# Watch This Space



## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

Just got the word from those magnificent wheel-constructing bastards at Wheelbuilder.com that my Rohloff hub-equipped wheel is on the way.

I am going to put it on my Salsa EL Mariachi Ti and I hope to use it on next year's Tour Divide.

I attempted the Tour Divide this year but failed to complete the race. I'm not blaming my equipment. I just didn't have the right mental attitude and I was very unprepared to say the least. With that being said, I did have some significant drivetrain problems including several broken chains, a bent derailleur, and the usual problems with mud and dust. 

I'm kind of coming out with this post. I was ashamed to fail and I'm now starting to recover and plan the rematch. 


I was running a SRAM X9 2x10 setup with a 36/22 crank and an 11-36 cassette. 

In any case, I have pored over this forum, Bikepacking.net, and the rest of the internet for anything I could learn about the Rohloff, both good and bad. The general consensus is that it's pretty stout and reliable but the question of efficiency and drag has not been settled. I weighed the pros and cons and decided to give it an expensive try.

So expensive that I sold my Stumpjumper FSR (with a SRAM XX1 drivetrain and Crankbrother Iodine wheels) to pay for what is going to turn out to be about a $2000 upgrade...if you count the cost of the hub, the rest of the wheel, the alternator plate, chain, and new crank. This will make my El Mariachi the most expensive bike I have ever, or will probably ever, own. We're well into the S-Works price range here, ha ha. 

I am under strict orders from my lovely new bride (also an avid cyclist) that we must cull the herd of bikes in our house so selling the Stumpy, although a difficult decision, killed two birds with one stone. 

The El Mariachi frame was beautiful to ride, by the way. With Jones Loop H bars and a Niner fork I had no complaints about that. And the above-mentioned bastards built me a hell-for-stout 40-spoke wheel around a White Industries XMR hub that ran like a Timex. 

I'm going to take a lot of pictures of the build and post them here just to give people an idea of what is involved. And I will, with all of your indulgences and with great respect to those of you who are seasoned veterans of internally geared hubs, post my impressions of the how it works. 

I'll try to be honest and, despite the price, I'm prepared to admit that it was a bad idea if I don't like it. I'm not going 2700 miles on something that I don't like.


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## buell (Oct 15, 2015)

pretty pretty cool.


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## fokof (Apr 24, 2006)

Rohloff is kind of an Acquired taste ,shifting takes a bit of time to get used to.
Had my first one 12 years ago , still running stronger than ever. It has paid itself over these years compared to derailleur bent , chains , cassettes etc....
I got 7 bikes (yeah , I'm a bikahlolic) , only one with a derailleur (the road bike) , mounted with Dura-Ace , and I'm swearing each time I have to shift 

There's this study on IGH vs derailleur : 
http://www.ihpva.org/HParchive/PDF/hp52-2001.pdf
Been made with 27 speed drivetrain (3 front , 9 back) where the chain twist were nothing compared with 1 X10 or 1 X 12 of today so the comparaison with today's drivetrains would probably be a lot closer between a Rohloff and a 1 X 12

When I got my first Rohloff, I saw three disadvantages over the XTR drivetrain it was replacing : Price , Weight , Twist shift
Now I only consider the weight penalty but if I think of all the advantages , I can live with those extra grams.

Enjoy


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## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

Starting the conversion:

Here's some pictures of the original configuration:

Salsa El Mariachi Ti 
Truvativ 36/22 Crank 
SRAM X9 shifters and front derailleur
SRAM GX Rear Derailleur.
SRAM 11-36 Cassette

Not a bad setup. It worked well when when it was dry. Didn't handle mud and rain very well. I cleaned and lubed the chain every night on my Tour Divide attempt. I also broke the chain twice while climbing (from ill-advised shifting) and bent the crap out of the original derailleur which I replaced on day three; I had bent it back into shape and it worked well enough to proceed.


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## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

Out with the old...

