in praise of 8-speed hubs

About the middle of '06, I fitted a Shimano Nexus Red-band 8-speed hub to my 2-speed (dingle) dirt-bike. I'd given up on derailleurs for my regular rides. My town bike was a fixie, my dirt bike was a dinglespeed. The Puglsey had a dual-chainring with a three-speed cassette rear derailleur set-up. Several years ago I fitted a Rohloff 14 geared hub to my 29"er, but I didn't need 14 ratio's and I wasn't sufficiently patient for the lower seven gear ratio's to get smoother, as more experienced users promised. But the lure of hub gears never disappeared. When I read about the ball-raced efficiencies on Shimano's Nexus Red-band 8-speed hub, well, I had to try it, didn't I. Plus it offers lower gearing that any other hub gear (other than the Rohloff).

After six months of use, it's still going strong, and the recent additon of the Alfine trigger shifter has worked wonders on the smoothness of shifting.