# Is my Rohloff Speedhub ready to drop dead?



## pakcyclist (Apr 8, 2015)

I have a Speedhub with 34,000 miles on it. Lately, every once in a while -- maybe every 15 - 20 miles -- it seems to "skip," "give out" -- i.e., spin freely for a couple pedal revolutions -- or whatever is happening, for a second or so. A couple times my foot came out of the pedal and I nearly crashed! I tried changing the oil, cables, chain, cog, and chainring to no avail. (Didn't change the shifter or external gear mech. Could it be one of those?) Can this be fixed? Or, does it mean it's nearing the end of its useful life?


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## manensky (Aug 22, 2011)

pakcyclist said:


> I have a Speedhub with 34,000 miles on it. Lately, every once in a while -- maybe every 15 - 20 miles -- it seems to "skip," "give out" -- i.e., spin freely for a couple pedal revolutions -- or whatever is happening, for a second or so. A couple times my foot came out of the pedal and I nearly crashed! I tried changing the oil, cables, chain, cog, and chainring to no avail. (Didn't change the shifter or external gear mech. Could it be one of those?) Can this be fixed? Or, does it mean it's nearing the end of its useful life?


If this skipping happens after gear change, then it would be worth of checking,cleaning&lubricating external gear mech. This is one potential fault place since it can prevent hub internal shifter mechanism to do proper "click" and you will end up between two gears.

If skipping happens after coasting, then problem might be in clutch mechanism. I have had this issue with normal oil mixture when it is cold enough. Oil comes too stiff and prevents proper clutch attach after coasting. Problem didn't go away with normal "winter oil mix"-oil change and I had to spin wheel sideways (drive side down) with cleaning oil to "clean" clutch mech from normal oil.

Anyway, 34k miles for the hub is not too much


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## fokof (Apr 24, 2006)

pakcyclist said:


> Can this be fixed? [/IMG]


Probably , send it to these guys: 
Rohloff Speedhub Wheels, Sales and Service from Cycle Monkey

Mine has twice your millage , seen three frames , and running like a champ !
I've sent mine to them this year for maintenance , they changed the seals , bearings.
Good job and fast.


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## vikb (Sep 7, 2008)

+1 to the suggestion to get it serviced. The hub is still young with lots of life left.


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## tosca (Aug 14, 2011)

have you checked the clamping torque of your quick release?! 
rohloff suggests 7 Nm max. for hex skewers. 

Had this problem a few times when temperatures drop at the end of the year and loosened the qr nut 1/4 turn and it was gone. seems the hollow axle and the qr axle (in my case: shimano xt) have slightly different thermal expansion. 

oil change with 50/50 speedhub-/cleaning oil would also be worth a try.


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## pakcyclist (Apr 8, 2015)

tosca said:


> have you checked the clamping torque of your quick release?!
> rohloff suggests 7 Nm max. for hex skewers.
> 
> Had this problem a few times when temperatures drop at the end of the year and loosened the qr nut 1/4 turn and it was gone. seems the hollow axle and the qr axle (in my case: shimano xt) have slightly different thermal expansion.
> ...


Interesting. Seems when I go to loosen the QR it seems to be an awful lot tighter than when I closed it, for some reason. I did loosen the barrel adjusters on the gear mech -- to the point where there is quite a bit of play at the shifter -- and there has been much less skipping (and only slight ones, not where it gives out for a second or 2). I'll try loosening the QR.


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## tosca (Aug 14, 2011)

btw, does the skipping happen in specific gear(s), only after shifting, under heavy load, after freewheeling? 
What gear mech are you using? (internal,external)
Did you disassemble the gear mech? (maybe lost one of the freewheel springs)

the good thing about a Rohloff is that the unit/hub is quite well engineered and put together so that there is no/little adjustment/service needed to the unit itself and therefore most defects result from installation errors or defects of the remaining parts of the system which all are relatively easy to fix.

An other scenario i could think of are fraying cables in the cable pulley, but you said you changed cables so this shouldn't be the case. 

The very loose setting of the qr was quite uncomforting at first, but never had any problems with pulled out axle by braking or hard riding. They recommend something like a "you have to be able to easily close it with your thumb" rule for conventional skewers. 
The problem with too much clamping force is that the hub has two axles. One axle transmitts all the shifting operations and meshs with the other. Too much torque compresses the bigger/outer axle (at least as i remember) and the shifting notches are a slightly out of alignment with their counterparts or get compressed slightly and this causes jamming and thus missed shifts and skipping. 

From experience: for german speaking people it is best to just call Rohloff without hesitation - Mrs. Rohloff herself will call you back and tell you how to fix it 
For the US maybe you should try cyclemonkey first (as they are the Rohloff service partner in NA) before contacting Rohloff. 

hope you get this sorted out soon.


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## pakcyclist (Apr 8, 2015)

tosca said:


> btw, does the skipping happen in specific gear(s), only after shifting, under heavy load, after freewheeling?
> What gear mech are you using? (internal,external)
> Did you disassemble the gear mech? (maybe lost one of the freewheel springs)
> 
> There's no rhyme or rhythm to it . . . it tends to happen more often after shifting and in gear 7, but it has happened in other gears and after not having shifted for a few minutes. Even when it was new, I occasionally got this. Since I have another Rohloff on my MTB, which I don't EVER remember skipping, I suspect the one on my road bike wasn't quite right to begin with.


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## vikb (Sep 7, 2008)

> Slipping Gears
> Internet reports of slipping gears can often be traced to using the chain tensioner; everything that I have reported about the hub has been based on me using the OEM version, in a frame with vertical dropouts and an eccentric bottom bracket. There are alternative methods of building a frame for a Rohloff hub&#8230;obviously I believe that my solution is the best but there really is no sense in using the chain tensioner or belt drive.
> 
> Very occasionally, a new hub rapidly becomes difficult to change between 3 and 4 and/or 10 and 11, even more occasionally, this can be accompanied by slipping in these gears, sometimes a small foreign
> ...


From Thorn's Rohloff PDF.

http://www.sjscycles.com/thornpdf/thornlivingwitharohloff_lores.pdf


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## tosca (Aug 14, 2011)

seems like you really should contact Rohloff and get this thing fixed up. 

With 34000 mi this hub isn't exactly brand new and i don't think you could actually say with any certainty it was faulty right from the start, but it really seems now something is wrong with the indexing. 

If you thoroughly communicate the problems and unsuccessful attempts you already took trying to fix it, I am absolutely sure they will take care of it. 
They really stand behind their product. Even if you have to box up your wheel and send it to service i am pretty sure they won't charge you anything for the work, material and postage back (and eventually refund your postage) - as long as they won't find the problem being caused by serious disregard of the user instructions.


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