Old 07-27-12, 08:01 AM
  #9  
noglider 
aka Tom Reingold
 
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: New York, NY, and High Falls, NY, USA
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Bikes: 1962 Rudge Sports, 1971 Raleigh Super Course, 1971 Raleigh Pro Track, 1974 Raleigh International, 1975 Viscount Fixie, 1982 McLean, 1996 Lemond (Ti), 2002 Burley Zydeco tandem

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Originally Posted by 3speed
I'm thinking of building up a drop bar commuter out of a Tange 2 frame I have. I've got myself liking the idea of something simple with a 3sp internally geared hub and light weight aluminum fenders. I'm thinking that build would turn out to be a pretty quick, light weight, and low maintenance bike. Who has one or has tried one? What do/did you think?
The quickness depends mostly on the overall weight of the bike. Using light rims and tires will help a lot. As you suspect, it will be low maintenance. The thing that will occupy most of your time once you get it built will be keeping the fenders straight. It will be a bit heavier than a similarly-geared derailleur bike. But there is an elegance to an IGH bike.

The AW hub annoys me with its gears so far apart. When I shift down, I have to slow way down, so if I don't want to tire myself out, I end up going much more slowly than on a bike with a "full" set of gears.

I think choosing your ratio carefully can help. My Rudge Sports is heavy at about 40 lbs, so I geared it super-low. photogravity sent me a special, hard-to-find 24T sprocket for the rear. The chainring is 48T. So all my gears are low. You won't need to go so low. But since you'll have only three gears, you may want to use my approach: don't gear it too high. I go down hills fast by coasting, not pedaling. If a hill is steep, I don't need to pedal. So my gear inches are 39", 52", and 69". The top gear is suitable for pedaling down the very slightest of grades. The bottom gear will get me up any hill, even when I'm towing a big load of cargo with my trailer.

For a lightweight, drop-bar bike, I might gear it with something like 42/18. This gives you gears of 47", 63"and 84". This assumes a fairly low cadence where you use top gear for cruising in the city or a high cadence (or slow speed) in the middle gear.
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