Cycling UK Forum

I was just looking through eBay for Rohloff hubs and came across this...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VSF-Fahrradma ... 58c6b7cc1d

Has anyone had any experience with this brand? It seems too good to be true, a steel tourer with a £800 Rohloff and a SON 28 for £1500???

i've had my VSF T400 XTR for 5 years. It's an all day long comfortable bike with great load carrying ability. I've ridden it on various surfaces in Britain and Europe and it has coped with everything. It is similar to the Thorn Nomad I had but with a much better paint job and finish.

I live near a VSF bike shop and I am impressed with the whole range partiularly the Randonneur but the newest rohloffs look magnificent and are quite keenly priced too

Samuelriley wrote:I was just looking through eBay for Rohloff hubs and came across this...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VSF-Fahrradma ... 58c6b7cc1d

Has anyone had any experience with this brand? It seems too good to be true, a steel tourer with a £800 Rohloff and a SON 28 for £1500???

I bought my VSF TX-1000 (with Rohloff) in 2012 and have done 4 summer tours on it totaling about 4500 km. In all that time I've had just one puncture and now one worn-out chain. The only bit of the bike I didn't get on with was the Brooks Imperial saddle, replaced by a Selle Italia. It is built like a Tiger tank. It carries heavy loads without problems and has taken a persistent hammering on some rougher tracks in Germany without anything breaking. It is heavy (17 kg unloaded) but that's probably the price you pay for that robustness.

Not really on the radar in the UK * but on the Continent, they are popular (no real competition though), very well spec'ed for the price with a decent paint job, too.
A touch on the heavy side, if you were to force a negative out of me. Most of their frames are "25CrMo4" which I think is 4130 - same as a Surly LHT.

* I think there is somewhere in Cambridge that sells them. www.chrisbikes.co.uk

I did the Pamir Highway in July on my Thorn Raven but my pal from Spain did it on one of these. With a Rohloff hub.
He carried more than me and was going on the China Pakistan India and Nepal
Both bikes did well
He was hyper critical of all his gear and praised his bike no end.

My Raven was great but his was equal or better.

Will soon find out what they're like. Thought I'd have a go at trying out a Rohloff hub so, mainly on a whim, bought a Fahrradmanufaktur TX400 on Friday. It's coming from Osnabruck so should arrive sometime this week. Seems well equipped with Tubus carriers front and rear ,Magura brakes, SON 28 dynamo and B&M lights amongst other supposedly quality kit. Most of the parts seem to be made in Germany. At not much over £1400 delivered it seems very reasonably priced for the level of kit.

The poster above is correct , the tubing used is called 4130 by the Septics.

Looks a lot of bike for the money, if you're looking for a robust tourer with all the kit I can't see you going far wrong with this.
As for the steel, people get too het up about the names and numbers, when what really matters is what's been done with it, diameters and wall thickness is what determines the way it rides.

I've just cycled LeJoG on on a VSF T400 without the Rohloff and it is a great bike that is comfortable all day and can carry lots of kit.

pete75 wrote:Will soon find out what they're like. Thought I'd have a go at trying out a Rohloff hub so, mainly on a whim, bought a Fahrradmanufaktur TX400 on Friday. It's coming from Osnabruck so should arrive sometime this week. Seems well equipped with Tubus carriers front and rear ,Magura brakes, SON 28 dynamo and B&M lights amongst other supposedly quality kit. Most of the parts seem to be made in Germany. At not much over £1400 delivered it seems very reasonably priced for the level of kit.

The poster above is correct , the tubing used is called 4130 by the Septics.

Hi Pete I'll be interested to see what you think of these, as the reviews I've read all sound good. Am looking for a bike to do some long distance next year and my preference is rohloff so along with that and the tunes racks it seems a no brainer.

Where did you purchase it from at that price, as I've seen some on eBay but they were around £1600.