Salsa makes Rohloff specific alternator dropouts. For those of you who aren't familiar, the basic concept is clear from the pictures. Makes tensioning a chain for single speed or IGH a breeze.

You only need a new left-side dropout. The OEM axle plate on the Rohloff has a stud that fits into the slot (it can only go in one way). This allows for torque from the hub to be transmitted to the frame. 

I got the quick release version of the hub with the OEM1 plate. There are many configurations to choose from so make sure you know which one you need.

The OEM axle plate is attached to the hub with five screws. On this version, it also secures the external gear mechanism that lets you shift through the external gear mech (not installed yet on the picture but it fits over those two studs). 

You have to undo the axle plate to rotate it 1) to slide the brake disc onto the hub and 2) to select the location of the external gear mech. It has to clear the brake, etc.

As you might be able to tell, I had to readjust the location of the OEM plate at the first try because the ext. mech wouldn't clear the brake.


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## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

Installing the chain and tensioning it is super easy with alternator plates. They swing backwards with set screws.

Chainline is important, just like in a single speed. My crank is at the exact 54 mm required by the hub so it worked out perfectly.

I haven't installed the shifter yet but, as you can manually shift the gears at the external mech with an 8mm open end wrench, I took it out for a test ride.


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## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

Filled the hub with 25 ml of oil per the instructions from Rohloff. Nothing to it. Superglue the filler tube to the syringe and you will have no troubles. 


My preliminary ride report after about a mile and getting on and off the bike to shift with my 8mm open end wrench:

Drag? What drag? I have read the almost everything I could find about the mechanical efficiency of the hub from people who like the hub and those who don't. I was really worried about this but, really, it felt like a normal bike to me. You pedal and it goes forward. It did not feel any different than my derailleur setup..at all.

I'm running a 36-16 ratio. The low gear is delightful. Granny would be proud. Since the Tour Divide is all uphill, I really want the gearing on the lower end. The high gear (14) felt tall enough and I got plenty of speed on it during my test run.

I'm not joking about that. Sometimes I climbed for four hours straight with the occasional brief flat section but no downhill. The tour divide is all about getting to the top of long mountain passes and then recovering a little bit on the long descents. 

There is a point, of course, where getting off and hiking is faster. As I got to the top of some of those passes the combination of altitude and grade made pedaling very difficult so I often had to hike the last half mile or so.


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## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

I'll have to install the shifter cables and give it a real test ride to be sure about drag. It might be that I secretly expected the worst, like pedaling through treacle as one reviewer put it, so when this turned out not to be the case I was elated. 

Remember, I have $2000 riding on this upgrade. If it ends up sucking I'm not going to torture myself this June. 

As another observation, I didn't notice any unusual noise in gears 1-7. If anything, it is quieter than the derailleur setup it replaced. I think the alternator dropouts might be isolating vibrations from the internals. People assured me I would hear a "whirring noise" that I would either love or hate. 

It does add appreciable weight to the wheel. I've never weighed the bike or my Tour Divide gear. Probably a combined weight of fifty pounds and you feel every pound on some of those climbs. I weighed too much this year and I want to lose 25 pounds by next June; and cut the weight of my gear. I brought some stuff that I didn't need and I bet I could easily shed eight pounds. 

Extra batteries for the GPS, for example. I was really never more than a day and change from somewhere I could get AA batteries. That's half a pound right there. I'm also looking at those new lightweight aerothane inner tubes. I carried two regular tubes (never needed them) and their combined weight with patches et all was probably a pound.


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## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

Fitted the external gear mech today. The instructions are fairly straight forward and the only slightly tricky thing is winding the cables around the pulley.

With that being said, I managed to install the cables backwards. It shifts perfectly but the low gear is on 14 and the high is on 1 at the shifter. And I think the cables were slightly long. I have to even out the barrel adjusters but I was so happy it worked that I'll leave that for cable replacement day. It looks kind of sloppy. I adjusted it a little after the picture. 

Measure from the end of the ferrule, by the way. 

