DIY Maintenance

[denwyn]

Whatever e bike I buy it will probably be bought online, local shops have a couple in like, but I can save money by buying same bikes or very similar online, only drawback is the local shops only service there own bikes, except for Halfords, and I am not keen on using them. The bike would probably be deraillour gears, as hub gears look beyond my DIY skills should they go wrong. Its the electrics I would be most concerned about. The bike would be fairly standard, no fancy electrical gizmos etc, possible candidates are
3e Sport
Batribike Granite Pro
Woosh ? undecided on model yet
Wisper 905 e Classic
Oxygen e mate city

 

[grldtnr]

denwyn , you should not discount hub gears, they are far more reliable than derailleurs, have less probs with wear, the only thing you need to do with a hub gear is to make sure the gears are indexed properly which is very easy adjustment on a barrel adjuster , Sturmey Archer gears run for decades, Shimano will likely run just as ,well .
\so long as you don't get water in the internals, you should have no trouble

 

[denwyn]

denwyn , you should not discount hub gears, they are far more reliable than derailleurs, have less probs with wear, the only thing you need to do with a hub gear is to make sure the gears are indexed properly which is very easy adjustment on a barrel adjuster , Sturmey Archer gears run for decades, Shimano will likely run just as ,well .
\so long as you don't get water in the internals, you should have no trouble

Ok... I'll bare that in mind, although a lot of the hub gear bikes are a bit out of my price range...Thanks

 

[John F]

denwyn , you should not discount hub gears, they are far more reliable than derailleurs, have less probs with wear, the only thing you need to do with a hub gear is to make sure the gears are indexed properly which is very easy adjustment on a barrel adjuster , Sturmey Archer gears run for decades, Shimano will likely run just as ,well .
\so long as you don't get water in the internals, you should have no trouble

Don't assume that Shimano hub gears will last as long as Sturmy Archer. That was not my experience.

I had a 4 speed one a few years ago. After about 4 years it started slipping. (very alarming on a hub gear because you don't expect it), and apart from adjusting the cable there is nothing you can do about it. Apparently it appears that Shimano change their hub gears so often that bike shops cannot keep up and don't want to know.

So after 4 years my local Approved Shimano Service Center"(!) advised me to bin it and if I wanted another it would cost me well over £100.

At least with a derailleur you can figure out problems.

 

[Croxden]

I have said before, I have more trouble with Shimano than everything else put together. I could recommend the Rohloff but you may have a heart attack at the price. Most owners take the hub from bike to bike, they are that good.

 

[denwyn]

Don't assume that Shimano hub gears will last as long as Sturmy Archer. That was not my experience.

I had a 4 speed one a few years ago. After about 4 years it started slipping. (very alarming on a hub gear because you don't expect it), and apart from adjusting the cable there is nothing you can do about it. Apparently it appears that Shimano change their hub gears so often that bike shops cannot keep up and don't want to know.

So after 4 years my local Approved Shimano Service Center"(!) advised me to bin it and if I wanted another it would cost me well over £100.

At least with a derailleur you can figure out problems.

Yes i don't think i ever had any problems with Sturmy Archer all those years ago, todays hub gears look far more complex, and i do think i will stick with the derailleur, as you say you can at least see what any problem may be, plus for the price bracket bike i am looking for i cant see them being expensive to replace should they ever break, and who knows even i may be able to carry that out. : )

 

[grldtnr]

Don't assume that Shimano hub gears will last as long as Sturmy Archer. That was not my experience.

I had a 4 speed one a few years ago. After about 4 years it started slipping. (very alarming on a hub gear because you don't expect it), and apart from adjusting the cable there is nothing you can do about it. Apparently it appears that Shimano change their hub gears so often that bike shops cannot keep up and don't want to know.

So after 4 years my local Approved Shimano Service Center"(!) advised me to bin it and if I wanted another it would cost me well over £100.

At least with a derailleur you can figure out problems.

As I said > shimano will likely run as well< , by the time you have bought block ,chain, derailleurs, you are looking at £ 100 anyway, for around town urban use there is no better ,than a Hub gear

 

[axolotl]

Ha ha ha...only in Britain would we even be having this discussion. In the rest of Europe, no commuter would even consider deraileur gears - for use outside cycling sport, they're a joke.

If you want to just get on your bike and ride it, get hub gears every time. They're extremely reliable and maintenance-free.

 

[jerrysimon]

Just purchased a 40 year old S/A three speed hub for a tenner and laced it into a 700c wheel for my town bike. Works like a dream.

The only challenge is getting the chain line right and ensuring the hub has a long enough shaft to space it out for the rear frame width.

The only dérailleur I have is on my light weight Ti Brompton, two speed.

Regards

Jerry

 

[denwyn]

In a way I am probably going to have to stick with deralleur gears, the hub ones dont seem to be on bikes in my price range. All my standard bikes except for one have always had deralleur, with very few problems. I did look at the mentioned Rohloff hub, your having a laugh, no way would I ever consider spending that amount.

 

[jerrysimon]

Well hub gears are also no good if you have a rear wheel hub drive.

As I have shown fitting hub gears don't have to be expensive.

Regards

Jerry

 

[axolotl]

In a way I am probably going to have to stick with deralleur gears, the hub ones dont seem to be on bikes in my price range.

It's a shame that so few e-bikes have hub gears, and you're right, the ones that do tend to be the more expensive ones.