Thanks

S1h wrote:

pete75 wrote:Will soon find out what they're like. Thought I'd have a go at trying out a Rohloff hub so, mainly on a whim, bought a Fahrradmanufaktur TX400 on Friday. It's coming from Osnabruck so should arrive sometime this week. Seems well equipped with Tubus carriers front and rear ,Magura brakes, SON 28 dynamo and B&M lights amongst other supposedly quality kit. Most of the parts seem to be made in Germany. At not much over £1400 delivered it seems very reasonably priced for the level of kit.

The poster above is correct , the tubing used is called 4130 by the Septics.

Hi Pete I'll be interested to see what you think of these, as the reviews I've read all sound good. Am looking for a bike to do some long distance next year and my preference is rohloff so along with that and the tunes racks it seems a no brainer.

Where did you purchase it from at that price, as I've seen some on eBay but they were around £1600.

Thanks

Got it from here http://stores.ebay.co.uk/bikepark-disse ... 7675.l2563 . It was on at 2,099 euros or offers with 59 euros for postage to England. I made an offer below that and they accepted. The frame has a small scratch so it was reduced. There are more on their website than Ebay http://bikepark-dissen.de/products/trek ... order=DESC

Samuelriley wrote:I was just looking through eBay for Rohloff hubs and came across this...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VSF-Fahrradma ... 58c6b7cc1d

Has anyone had any experience with this brand? It seems too good to be true, a steel tourer with a £800 Rohloff and a SON 28 for £1500???

Given that a new Rohloff hub can be bought retail from Germany for around £650 these days with the current exchange rate, it's not such a surprising price given that they will be buying in the hubs for much kess than that. What is surprising is the prices that the likes of Thorn get away with charging for their new bikes.

rualexander wrote:

Samuelriley wrote:I was just looking through eBay for Rohloff hubs and came across this...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VSF-Fahrradma ... 58c6b7cc1d

Has anyone had any experience with this brand? It seems too good to be true, a steel tourer with a £800 Rohloff and a SON 28 for £1500???

Given that a new Rohloff hub can be bought retail from Germany for around £650 these days with the current exchange rate, it's not such a surprising price given that they will be buying in the hubs for much kess than that. What is surprising is the prices that the likes of Thorn get away with charging for their new bikes.

Ah but Thorn are the best bikes in the world. We know that because they keep saying so in their adverts....

pete75 wrote:

S1h wrote:

pete75 wrote:Will soon find out what they're like. Thought I'd have a go at trying out a Rohloff hub so, mainly on a whim, bought a Fahrradmanufaktur TX400 on Friday. It's coming from Osnabruck so should arrive sometime this week. Seems well equipped with Tubus carriers front and rear ,Magura brakes, SON 28 dynamo and B&M lights amongst other supposedly quality kit. Most of the parts seem to be made in Germany. At not much over £1400 delivered it seems very reasonably priced for the level of kit.

The poster above is correct , the tubing used is called 4130 by the Septics.

Hi Pete I'll be interested to see what you think of these, as the reviews I've read all sound good. Am looking for a bike to do some long distance next year and my preference is rohloff so along with that and the tunes racks it seems a no brainer.

Where did you purchase it from at that price, as I've seen some on eBay but they were around £1600.

Thanks

Got it from here http://stores.ebay.co.uk/bikepark-disse ... 7675.l2563 . It was on at 2,099 euros or offers with 59 euros for postage to England. I made an offer below that and they accepted. The frame has a small scratch so it was reduced. There are more on their website than Ebay http://bikepark-dissen.de/products/trek ... order=DESC

Pete thanks for the info I'll take a look

They have this on now - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/361367869523? ... EBIDX%3AIT . They'd probabbly accept an offer a bit under 2000.

My TX400 arrived today. Four working days to get here from Germany. Well finished, well equipped with expensive high level components and seems well put together. One stupid peice of design spoils the whole thing - it's built with 32 spoke wheels. Didn't check, assuming any bike built for touring with a heavy load , sometimes on rough roads would have had at least 36 spokes in each wheel. Given the overall weight and cost of the machine any cost and weight savings in using 32 spoked wheels are surely irrelevant. Can anyone think of a logical reason the manufacturers decided to spoil a potentially excellent machine to save about 20 grams and less than 2 quid.