I ordered another set of cables. The ends get crimped when you tighten the set screw in the pulley and they fray when you try to reinsert them. I don't want to cut any more length off the cable housing because I need space for my handlebar "sweetroll."

So I'll just ride it like that for a few days. 

It rides great, by the way. I am very impressed. I took it out for about five miles of gravel road with some pavement. 

Impressions:

1. I'm still waiting for the noise everybody warned me about. It seems very quiet and the most I have heard is some very, very, slight whirring in some gears. But I really have to listen and be riding on smooth pavement. On gravel other sounds drown out any hub noises. 

2. I swear, on whatever religious book you care to offer, that drag is not an issue. It seems as easy to pedal as a clean derailleur system. It seems very slick. 

3. Generally, you have to let up on the pedals for a moment to shift into most gears. Took about three minutes to get the hang of it. It seems very intuitive anyway. You can easily grab a handful of gears and shift four or so up and down with one turn of the wrist.

4. Although it is not indexed shifting like regular shifters, you can feel a definite click in each gear. My shifter is a little stiff, probably because of the curve the cables takes to get to the top of the mech. I really didn't want the external mech hanging down under the chainstay. Seems like this would defeat the purpose of not having an exposed derailleur. 

5. Although the bike doesn't really feel any heavier, the back end definitely is. I had a very stout rear wheel, anyway. The Rohloff replaced a 40-spoke Velocity Cliffhanger wheel. I weigh about 225 so I'm hard on rear wheels . When I was training for the Tour Divide on a 32 spoke wheel I broke spokes every now and then. I have 2000 miles or so on the forty-spoker and it's going strong.

Overkill, maybe. 

6. It feels very solid. No skipping gears at all, even when hammering out of the saddle. Time will tell. 

7. I have a 36-16 ratio which gives you some very, very low gears. Maybe too low. I was going about two miles an hour up some steep hills in the lowest gear, well past the point where I'd get off and walk. I'll see how it goes and tentatively get a bigger front chainring with a dedicated single speed crank. On the Tour Divide, at least for casual racers like me low gears are good. 

The top speed without spinning out in the highest gear was about 17 MPH. Fast enough for the Tour Divide.


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## portnuefpeddler (Jun 14, 2016)

Getting those shifting cables properly wrapped into the shifter, messed with my head for a few hours....until I finally turned to the last few pages of the manual and saw I was trying to do it ass backwards. Then it was a few minutes job. That looks like a pretty tight curve on your cables, at least that forward one, but it works, so good enough. I have the splined (quick change) rear cog setup, and rather then mess with the chain ring up front, I just played around with the rear cogs until I got the ratio I wanted for my purposes. It takes about 2 minutes to change that rear cog, it takes me longer to take the rear tire off then to change the cog. Agreed on the noise thing, minor, wind and tires are mostly what I hear.


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## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

Got to take the bike out today. Thirty miles, mostly gravel and dirt roads. 

I was able to concentrate a bit more. The hub is very quiet in the upper gear range, 7-14.

In 1-6 there is a faint whirring noise. Sounds like gears meshing. Only heard it on the pavement and very smooth dirt. Other noises tend to drown it out.

I'd like to say I could tell the difference between the Rohloff and the previous configuration. The thirty miles was one of my standard training rides and I finished it in roughly the same amount of time with the same average speed. 

There are just so many variables to consider, however. Generally my first impression is the IGH does not detract from the ride. 

The 36-16 ratio works pretty well. I got to "open it up" on some downhills and officially I start to feel silly pedaling (for lack of a better way to phrase it) at just under 20 MPH. This is fast enough for the Tour Divide which is basically riding uphill for 2700 miles. 

On the flat sections I spent a lot of time in gears 8-10 and these seem very efficient and I easily maintained 10-12 MPH. Gear 11 is, I believe, direct drive. 

The low gear in my configuration is really, really low. Embarrassing, almost. But I like it. You can shift to it instantaneously, too. 

