I'm tossing up between a charge internal geared bicycle and a giant cross city for commuting



sam67

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Sep 14, 2010
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I have ridden to work for years and my avanti blade flat bar road bike is worn out.

I really like the old fashioned classic look of the charge bikes, particularly the mixer.

You can get an eight speed internal hub or even a 11 speed internal hub. It also has disc brakes.

the 11 speed I think needs to be imported from britain by the wholesaler here and it costs about 1700 delivered.

I think the advantages of a hub bike is it hopefully requires less maintenance and the disc brakes should work a lot better.

The advantages of a cross city is that it is a lot cheaper but it doesn't have that classic look.

I'm also concerned that I will struggle with 11 gears as i normally use the granny gear for two hills and I carry a fair bit in panniers. I ride about 14 kms in total a day and i'm a bit overweight.

Should I go for the classic superb looking expensive bike or the practical giant cross city
 
Buying a bike that you are not sure of without taking it for a test ride is not a good idea IMO.Take out the Giant Cross City for a test ride and try it on some hills that are close in size as the ones on your commute.
 
The burden of maintenance depends on several things, your interest/tolerance of that type of activity, and what your climate/seasons are like. I live in a place where winter means snow and sanded roads, which pretty much eat drivetrain components.
I don't mind maintenance that much(unless I've forgotten about it until Monday morning...) so I'm OK with external gears.
Running 7-speed does keep the cost down quite well too.
I do appreciate my fit & forget drum brakes though, although I'd probably be OK with discs as well.

I know some other year-round commuters who are really fond of IGHs (8-speed), particularly in combination with enclosed chain guards and disc brakes. Chain guards /chain cases do alter the look of the bike a lot, but they're a dream for drivetrain life in adverse conditions.

I find Sheldon Browns gear calculator to be a great help in figuring out the usefulness of different gearing options. Speed at a certain cadence is the comparison I prefer to use rather than gear inches and all that.
For commuting purposes most people can afford quite a lot of top end w/o any significant restrictions to their riding. Might require a rethink of their gear-changing habits and call some attention to their pedalling technique, which probably isn't a bad thing.
My commuter is set up to top out at about 25 MPH (40 KMH), a non-issue entirely for my use.
Those descents when I get above that I can well afford to coast.
Come to think of it, I could probably give up 2-3 MPH more and only be off power for maybe 30 seconds more of a one hour ride.

Otherwise there's always the Schlumpf geared cranks. Costly, but has gotten good reviews.
 
I've commuted on my trek 7.5fx for a year and was looking for a new bike. I investigated the reduced maintenance of a geared hub and even tried one out, it was the comotion americano rohloff. It wound up being more money than I wanted to pay for now (about $5k). In the end I got a deal on a new Madone Carbon road bike to spell some of the trips and have vowed to get more intense on the maintenance.

And I love the Madone.
 

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