Is $150 a reasonable price for such a bike. It looks like its in excellent shape. I’ve heard that 7 speed internal hub bikes are usually very expensive and this seems like a pretty good deal.
Brand, age, condition?
ETA: Bike shop, private sale, Craigslist?
craigslist
http://madison.craigslist.org/bik/4465059822.html
New ones are $600 at the cheapest without all the bells
FWIW, the hub assembly itself is about $150 new, so it probably isn’t a terrible deal. The bike looks homemade, so can’t really vouch for the quality of everything else on it. Everything else looks a little flimsier than what normally comes on a the kind of slightly upmarket cruisers you normally see the 7-speed hubs on, so I’m not sure comparing it to a $600 bike is accurate. I could be wrong about that though, it’s hard to tell from the pictures.
Do give it a careful test ride, though. The gearshift hubs are maintenance-free and generally pretty reliable, but they do sometimes go bad and are expensive to fix.
nm
My around town cruiser has a Shimano Nexus 7 speed hub. When it works, it’s the greatest thing ever. Once it starts to go funky, it’s a mother fuck. Granted, it lasted for probably 10 years before its demise. i spent a couple of years futzing around with new cables and housings until I gave up the ghost.
Ultimately, I replaced the wheel set with the cheapest pair I could find for about $230. i could not find a reasonably priced roller brake version and am now stuck with a coaster brake.
That said, the internal hub Shimano is a thing of beauty.
bought it for what I think is a nice deal. It cost me exactly 1/2 what I spent on fixing my multispeed bike from this brutal winter crud.
Its now my new winter beater bike; I’ll bring it out next winter…in a couple of months.