Overall, the bike feels like fourteen different single speeds.


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## buell (Oct 15, 2015)

check this out for your cable routing
http://forums.mtbr.com/internal-gear-hubs/rohloff-tips-1025563.html#post12874329


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## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

200 miles on the hub. Really, I like it. I have nothing bad to say about it. I think I now believe the information on the Rohloff web page in regard to efficiency. 

My big concern was adding drag to the system but I really haven't noticed it. It's a personal thing, I know. I think the straight chainline in all gear combinations helps. It runs pretty silently, kind of like a good single speed.

It does run perfectly in mud. I hit some on my last ride with no problems except I stopped and easily cleaned the chain with water from a water bottle. It ran fine with mud on the chain, by the way. 

I run tubeless so I haven't had a flat yet. When I do, I'll update you on how hard it is to drop and remount the wheel in the field. 

The weight isn't a problem for me. I'm running it on dirt, gravel, and paved roads. Nothing technical. 

All in all, a successful upgrade. Wish I'd tried it sooner. My experience with the Hammerschmidt probably scared me off. That's a gearbox that really did add significant drag.


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## portnuefpeddler (Jun 14, 2016)

I was in some snow and mud last weekend for the first time since my Rohloff install, odd combination but that's Idaho at high elevations in the fall, and I was glad to have it. Over 600 miles now.


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## 2LO4U2C (Jun 9, 2011)

I would recommend getting the hub broken in before your ride and then doing the oil change before you go. Fresh oil in a broken in Rohloff is even smoother than a fresh one. 

The drag can be seen when you take your feet off the pedals when coasting, the cranks will start to turn, this can be reduced by putting a few drops of oil on the rear seal through the round holes in the rear cog. 

Keep us informed!


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## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

2LO4U2C said:


> I would recommend getting the hub broken in before your ride and then doing the oil change before you go. Fresh oil in a broken in Rohloff is even smoother than a fresh one.
> 
> The drag can be seen when you take your feet off the pedals when coasting, the cranks will start to turn, this can be reduced by putting a few drops of oil on the rear seal through the round holes in the rear cog.
> 
> Keep us informed!


I have until June for the Tour Divide. I'm going to start training in about March (I mean other than doing the normal 30-40 mile rides I do for fun). I'm well on my way to breaking it in.

Should I change the oil after the 500 km break in period or wait until I hit 5000 km?

I'm going to do more hill training. This seems impossible in Louisiana but there is a Fit Cycling studio that my wife goes to where I can ride "uphill" on a trainer for a couple of hours several times a week.


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## Ondamat (Sep 17, 2014)

How did this go? I'm a Rohloff owner and like them but am also considering going 2x10. I'd be investing in a new hub as I'm going to get me a Jones after riding a Rohloffed Krampus for a few years.


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## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

Ondamat said:


> How did this go? I'm a Rohloff owner and like them but am also considering going 2x10. I'd be investing in a new hub as I'm going to get me a Jones after riding a Rohloffed Krampus for a few years.


The Rohloff performed perfectly. I had zero mechanical issues after a host of them last year. I even scrubbed the hub, chain, and wheel free of mud in a creek and the Rohloff kept on rolling.

Noticed a lot more drag than I did while training. Unfortunately I did most of my training in Louisiana where the hills are short and not very steep. Consequently I spent most of my training time in the higher gears where fewer gears are engaged and the drag is insignificant. I spent a good deal of time in the lower gears on the race, especially churning up mountain passes and on long, long uphill grades and I could feel some power loss over last year. Bad roads, mud, and headwinds compounded this.

Was it significant? I believe that we cycle at the margins. We can effortlessly fly down a two percent grade but going uphill on the same grade, while not difficult, takes substantially more effort. And yet the difference in the vector force, either pulling us forward or dragging us back on a two percent grade, even on a fully-loaded expedition bike, can't be more than ten pounds or so.

