Rohloff makes the case for Cyber Nexus

Not that I'm more familiar with the Rohloff 500/14 hub gearbox and
settling in to a pattern of using it, in thing stands out: for
efficiency, you have to work it.

I tend to avoid the geers 7 and below, because they make a depressing
sighing sound. But even in the higher gears, I tend to stay in gear
and mash my way up the incline rather than bother with the stiff
gearchange.

That is not the most efficient way to ride. It might make me fitter
faster, but what we're discussing here is the bike's mechanical
efficiency, not my respiration rate.

Shimano's Cyber Nexus full-automatic hub gears on the other hand
changes gears smoothly to permit the cyclist the maximum speed his pre-
selected exertion level can provide. The rider exerts the same energy,
regardless of the road. In my case this level was set with a minimum
of experimentation and fuss at 80% of my maximum heart rate.

No human can change gears as efficiently as Shimano's Cyber Nexus.

I also have on another bike a manual version of the Nexus Premium/
Alfine gearbox the Cyber Nexus is built on, though I don't want to
pretend I changed gears on that much smoother box (than the Rohloff)
for maximum efficiency all the time. But a large proportion of the
time I did use it well.

The Rohloff with its even gearing steps but with its stiff change thus
makes a convincing case -- for an automatic gearbox!

I don't think it would be difficult to make an automatik Rohloff, and
there could be a small market for it.

Shimano's full-auto hub and derailleur gearboxes are still going but
the prognosis is not good because Shimano has a long history of
ruthlessly killing products which reach only niche markets. I fear
that the Cyber Nexus will become merely a footnote to the
electronically assisted (not automatic) Dura-Ace shifter derived from
it. (The Dura-Ace shifter is a joke, a sop to the macho attitudes of
the roadies, nothing to do with extracting the maximum efficiency from
gears and cyclist.)

However, Rohloff can work within much smaller, specialist markets. I
for one would happily pay two or three hundred Euro for a kit to add
electronic shifting (powered by the hub dynamo already on my bikes) to
the Rohloff box.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Bicycles at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/...20CYCLING.html