Loading the Rohloff Hub

On Nov 14, 5:06*pm, Tom Ace wrote:
Rohloff has said they are developing a second version of
the Speedhub, smaller and lighter, but still 14 gears
(slightly larger range though).

Details (including availability date) are not finalized, but
word is that it probably won't be approved for tandem use.

http://thelazyrandonneur.blogspot.co...ticle&sid=3100

Tom Ace

Not holding my breath. I'm one of those infuriating fellows who would
rather have the proven outgoing model that the latest and gratest. I'm
happy for someone else to be the unpaid beta tester.

Andre Jute
Too little time left to bother with warranty repairs

On Nov 14, 9:52*pm, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:
Per Clive George:



Andy Blance is building bikes for people carrying large amounts of luggage
up steep hills on bad roads. Really tiny gears become relevant then. But for
normal road use, the 20" or lower bottom gear you're getting from even the
conservatively geared rohloff is entirely fine. And if it isn't fine, due to
lack of strength, gearing down past the warranted limits won't be a problem
either.

I'm about 100kg.

On my old Rohloff, I flirted briefly with 32t on the front; but
quickly went to 38.

Dunno what the gear inches was with 32, but 38's lowest gear is
plenty low for anything I climb.
--
PeteCresswell

How many miles on your Rohloff, Pete? -- AJ

Per Andre Jute:
How many miles on your Rohloff, Pete? -- AJ

Tough call bc I've got two and swap wheels depending on the
riding.

I'm gonna SWAG it and say 5,000 miles on the old one and 2,000 on
the new one.
--
PeteCresswell

On Nov 15, 2:08*am, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:
Per Andre Jute:

How many miles on your Rohloff, Pete? -- AJ

Tough call bc I've got two and swap wheels depending on the
riding.

I'm gonna SWAG it and say 5,000 miles on the old one and 2,000 on
the new one.

Which immediately raises the sinister question: Why went wrong with
the first one at only 5000 miles?

I'm weeks into a planning a Rohloff bike; the entire project is built
around Rohloff gears and balloon tyres. Don't tell me now I've made a
mistake...

Andre Jute
Going into shock

André Jute wrote:
On Nov 15, 2:08 am, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:
Per Andre Jute:

How many miles on your Rohloff, Pete? -- AJ
Tough call bc I've got two and swap wheels depending on the
riding.

I'm gonna SWAG it and say 5,000 miles on the old one and 2,000 on
the new one.

Which immediately raises the sinister question: Why went wrong with
the first one at only 5000 miles?

I'm weeks into a planning a Rohloff bike; the entire project is built
around Rohloff gears and balloon tyres. Don't tell me now I've made a
mistake...

Andre Jute
Going into shock

I read the above as Pete currently having two (2) Rohloff Speedhubs and
switching wheels depending on use.

As an example, a rider could have one wheel set with fat knobbies for
the softer stuff, and another wheel set with tires that have less tread
for hard pack or slick rock.

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the precipitate.

aka Mike Schwab wrote:
[...]
Going low for better climbing ability is fine, but how low of a top
gear do you want?
I mean at their minimum gearing, using the top gear and 100 RPM, what
is your top speed?

The problem of not enough overall range can easily be fixed by combining
a Schlumpf bottom bracket with the Rohloff Speedhub. I have ridden a
trike equipped thusly, and am aware of a couple of additional examples.

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the precipitate.

Tom Sherman wrote:

Mike Schwab wrote:

[...]
Going low for better climbing ability is fine, but how low of a top
gear do you want?
I mean at their minimum gearing, using the top gear and 100 RPM, what
is your top speed?

The problem of not enough overall range can easily be fixed by combining
a Schlumpf bottom bracket with the Rohloff Speedhub. I have ridden a
trike equipped thusly, and am aware of a couple of additional examples.

Someone here in town found a mangled 'bent at the dump (where he
works), about to go to the crusher. It had some salvageable bits, so
he nabbed it and gave it to a buddy of mine. Turns out a couple of
the salvageable bits were a Rohloff and a Schlumpf. When I
breathlessly observed what an amazing treasure he had stumbled into,
he offered to let _me_ have it. I replied that those parts were
reserved for some sort of badass bike for _him_. I'll build it myself
if I have to. I don't think the bike in question will require both
Rohloff and Schlumpf, though, unless it's as some kind of artistic
exercise. Roads only get so steep, and bikes only go so slow before
they fall over.

Chalo

Tom Ace wrote:

Rohloff has said they are developing a second version of
the Speedhub, smaller and lighter, but still 14 gears
(slightly larger range though).

And even more expensive, no doubt.

I think they might have done well to make their second model with a
wider range and _more_ torque and power capacity, so that it could be
used for electric assist bikes and other more-than-human powered
applications. I'm not sure who would pay a premium for a lighter
Rohloff hub and would also want wider gear range/larger steps between
gears. In my observation, weight weenies and people who "need" close-
ratio gearing are usually one and the same.

Chalo

Tom Sherman wrote:
aka Mike Schwab wrote:
[...]
Going low for better climbing ability is fine, but how low of a top
gear do you want?
I mean at their minimum gearing, using the top gear and 100 RPM, what
is your top speed?

The problem of not enough overall range can easily be fixed by combining
a Schlumpf bottom bracket with the Rohloff Speedhub. I have ridden a
trike equipped thusly, and am aware of a couple of additional examples.

