Cycling UK Forum

JohnR wrote: ↑9 Jan 2024, 5:21pm Personally, I've made do with a chain tensioner for my Rohloff hub.....

Me too.

I previously used my Rohloff hub in a frame with horizontal dropouts. It worked fine but wheel removal/refitting was fiddly. I much prefer using it in solid dropouts with the chain tensioner. I thought that lining up the OEM2 plate, Monkey bone, disc rotor might be a faff, but it's now a doddle. I guess that all the chain tensioning methods have pros and cons - it all comes down to personal preference.

I really do want to try belt drive before I 'croak'.

A friend has an Oxford Bike Works tourer (another Lee Cooper frame) with Rohloff and sliding dropouts. I've helped him tension the chain a couple of times and it's not easy; they don't like to slide. Horizontal dropouts are the best, really.

PH wrote: ↑9 Jan 2024, 12:51pm

531colin wrote: ↑9 Jan 2024, 11:58am On the other hand, eccentric BBs held by 2 pointy bolts are awful, there are several better ways

I thought mine was awful till I grasped how to best use it. I wrecked the first one in the usual way, micro adjustments and indents so close that the bolts slid between them. By the time I got a replacement, I'd realised how much variation in chain tension a hub gear can tolerate. Making just three indents and taking care to re-use them made it a lot easier to live with, though the clamp type is easier still.

My tout terrain has a larger bottom bracket shell with a split held together with two hex key screws which clamp the eccentric plastic insert. To tension the chain you slacken the two screws, insert a hex key in the hole in the side of the plastic insert and lever it into the new position. Retighten the screws. It takes about a minute. The plastic is seriously tough stuff and lightweight. The cables run under the bottom bracket routed not to foul the screws. It doesn't get caked in mud because I have a long flap on the front mudguard. My backside and arms can't detect the difference of a few mm at the end of my long legs.

My wife's Max-Cycles Rohloff bike has huge aluminium alloy sliding drop-outs which make the rear end much wider than my bike. They are also simple to adjust.

Pointed screws are a cheap and nasty engineering solution.

Inside the Rohloff hub there are two cartridge bearings which support the driver. These are very commonly the first things to wear out or go wrong inside such a hub. These bearings will also see the belt preload in any belt drive conversion, and this is certainly a higher load than with a chain (to a first approximation the belt preload is about equal to the maximum anticipated service load in many cases) and than they were originally intended to see. There are also issues with 'sponginess' in lower gears with a lot of belts. So there are a few things to think about when contemplating a belt drive. With a Rohloff hub, you should definitely aim to have first class driver bearings.

It maks me wonder what Rohloff's definition of failure is, when they say that none of their hubs has experienced an internal failure.

I understand the "internal" caveat, as several people managed to crack flanges and the hub shell has since been redesigned.

when the driver bearings go bad, normally the first thing that happens is that the dog clutch just beyond the driver becomes so poorly aligned that it slips. This slippage is very obvious and normally the rider will stop using the hub at this stage, thus preventing any further damage. If new driver bearings are installed, this normally effects a complete cure.

Rohloff has changed the gear ratio to 1.9 and the oil fill to 12.5 ml the flush is still 25ml. I’m 63 now but fitted the lowest gearing I could get to future proof it 34 x 17 I could have gone 2 teeth lower on the chain ring at 32 tooth but SJS cycles didn’t have a 32 in when I upgraded an Orange P7. I also have an ICE trike that has a triple chainring set on the front 22, 32, 44 with a 17 tooth sprocket on the back. I can use the 32 and 44 chainring but the 22 would be too low for the Rohloff. The trike was 3 x 9 so i kept the triple and the same rear mech to tension the chain.

crossy wrote: ↑10 Jan 2024, 9:29pm Rohloff has changed the gear ratio to 1.9 and the oil fill to 12.5 ml the flush is still 25ml. I’m 63 now but fitted the lowest gearing I could get to future proof it 34 x 17 I could have gone 2 teeth lower on the chain ring at 32 tooth but SJS cycles didn’t have a 32 in when I upgraded an Orange P7. I also have an ICE trike that has a triple chainring set on the front 22, 32, 44 with a 17 tooth sprocket on the back. I can use the 32 and 44 chainring but the 22 would be too low for the Rohloff. The trike was 3 x 9 so i kept the triple and the same rear mech to tension the chain.

