Cycling UK Forum

Can anyone help me make a decision on which gears to choose. The bike is a Specialized, Globe Comp. They do the same bike one with Shimano Deore gears and the other with Shimano Nexus Inter 8.

I cannot decide on which to get and dont want to buy the inter 8 if it is not really what I need. I mainly do longish distance rides 40 - 50, for a day the c2c and long 2/3days rides.

I have spoken to people who have the Inter hub gears but is it what I need, can anyone please advise as gears are something i dont know much about.

Thank you
Deborah

dc2001

Both types of gear are excellent for their purpose.

Hub gears are enclosed against the weather and so are more of a leave-it-and-forget-it set up. (Although Shimano do recommend a six monthly dismantle and rebuild service for their hub gears which tends to go against that.)

Derailleurs give greater flexibility (more gears and you can use different sizes of chainwheels and sprockets) but are exposed to the weather and can be a bit daunting to the non technical.

Hub gears are much more widely used in other parts of the world than they are in the UK. Even bikes intended for purely roadster use in the UK are more likely to have a derailleur than a hub gear. You may find prejudice against hub gears in many UK shops. Perhaps this is because many in the trade come from a racing background.

I speak as someone who uses both types of gear although my Nexus is the older 7-speed.

A final comment about the Nexus system: (I do not know if the 8-speed is the same as the 7 but it probably is.) Removing and replacing a rear wheel with a Shimano hub gear can be a challenging experience. It involves lining up three yellow dots on different parts of the apparatus. If it is not all exactly aligned it becomes impossible. Very difficult at the roadside, in the dark, cold hands etc etc. When I mentioned this once bofore in answer to a request like yours, somebody else added that the whole lot can become reversed and it gets even worse. So, if you are tempted by the (excellent) hub system, get the nice person in the shop to show you how the back wheel comes out and goes back. More fun than watching Big Bro.

Do not be put off by any of this. Enjoy your cycling.

Deborah,
I have heard of problems with the inter 8 hub gears,whether this was just the early ones or if Shimano have sorted it I don't know.I have a bike with the Inter 7 hub and I wouldn't like to think I was riding any distance on it, as it is sluggish due to mechanical disavantages of hub gears(I'm not an engineer so can't say more than that).IMHO you would be better with the Deore deraileur gear system for long distance cycling.

I also wouldn't think the Inter 8 would have the range of gears or enough of them ( 8 ) needed for touring either.

For your type of cycling, best bet would be a deralier system.
They have a greater spread of gears, are more efficient in power transfer and can be fixed at the side of the road without the need for a specialist mechanic.
Hub gears are good for town commutes not too many steep hills and low maintenance but generally do not have a large enough range of gears.

Cheers

A friend of mine ran a seven speed Nexus for years without any trouble on a Varna hand trike. Then one day on a fifty mile charity ride it decided to self destruct ten miles from home. We managed to reassemble it at the roadside, but only low gears could be selected which was better than none at all. Its a complicated piece of kit and without a manual we had no idea how to repair it once we got home. None of the local bike shops would touch it as they all reckoned it was too complicated to work on and none of them had a mechanic that was familliar with them. Shimano quoted almost the cost of a new hub to do a full strip and assemble, so it was decided due to its age just to buy a new hub and lace it up into the original wheel. We have since found one bike shop near-by in the lake district who is willing to service Nexus hubs, it now goes in for a regular service and works faultlessly. I personally would go with a derailleur, purely for ease of maintenance. In fairness to the original hub that was fitted it did many thousands of miles without any maintenance or trouble at all.

CTC advice often mentions (as it does under this topic) the removal of a wheel at the roadside. Presumably this would be to mend a puncture. In the late 50s and 60s I rode a Raleigh Superbe roadster with enclosed chain and rod-operated brakes, adding extra obstacles to wheel removal. I had quite a lot of punctures in remote places but always mended them without removing the wheel. (As a shoolboy on a budget it never occurred to me to carry a spare tube!) I see no reason to remove the wheel with more modern bikes, though there are obvious advantages if it is easy to do.

The main point, however, is that nowadays punctures are very rare if one uses tyres with Kevlar or similar layers. They cost a little more, but not significantly so in relation to all the other expenses that seem to arise now.

I commute most days by bike. In all weathers. Most winters I'd spend more time off the bike than on working on freeing up frozen derailleurs. When not riding the bike I'd be making adjustments to gears. I must have replaced the derailller components twice a year. I decided to treat myself to a nice new Bob Jackson Tourer at Christmas. I wanted something different for the gearing so I looked into hub gears. The Rohloff Gear hub seemed to be the most recommended. It isn't cheap but wow its brill. I find the right gear for climbs and descents far quicker than with derailleurs. The 14 (true - no overlap) gears give a huge range. I've been riding this now for 8 weeks and I'll not look back.