London Cycling Campaign

Thanks folks I'll keep an eye out for a bike maintenance course in the next few months.

In the short term i've decided for piece of mind I'd get some Schwalbe marathon plus's fitted.  From what i've read they should reduce my mid commute puncture risks somewhat.

The Mech who is fitting the tires also gave be a quick point on the nexus 8. In 4th gear there are two yellow indicator lines on the Hub that should be in alignment.

Cheers,

~John

Monty of Addiscombe CC ran an afternoon training session in Croydon last October at which he covered simple stuff like removing rear wheels to repair punctures - and so I learned how to unhook my hub.

However,  I checked out their website and didn't see any other such events planned.

So, if you can't find anyone else, have a look at these YouTube videos, both of which helped me when I had to do the deed unaided - click here and here

It's not that difficult - once you know how.

This content was deleted by Charles Barraball at 11:41am 08 Feb 2012.

If you haven't done the job before, you can take the rear wheel out, leaving the gear gubbinses attached; you may have to release the cable housing tube from some clips on the chain stays.

Wrangling with Shimano instructions during or after wheel removal is not recommended.

Hi John,

I've been running the Shimano Alfine 8 spd on a charge mixer for about 18 months.  THere is a really good vidoe on youtube showing you how to remove it and it's not too bad.  Give yourself 30 minutes first time round but it gets quite quick.

6 months ago I fitted schwalbe marathon plus to my charge rear wheel and it has made the ride awful.  I am going to switch back to conti sport contacts when this one has no tread left (about 2 months to go now).  I would reccommend you consider a slightly less bombproof tyre as the schwalbe is punture resistant but slow, heavy and does not grip well in the wet in my experience.

Hope this is of help

Tim

Hello,

My name is Alexis Zafiropoulos and a qualified mechanic (Cytech2) and 5 years experience working with bikes. Hub gears in particular were very common whilst working in Holland.

I would be happy to give you some tutorial at my home workshop.

Please email alexis.zafiropoulos@gmail.com  if interested.

Thanks,

Alexis.

Ridgeback Nemesis has Roller Brake with Nexus 8 speed hub I think. 

This makes it really easy to fix a puncture without removing the back wheel. 

If you do need to take wheel off then it  is pretty straight-forward to check cable adjustment afterwards by lining up the yellow tabs - full instructions in the Shimano Tech doc. 

Hi JFk,

This is my first post on the forum as I've just joined LCC and it's probably too late to be of any help to you.

I had a similar bike for many years until I carried out some long overdue maintaince on the hub and then innards crunched horribly and came through the hub shell NO MORE NEXUS!  The hub was kapoot anyway and I was simply trying to get another few hundred miles out of it to make the decision on a new bike easier and less pressing.  Any road I hope I'm not teaching you how to suck eggs but by far the best bet is actually not to remove your wheel. If you don't know where the puncture is get your bike upside down and simply pop your tyre off on one side and pull your inner tube out.  This gives you access to most of your inner, just not the bit stuck behind the axle, and you should be able to find the puncture fairly easily using the normal route of pumping the tube up and listening. 

I nearly always mananged to spot when the puncture first occurrred and jump off the bike and count the spokes back or forward from something significant on the rim (sticker or valve etc) and then I only I had to expose the inner on that area.

I really like internal gears and brakes for commuting, they make so much sense.  I always thought that my hub brakes worked great and would gladly go back to them if it was easy but not many manufacturers seem to be using them as they're not sexy.

Cheers and good luck.

Gerry