P
(PeteCresswell)
Guest
Per Dan:
>Anyone have any experience with these
>http://www.rohloff.de/index.php?p=PRODUKTE/SPEEDHUB
Here's a review I wrote shortly after purchasing my first one.
It's all still valid for me after three years except for the noise and the part
about dropping the front chain.
The noise no longer bothers me.... maybe the thing got worn in, maybe I've just
adapted.
The front chain issue was resolved by tightening up the tension (i.e. removing
another link from the chain).
If your bike has disk brake mounts and you're using v brakes, you don't need
either the SpeedBone or the hose clamp kludge. The hub's bracket will interface
directly with a bolt through one of the disk mounts. OTOH, if you have disc
brakes, I'd say the extra money for the SpeedBone is a no-brainer
aesthetics-wise.
=================================================================
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
kludgy, 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 Shimano's 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
>Anyone have any experience with these
>http://www.rohloff.de/index.php?p=PRODUKTE/SPEEDHUB
Here's a review I wrote shortly after purchasing my first one.
It's all still valid for me after three years except for the noise and the part
about dropping the front chain.
The noise no longer bothers me.... maybe the thing got worn in, maybe I've just
adapted.
The front chain issue was resolved by tightening up the tension (i.e. removing
another link from the chain).
If your bike has disk brake mounts and you're using v brakes, you don't need
either the SpeedBone or the hose clamp kludge. The hub's bracket will interface
directly with a bolt through one of the disk mounts. OTOH, if you have disc
brakes, I'd say the extra money for the SpeedBone is a no-brainer
aesthetics-wise.
=================================================================
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
kludgy, 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 Shimano's 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
