Originally Posted by
sweeks
Hmmm... Apart from my Alfine 11, which has worked perfectly for around 10,000 miles and whose roller clutch surfaces looked unworn when I took it apart for inspection, I have a Prius with over 90,000 miles on it with no mechanical issues. Of course, I haven't taken the transmission apart, but the car still gets 45-50 MPG. Also, a good percentage of the taxi cabs in Chicago are Priuses, so I don't think reliability is as big a problem as you may think.
For me, 10,000 miles is low mileage. My road-race bike I estimate had over 70k before it went into storage in favor of a townie and then folder equipped as townie. The derailleur gearing was extremely durable, in fact it had the original gearing, to a fault, I was not knowledgeable enough to check chain stretch, but did notice cupping on the cogs near end of use, and I simply reversed them, which you could do with uniglide. And I waxed the chain all those years for cleanliness, but have discovered it also prolongs chain life. I don't know if an IGH with roller clutches could match that. That said... I was on my third wheelset, the previous two sets retired due to a fatigue crack at a spoke hole, all smooth road biking, so the third set is double-socketed which are immensely durable, but add a good deal of rim weight, not normally seen on race bikes, and I went from skinny tires to about 28-30, that helped ride too. But even those wheelsets were cheap, the second set I think $120 at the LBS, and the third even less than that on Nashbar winter sale, but this was in the mid to late 1990s. An IGH hub with wheel is pretty pricy to replace, and more expensive to properly maintain (if not pure oil bath with good seals, where you can simply drain and refill).
But getting back to roller clutches and CVTs, durability is all about how much friction load they are carring relative to contact pressure, and that might be good. Priuses are not known to be hot rods, same with Corollas, both offered with CVTs, though notably (last I looked years ago), the sportier version Corolla had a conventional automatic design. When I was excited about perhaps a Brompton with Alfine 11, I researched the hub and found a lot of examples of slipping under high pedaling loads like climbing out of the saddle, some saying it just wasn't designed for high torque, it was designed for casual riders using spinning gears while seated. I'm not a racer, but do often climb out of the saddle.
At the same time I was researching the Alfine 11, I saw mention of some newer IGHs with excellent reputation but significantly lower pricing than Rohloff. Someone on the bike trail also mentioned Pinion, and that does look impressive, but requires a bike built around it and all were $5000+ at the time. Hopefully that comes down.