A couple of my friends run Nexus 8sp hubs all year round in Boston. One has been trouble-free for 3 years now. The other got water in the hub and it stopped shifting below freezing until it was taken apart and dried out and relubed and now it's been trouble free again.
When I lived in Burlington VT and commuted to Colchester (about 4 miles with a descent to a river followed by a steep climb), I tried to purpose-build a winter commuter. I really hated everything about it. I had built a rear wheel with a NuVinci. This thing was a real friction box, especially in the cold. The freewheel mechanism also failed, but was warranteed. The front wheel had a Sturmey Archer XL-FDD drum/dynamo. Salty slush that was slung off the front tire into the fender would dribble down the forkblades and somehow into the hub drum via the reaction-arm, rendering it either completely useless as a brake when the slush refroze or promoting awful corrosion when the slush was liquid. I believe some corrosion occurred between the iron drum insert and the aluminum hub body, causing a big lump inside the drum and making for violent brake judder. I co not recommend the Sturmey Archer drum brake setup for New England salt and slush.
When the drum failed, I'd rely on the rear rollerbrake for the descent down Colchester Ave. into the Winooski valley. It was a model of rollerbrake with a very small cooling disc, but it was still fine for that. That's about 8% for a quarter mile maybe, with a red light at the bottom.
Now in Boston I commute on an ordinary bike with derailleurs and rim brakes. I replace the chain and cassette every spring and ride cautiously on the 4-6 days a year we actually have snow on the roads here, and that's just how it is.
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Owner & co-founder, Cycles René Hubris. Unfortunately attaching questionable braze-ons to perfectly good frames since about 2015. With style.
Last edited by scarlson; 10-14-21 at 07:39 AM.