I break rear drive trains. A lot.
I used to break axles on 6 speed freewheels with regularity. Solid axles. My commute involves a lot of hill climbing, including a really nasty one in front of my house, as well as carrying heavy loads home from the store. I ride in all weather, and a lot of rain. When I say that I mean that I ride during the middle of the thunderstorm, not just that I ride during drizzles. I started commuting on a nexus 7 speed once getting freewheel parts became a pain and conserving the ones I already had a priority (this was back in 2000 when things looked really bleak on that front). That hub lasted without issue until I replaced it with an 8 speed nexus. Neither hub has had any issues except for the cassette joint and the shifter, which were minor. The nexus/alfine hubs have one of the strongest axles available in a rear drivetrain for standard bicycles. The mechanism, if properly lubricated and adjusted, is the one of the most reliable large range mechanisms ever designed. The only people who regularly break them are large 29ers riding them aggressively off road with a below-spec chainring-cog ratio. These people also break everything else, and usually break the same part, a pawl. The shifter selection is still lame but bar end shifters (jtekengineering.com) and now lever shifters (hotrodbicycles.com) as well as brifters (sussex.com.tw/versa.html) are available. The other advantage from a touring point of view is that shimano is now making roller brakes that were clearly designed for electric bicycles. This would give you the option of an all weather touring brake that can easily be removed from the bicycle, and that has a heat fail mode that is non destructive of the brake itself (you set the grease on fire). The roller brake is also dirt cheap and indestructible compared to a disc brake, and much simpler to set up and maintain. The issue with having a high enough gear range is simply: how fast do you need to go on a long downhill? You have enough range on the nexus for everything else. It usually isn't a good idea to race a heavily loaded bicycle downhill in an area you don't know very well, and the issue tourists usually face is controlling their speed rather than spinning out. With the nexus you simply stop pedaling and let the weight of the bicycle (that you sweated to lug up the hill) do the work for you. On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 3:12 PM, William <tapebu...@gmail.com> wrote: > I have been bouncing around an IGH concept. Does anyone tour on an Alfine 8 > rear hub? The setup I am looking at would get me a low gear of about 28 > inches and a high gear of 85 inches. That looks great for commuting but > maybe not enough for touring. Does anyone tour on the Alfine? > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > -- -Zack -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