 

[Gubbins]

I had an alfine 11 hub on a Genesis mountain bike for a couple of years.. I, like others had problems with gears skipping and the odd crunching noise under extreme load. Adjustments were so critical that using it in sub zero temperature meant an adjustment to allow for cable contraction. I did consider adding a crank drive to this bike but decided the gear hub wouldn't like it.

 

[flecc]

Don't assume that Shimano hub gears will last as long as Sturmy Archer. That was not my experience.

I had a 4 speed one a few years ago. After about 4 years it started slipping. (very alarming on a hub gear because you don't expect it), and apart from adjusting the cable there is nothing you can do about it. Apparently it appears that Shimano change their hub gears so often that bike shops cannot keep up and don't want to know.

So after 4 years my local Approved Shimano Service Center"(!) advised me to bin it and if I wanted another it would cost me well over £100.

At least with a derailleur you can figure out problems.

Though I accept it's not intentional, this is not a good comparison. The Shimano 4 speed hub gear had nothing like the reliability of their others and as a result was discontinued back in 2005 and has never been replaced.

Since then their hub gears have generally been reliable and are certainly the fastest gear changing ones. The choice model currently in terms of longevity is the Alfine 8 complete setup.

The rival 3, 5 and 7 speed SRAM models are also reliable but have slow gear changing, sometimes embarassingly so, and SRAM are currently engaged in new designs. They had meanwhile introduced a 9 speed model, the i-motion, but that has failed in the market and appears to be withdrawn.

Sturmey Archer folded of course, but the Oriental company Sunrace took over the rights as Sunrace-Sturmey. They introduced one new model, the 8 speed, but that is somewhat eccentric in having bottom gear as a direct drive with all the others higher ratio. That means it has to be used with very small chainrings and large rear sprockets and efficiency is worst in the most often used gears, so once again is a failure in the market.
.

 

[KirstinS]

On hub gears the alfine 8 (not nexus) has proven itself ultra reliable - far more so than the alfine 11 for reasons I know not

This is anecdotal evidence from other non powered cycling forums but also my own experience

5 years of cycling 5 days a week in all weathers without a single tweak or service - never skipped or missed or slipped

I LOVE it

(Almost as much as my ekit )

 

[flecc]

The later Nexus have been ok since the hub gear part is the same as the current Alfine. The Nexus bad name was mostly gained by the first ones which had a very high failure rate, but within a year the design was changed and the second generation was trouble free for most.

Of course Alfine is a system rather than a hub gear, and it's the combination with the Alfine parts like the changer that helps to give the excellent reliability performance of the Alfine 8.

it's a pity about the 11 speed problems, they seem to have pushed their design a bit too far in getting 11 gears.
.

 

[axolotl]

it's a pity about the 11 speed problems, they seem to have pushed their design a bit too far in getting 11 gears.
.

Looking at some of the cutaway diagrams available online for the big 11-gear and 14 gear hubs, the number of tiny components is phenomenal. Given that many of the internals also take a high load, it's not surprising that making them reliable is a significant engineering challenge.

I dream of one day having a bike with a Rohloff 14-speed.

 

[John F]

Though I accept it's not intentional, this is not a good comparison. The Shimano 4 speed hub gear had nothing like the reliability of their others and as a result was discontinued back in 2005 and has never been replaced.

Since then their hub gears have generally been reliable and are certainly the fastest gear changing ones. The choice model currently in terms of longevity is the Alfine 8 complete setup.

The rival 3, 5 and 7 speed SRAM models are also reliable but have slow gear changing, sometimes embarassingly so, and SRAM are currently engaged in new designs. They had meanwhile introduced a 9 speed model, the i-motion, but that has failed in the market and appears to be withdrawn.

Sturmey Archer folded of course, but the Oriental company Sunrace took over the rights as Sunrace-Sturmey. They introduced one new model, the 8 speed, but that is somewhat eccentric in having bottom gear as a direct drive with all the others higher ratio. That means it has to be used with very small chainrings and large rear sprockets and efficiency is worst in the most often used gears, so once again is a failure in the market.
.[/quote
Shimano hub gears are not repairable according to Shimano Service Centres. And even if they were they are beyond the resources of your average bike shop. Do you have inside knowledge from Shimano of their planned product lifespans?
Would we accept car gearboxes failing completely after 4 years?

My hub gears were fantastic till they nearly killed me. You can learn how to dismantle them from google, (implying they are serviceable) but you won't find anyone willing to tackle it.

It's amazing that Sturmey made simple gears that lasted for ever and a huge company like Shimano can't. And that's my point surely - they are always advertised as low maintenance and durable, when they are nothing of the sort.

 

[flecc]

I thought you hadn't answered for a moment John, but then realised you'd included your answer inside the quote markings.

Those of us who've used Shimano hub gears for many years quite trouble free don't agree with all that you say of course.

And as someone who first serviced Sturmey Archer hub gears more than half a century ago in the trade, I don't worship at that altar. The three speed wasn't bad in utility cycling use, but I was not so enamoured of the later products.

Still, each to their own, we all have our own opinions and experiences. However I don't like to see a product so heavily criticised when it has been so patently successful. If they really were so bad, SRAM and Sunrace Sturmey would have destroyed them in the market. Instead the opposite has happened, as I've explained.

As for repairability, like so many things today it's simply not economic, which is why no-one offers that facility. Repair by insertion of the core from a new hub and scrapping the new shell is just so easy, that's what's usually done today on the odd occasions when it's necessary.
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