Nexus four gearing or swap??

[Rayolamp]

Ok have a nice schwinn cruiser four. Love the bike but since hitting the bike paths with it, sometimes the hills just wear me out in direct drive.

So would it be possible to just swap in a nexus 8 in place of the four? Have my eye on a few local bikes with the 8 in them for a donor but at $200-300 a bike, cost is a factor! So unless I stumble upon a deal for one this is probably option two someday.

Never messed with gearing a bike, so first/second? option and cheaper would be changing maybe the hub gear or crank gear?? But have no clue as to where to start with that idea.

Idealy I would like to have two gears underdrive, one close to direct and one overdrive.

Any help on this would be appreciated!

 

[twojs.bike]

You should be able to swap the wheel with the 8 speed. As long as the spacing between the locknuts (O.L.D.) is the same it should be pretty simple.

The other and less expensive option would be to swap out the rear cog for something slightly larger. Count the teeth on the current cog the search for a nexus cog with one more tooth. This will lower the gearing and make it easier to pedal in all 4 of your gears. With only one more tooth , you can likely re-use the chain.

 

[RustySprockets]

JJ is right about swapping out either the rear cog or chainring for something a little large or smaller, as the case may be. You seem to have some misunderstanding, though, about how this will affect the hub itself. The actual ratios delivered by the Nexus4 will not change--it's designed to be an overdrive hub and 1st gear will always be direct-drive.

 

[mikeeebikey]

Your complaint is not having a low enough gear right? I would go up one tooth on the rear.

 

[Tallbikeman]

Keep changing the rear sprocket to larger sprockets until you get the gear you want. If you run out of bigger options on the Nexus hub then start making the front sprocket smaller. If you have little experience wrenching on bicycles your choice of bike is a very easy design to work on. There will be u tube tutorials on taking one piece cranks apart and changing the front sprocket. Steel front sprockets to fit the crank are cheap and they are everywhere. Chain breaking, adding/subtracting links is another tutorial and a tool. I like your idea of making gear 3 the flat land gear with two underdrives and one overdriven gear. A lot of bikes are sold that are really geared too high for amateur hobbiest riders. I change gearing on my bikes to top out at about 15 or 16mph in high gear. I can only pull 10 to 14mph on the flats and don't really need to pedal downhill.