While that is a solution, and one I use for the 'Tech, it must be the
most expensive way on Dogs own Earth of getting a better gear range.

Per Andre Jute:
Which immediately raises the sinister question: Why went wrong with
the first one at only 5000 miles?

I'm weeks into a planning a Rohloff bike; the entire project is built
around Rohloff gears and balloon tyres. Don't tell me now I've made a
mistake...

Nothing. It's still going strong. I just have two
Rohloff-equipped bikes.

I tell people who ask about the hub: "It's heavy, it's noisy,
it's less efficient, it costs an arm and a leg... and I just
bought another one."

Here's a review I wrote a long time ago:

================================================== ======

Pros:

- Wide shifts:
Probably a substitute for proper technique, but I can clean
inclines that I couldn't before. Hammer in to it in, say, gear 8,
then jump down to 4, then to 1 as needed.

Also, on long climbs I like to alternate in and out of the saddle
which, for me, is a 3 or 4 gear shift on each change. With the
der I used to do it a lot less frequently that I really like and
in the spirit of "Gee, I sure hope I don't miss this shift and
take the saddle horn up my butt (again...)".

Now I just snap those wide shifts without even thinking about it.
Any time, any place.- I'm always in the right gear, since
shifting is essentially trivial; seems like shifts take less than
a fiftieth of a second.


- No more rear cog problems: no taco'd cogs, no more vines/small
branches/grass wrapped around the cog/der.


- It *seems* pretty-much bombproof. Time will tell, but I was
spending more time than I cared to adjusting my der and bending a
cog wheel while riding was a PITA.


- Greatly-reduced frequency of missed shifts. "Reduced" and not
"Zero" because there is a 'gotcha' between 7 and 8 dumps you into
gear 14 if you forget and shift under load.

It pops back into the intended gear as soon as the load comes
off, but it's nothing you want to make a habit of doing.


- Ability to shift down when stopped. I think I make more than my
share of unplanned stops and I used to have to lift up the rear
wheel and rotate the cranks to get down to a starting gear.

Also, my technique sucks and probably won't get any better and
it's nice to be able approach an object and slow way, way down
before negotiating it without worrying about getting stuck in too
high a gear to get over it.


- I don't have to keep mental track of which chain ring I'm on.
Sounds trivial, but I don't have any brain cells to spare.


- Maybe not so much of a strength, but it should be mentioned
somewhere that 14 speeds are enough.

My original 44-32-22 der setup took me from 18.5 to 104.

With the Rohloff on a 44 I get 19.9 to 104.9 in nice even,
uniform 13.8% increments. That's only one less gear and, since I
never used 104 it's a wash for me.

With the 38 that I've since gone over to it's 17.2 - 90.6.
I don't get spun out in 90.6 until about 25 mph - and there's no
way I can hold that speed for very long anyhow.

I left the old 32 in the middle position just because it weighs
next to nothing and, on a big bump sometimes the chain drops
(you're supposed to have a front-der-like dingus up there to keep
it from doing that ....but I never go around to getting one) the
32 catches the chain. Also allows shifting down to a
usually-ludicrous 14.something if things get really bad....

Cons:

- It costs an arm and a leg.

If my wife ever finds out I spent close to a grand on a rear
wheel, she'll start to doubt my sanity.

- This hub weighs a *lot*. It added 1.9 pounds to my
already-heavy bike - same rim/tube/tire/spoke gauge.
Anybody who says it only adds a pound must be using a really,
*really* heavy cog/hub/der/shifter setup. I was using SRAM 9.0
with twist shifters.

- The installation instructions could use a re-write. I'm no
rocket scientist, and after studying them long enough I pulled it
off - but it could have been a *lot* easier.

- It's heavy. Are you ready for an 8-pound rear wheel?

- The torque arm mounting that came with it was decidedly
un-German (downright kludgey, I'd say...). Hose clamps!

Also sometime during the first hundred miles the little clevis
pin that held it all together disappeared. Wasn't a catastrophic
failure because the normal riding pressure pushes everything
together.... I probably installed the c-ring keeper wrong or
something - but it seems like a weak point. Replaced it with a
marine shackle set in LocTite.

I have since discovered that there is a more elegant torque arm
setup that Rohloff calls the "SpeedBone". Uses the disk brake
mount and does not interfere with using a disk brake.


- It's heavy.


- It's noisy, especially in gears 1-7. Supposedly this mitigates
with age, but it is still an issue with me at 1,000 miles.


- It's definitely less efficient in gears 1-8.

There's a web site somewhere (in German) that supposedly graphs a
Rohloff against one of the Shimanos and claims no loss in most
gears and 1-2% in the lower gears.

I would disagree with that web site's figures.


- Did I mention that it's heavy?

------------------------------------------------

Bottom Line:

This is definitely not for everybody and the torque arm thing
bugged me until I got the more elegant replacement.

Having said that, I find that me and the Rohloff are a good
match.

I've quickly gotten so used to getting any gear I want any time I
want and never having to stop and pull brush/branches out of my
rear der that I can't imagine going back.

It also appeals to the exhibitionist in me...

You, on the other hand, might hate the thing.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: it's heavy.


================================================== ======
--
PeteCresswell