But it's that ten pounds that makes the difference. If you're going up a five percent grade and you have a twenty pound force vector pulling you backwards, two or three pounds of force added to that from drag of the hub, while seemingly negligible, can make a lot of difference.

Blowing out my knee is what kept me from finishing.* That and a general lack of fitness. Some finishers have used Rohloffs with no complaints. It certainly is both reliable and robust. But then again, people finish the race with derailleurs and everybody who was competitive used one. The Tour Divide is mostly gravel roads with some crappy jeep tracks and the odd singletrack thrown in. But mostly just endless gravel. Except for occasional mud a derailleur will work just fine.

I like the Rohloff. I still ride my El Mariachi all the time and it is my favorite bike. I even take it to road cycling events where, as I have no chance of winning, I may as well have a comfortable ride that is "fast enough."

My wife is competitive at most of these with her average road speed of 19 miles per hour or so. I tool along at 14...on the Rohloff...having fun doing it and answering a lot of questions about the hub. Somebody even accused me of having an E-bike.

_*I also had a lot of personal things going on that retarded my ability to enjoy or focus on the race. A couple of bad malpractice suits, a ruinous lawsuit from my ex-wife, and the stress of switching jobs. I had planned to race before all of this hit but decided to press on...even though all of these things not only destroyed my concentration but kept me from training like I wanted to. I should have bowed out this year and planned for 2019. _


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## Ondamat (Sep 17, 2014)

Mate, thank you for the response. Sorry to hear of your troubles, I hope you’ve emerged from them and can focus on enjoying the great outdoors in good health!

Your experience reflects mine, I love the Rohloff but for riding in anger I’m thinking 1x11 or 2x10. Not sure.


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## cyclingdutchman (Mar 18, 2015)

My opinion is that the drag mostly occurs when dirt gets between the housing and the cog. The cog also keeps the seal in place and therefore rubs along the seal. If its dirty there is more drag so I drop some oil in there every 2 weeks. No sticky chain oil but more the fluid.type.that you put on a sewing machine (sorry dont know how it is called in english).

My theory is based on the.fact that the cranks are turning when walking with the bike. It stops when I put some oil between the housing and cog.

If my theory is correct the most efficient gear should be 11. In that gear the ratio is 1:1 so the cog doesnt move relatively to the hub when riding.

If not.correctly laced you might suffer a broken flange. Make sure you get the confirmation from your wheel builder that they used the correct.spokes, spoke tension and pattern (see rohloff manual,.pdf is downloadable at their site) If you bought the hub new and registered it at rohloff they will be very generous in case of any repairs, even after many years, but a broken flange will probably also include new spokes and relacing the wheel. That you will still have to pay probably...

Congrats on the good experiences and many thanks for your feedback. Such feedback is very helpful if you are considering such an investment.


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## Ailuropoda (Dec 15, 2010)

Ondamat said:


> Mate, thank you for the response. Sorry to hear of your troubles, I hope you've emerged from them and can focus on enjoying the great outdoors in good health!
> 
> Your experience reflects mine, I love the Rohloff but for riding in anger I'm thinking 1x11 or 2x10. Not sure.


Things are improving. The ex-wife is a **** and will be a drag on my income for many years to come but she didn't get what she wanted. The lawsuits are what they are. I'm just not going to worry about them.

The Tour Divide is a serious undertaking. Determination will only get you so far, you simply have to be fit enough to stay on the bike for fourteen hours a day and then get out of your sleeping bag and do it all again.

You also have to have the desire to do this and a clear mind. Most days while I was riding I was dwelling on my problems and I felt kind of silly (and ashamed) being out there while so much was going South at home.

Maybe I'll make one more attempt in 2019 or 2020. I'll still be young enough, all of this extraneous stuff will have settled down (hopefully), and I will have the time and the will to train effectively.

Definitely going to do Northbound, starting from Antelope Wells, next time. The cold really bothers me and I packed a lot of cold-weather gear I probably wouldn't need doing a NoBO attempt.


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