Internal gear hub vs derailleur
An internal gear hub puts the gears inside a sealed shell, so it shifts while stationary and ignores rain, salt and grit. A derailleur is lighter, cheaper and offers a wider gear range, but every moving part of it sits in the weather at the lowest point of the bike.
An e-bike-rated 5-speed internal hub. City riding is the one discipline where shifting at a standstill — at the lights, having forgotten to drop a gear — is worth more than gear range.
| Criterion | Internal gear hub | Derailleur |
|---|---|---|
| Shifting at a standstill | Yes | No |
| Exposure to weather | Sealed inside the hub | Fully exposed |
| Gear range | 260–320% on common city hubs | 400–500% with a modern wide-range cassette |
| Weight | 1.6–2.5 kg at the rear wheel | Around 0.8 kg |
| Maintenance | Oil change every 5,000 km | Clean, lube and adjust continuously |
| Compatibility with a belt | Yes | No |
| Cost | €96 in our BOM | €30–60 |
Gear range matters less than the spec sheet suggests
A 500% derailleur range looks decisive next to a 263% hub until you account for the motor. Assistance flattens the gradient you experience, so the top and bottom of a wide cassette go unused on an assisted city bike — most riders live in three or four gears.
On a genuinely steep city — Lisbon, Zurich, Lyon — that calculation shifts, and a wider hub or a lower final drive ratio earns its place.
The e-bike rating is not optional
A mid-drive motor puts far more torque through the hub than legs do. Standard internal hubs are not released for that load, and using one voids both the hub warranty and your EN 15194 test evidence.
This is why our bill of materials names a specific e-bike-rated hub rather than a gear count: the number of speeds is a marketing figure, and the torque rating is the engineering one.