainrings, ie its vertical displacement.

I know from my experience setting up dirt bikes that modifying the frame to take an eccentric spindle for the swing arm and just moving that up and down a few mm used to make a big difference. Whether that is applicable to bicycle rear suspension I don’t know, but I suspect a fixed chainline position in the vertical would make suspension set up simpler.

However removing all forces from the rear wheel including chain pull would make the job much much simpler 🙂

(My reference to vertical is where the chain leaves the rear cog. Obviously there will be vertical movement due to the suspension)

I put this on the shimano gearbox thread but it probably should have been on here:

To go back to the point about drag. I strongly believe the drag is not as bad as folk make out especially once the gearbox is run in. My rohloff is still getting smoother and quieter after many years and many thousand miles of useage.

However to me it irrelevant. I am riding for fun not racing. I do not care if a 10 min climb takes 30 seconds longer or that It takes me 5 mins longer to do a 40 mile ride. It just makes no odds. I have still had the same downhills to enjoy, seen the same scenery, got to the same pub

Also one dropped chain or getting stuck in the wrong gear or a missed shift and that tiny time saving is gone