harryh57

Hi
Can anyone help me with a convertion. I have a fairly high spec surly steamroller equiped as a fixie and I want to make it into more of an all rounder. ie install a hub gear. Bearing in mind thatre are no braze-ons and there is only 120 mm OLN (between the stays). Any suggestions? I love the ride but I would like to do some light touring and the hub gear is my only idea.

PS my 51 year old knees could be doing with the rest.

Cheers
Harry

garysol1 

moving to FG&SS

cabana 4 life

i would say internal hub is the only way to go. that and some zip ties and you should be good.

jhota

do you mean you want to install a multi-speed rear hub?

cold-setting the rear dropouts to 135 mm would let you use a Shimano Nexus hub. you would need to have the dropouts aligned to restore paralellism after spreading, though.

a good full-service shop could probably help you with this.

Suttree

Seems like this is honestly more of an issue for bicycle mechanics.


options--
1-respace rear droputs by cold setting
2-pick hub gear

mihlbach

The steamroller is not built for gears and any conversion you make with it is going to be less optimal than if you used a frame intended for gears. Frankly, hub gears suck...they are heavier and less efficient than deraileur bikes, have fewer gear ratios, and are really no less difficult to set up and maintain than derailleurs. The simplest, cheapest, and ultimately, the only satisfactory way to do this would be to sell the bike and buy a bike with derailleurs. If in good condition, steamrollers have a fairly high resale value...probably better than an equivalent quality road bike. You could probably sell the steamroller and buy a used road or cyclocross bike of similar quality and condition and basically break even.

harryh57

Thanks guys. I think I'll sell the Surly and buy a geared bike.