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

The New Kindernay VII Gearbox: Just 400 Grams Heavier Than A 1X Drivetrain

From that link, the Kindernay 7 is only 200g heavier than a Deore 1×12 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 1×10 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 (1.9×0.527~=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.