Internal gear hubs – sleeper trend

So, in recent years we’ve got

The Kindernay
Revolute
Classified

All bringing new options to the market.

Looks like an interesting trend to me.

Obviously the eBike+Gearbox is going to be the big news…

Effigear-Ebike

It would be amazing if the mid-drive and gear box folk could agree a standardised mounting, so you could have eBike mit gearbox, or gearbox only on the same frame.

Full disclosure, I rode a pinion bike once and didn’t like the transmission [Zerode, was a good bike, just didn’t like the feel through the box] but I know a lot of people are interested.

I fancy the Classified system most. I’d run a 11-32 cassette with it.

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 1×10 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…

3×3