Shimano SG-8R36 Universal Hub Kit Nexus (Silver, 36h 8 Speed) Review

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I installed this 8 speed Nexus hub on a recumbent bike I built twelve years ago which was originally equiped with a seven speed derailleur gear set. All my riding here in Florida is on flat land with few hills, so eight speeds is plenty. I'm not a "bike" person per se', so I was not aware of how advanced these internal gear systems had become. Initially was going to install on of the old three speed hubs I remember as a kid, but then was directed to the new hubs like this one. The unit appears vey well made and comes with two external gears that connect to you chain. I used the larger of the two. A snap ring holds the gear firmly in place. The instructions leave something to be desired, which is typical of products built out of country it seems, but there is enough data to get you going after a little study. The only real issue I had with the new hub is that it requires re-lacing the wheel with the correct length spokes. In my case, my rear wheel is a 24". After some research I found a "spoke calculator" program on line that provided me with correct length I needed. Figuring spoke length is not as easy as you might think and it's not something you can guess at. All of the math numbers for the hub are clearly stated with the directions. All you need to do is provided the exact specific dia. of your wheel. This is a little tricky and must be exact. There are many places on the internet that will tell you how to do this. As luck would have it, they needed to cut to length and threaded. My local bike shop provided the 36 stainless steel spokes and new nipples for $2.00 each, cut and threaded. Research showed this to be a fair price. Then, after being told the lacing process by a friend who used to work in a bike shop, I managed to lace and true my first wheel. It's not really hard; it just requires knowing what order to install the spokes and a little patience. It took me about two hours, start to finish. I built my own temporary wheel jig to allow me to true the wheel using stuff I had in my shop. No problem there. Also know this hub does not require any off-set or dishing. All spokes are the same length. I was a little worried at first about this, but it came out perfect when installed on the bike.

If you have not ordered your shifter you will not have the correct parts required to shift the gears. There are two options; a twist shifter and a "Rapid Fire" trigger shifter. The trigger shifter is like three times the price of the twist shifter, but it's what I used because that's how the original shifter system worked and I liked it very much. It's up to you you. Both types work well as designed. Anyway, the required cable connectors, come with the shifter, not the Nexus gear hub. Once you are at the point of making the cable connections is where the instructions become a little frustrating. Again, the internet confirmed the frustration with this part of the installation. In short, with the shifter in 4th gear position, there are two small yellow lines at the hub that will line up with each other. Once you have that relationship correct, the bike is ready to ride. The problem, is that they don't really tell you how rotate the gear hub part that the connector fits into. It's under a clockwise tension and trying to rotate it to the required position to install the cable end and set the adjustment length is a b---h. Understand that the hub parts appear to be a plastic type material so it possible to damage those parts if you are not careful. In the end, after a number of hours of four letter words, I finally broke down a machined my own tool that makes this job easy and painless. It basically looks like a small spanner wrench that picks up the small hole in the rotating part of the hub near the cable end.

Once you finished all of the above, you should be ready to ride assuming you have made any other changes needed for this conversion. If your shifter cable is correctly adjusted, shifting is smooth and fast. I did notice for a number of miles that the hub would seem to "skip" a gear every now and then but this is normal until the unit "beds" in. Now, after a hundred miles or so, it shifts like butter. It trouble free, quite and looks great.

Three other things worth noting are; the shifter functions in the opposite manner than the od derailleur shifter did. Where before I would "pull" the top trigger to shift up, the new hub shifts down. Not a big deal, but after many years of shifting with the old system, it takes a few miles to get used to that. Plus, and this is the feature I really love, you can shift to any gear, up or down, with the bike at a dead stop and no spinning of the pedals. I can't tell how may times I would get caught at a light or need to stop short and be in high gear. What a pain.

And lastly, when the hub is in 5th gear, it's direct drive, which means it's most efficient and no wear is being done to the internal gears. As such, I selected a crank gear that allows me to be in 5th gear at my most comfortable cruising speed and proper cadence of about 85 RPM. Just food for thought.

In the end, this project ended up costing a little over $400, which is more than I had counted on, but I turned out exactly like I wanted. Hope this helps for anyone thinking of making this change.

Ward C

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This hub is quiet (no ratcheting) and shifts very cleanly. It's actually kind of spooky how well it works. I've bought 3 so far and am very pleased with the performance.

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It's hard to justify a derailler system after using this. Your chain never falls off either and maintenance is almost non-existent.

Honest reviews on Shimano SG-8R36 Universal Hub Kit Nexus (Silver, 36h 8 Speed)

Smooth shifting and a wide range of gear ratios from low to high. Had my local bike shop build me a new wheel with the hub. switched out the old nexus 3 speed that was pretty useless.

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I m very lite this nexus 8 interal hub for outdoor q:) good good good x x x x x x