Sunday, October 25, 2009
Another Point of View
Many of the latest city bikes (and bikes we have focused on here) feature internal gear hubs and chainguards or chaincases. This makes it easy to hop on and ride no matter what you're wearing. However, the blogger at Planetary Gears (a Minneapolis bike shop owner) offers his view that these types of bikes are not necessarily the best option for the practical cyclist. Check it out.
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4 comments:
As much as I like Jim, I think he's wrong on this. No drivetrain is foolproof or maintenance free, but IGH's are a good compromise.
I like IGH, but for the steep hills where I live in the Santa Cruz Mountains, I really like the wider range of gearing available with derailleur bikes.
I wrench my own bikes, so derailleurs are my preference from that perspective. My neighborhood is in the foot hills so the wide gearing range is also a plus.
That said, I wouldn't be scared away from IGH bikes by maintenance requirements. That's what mechanics at shops are paid for.
I think that I may not have adequately expressed my view on the IGH question.
IGHs are a great idea for many cyclists, they just aren't zero-maintenance like people want to believe they are. I wrote that post after several customers came in to get their winter IGH wheels ready for the nasty season. Obviously the wheels had been ridden in 1 or 2 winters, and sat idle and neglected for 1 or 2 summers. Both were full of rust and parts were seized or bent as a result.
If your derailleur drivetrain got that rusty, you'd fix it. But with IGH, the neglect is concealed and allowed to do some real damage. Then try to find parts...
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