Interested in your Rohloff P7. Could you explain a bit more how you did the conversion? They had sliding dropouts, right? Are you using the triple chainset and rear mech as a tensioner???

The Orange has sliding drop outs and looks like a single speed. The triple and rear mech is on an ICE trike.

Thanks for that, was trying to imagine what you'd done and then remembered the P7 had sliding dropouts...

There's something a bit comical about the juxtaposition between the engineering brilliance of a Rohloff and the ever-expanding plethora of Heath Robinson setups for tensioning. Skipping the price, the other thing that always put me off was the twist-grip shifter. But it's an undeniably lovely looking bike the OP has.

Jezrant wrote: ↑12 Jan 2024, 10:31am ...

Skipping the price, the other thing that always put me off was the twist-grip shifter. But it's an undeniably lovely looking bike the OP has.

I have the Cinq thumb shifters for my Rohloff. They work well. Brifters are now also available, and for Pinion too. Rohloff do an electronic version.

Here: https://www.rad-lager.de/TTshifter.htm (in German).

I have a good design for a rohloff two cable shifter that would live beneath the stem on a bike with dropped bars. I also have a design for a thumbshifter-driven single cable shifter. The latter uses an external spring on the second cable, so shifting would be very similar to a lot of other bikes.

The thing that has suprised me SJS removed the the Rohloff internals and put new ones in for me. That cost me £250 so basically a new hub with 2 year warranty, but if I bought a new one it would have cost me £1200 does that mean the external bits cost £950?

plancashire wrote: ↑12 Jan 2024, 11:37am

Jezrant wrote: ↑12 Jan 2024, 10:31am ...

Skipping the price, the other thing that always put me off was the twist-grip shifter. But it's an undeniably lovely looking bike the OP has.

I have the Cinq thumb shifters for my Rohloff. They work well. Brifters are now also available, and for Pinion too. Rohloff do an electronic version.

Here: https://www.rad-lager.de/TTshifter.htm (in German).

Thanks, I remember reading a write-up about the Cinq shifters on the Thorn forum. It was quite a balanced review. They've also been mentioned on here a few times but not sure if anyone else who regularly posts here has been using them. Why though have Rohloff so doggedly stuck with that twist-grip shifter? It's not as if they haven't had the time to come up with something better.
I bet Brucey has.

Jezrant wrote: ↑12 Jan 2024, 5:24pm

plancashire wrote: ↑12 Jan 2024, 11:37am

Jezrant wrote: ↑12 Jan 2024, 10:31am ...

Skipping the price, the other thing that always put me off was the twist-grip shifter. But it's an undeniably lovely looking bike the OP has.

I have the Cinq thumb shifters for my Rohloff. They work well. Brifters are now also available, and for Pinion too. Rohloff do an electronic version.

Here: https://www.rad-lager.de/TTshifter.htm (in German).

Thanks, I remember reading a write-up about the Cinq shifters on the Thorn forum. It was quite a balanced review. They've also been mentioned on here a few times but not sure if anyone else who regularly posts here has been using them. Why though have Rohloff so doggedly stuck with that twist-grip shifter? It's not as if they haven't had the time to come up with something better.
I bet Brucey has.

The Rohloff twist grip shifter is a very simple ( and therefore reliable !) gear shifter - no mechanical or moving parts to fail as such as used in trigger and rapid fire style shifters. I actually prefer the twist operation to anything else, though I've often wondered if something along the lines of the now discontinued Suntour Command shifters could be adapted or used to operate the Rohloff on a drop bar set up.