Commuting - Where can I get a bike with a Rohloff speed hub?

I've looked at thorn cycles in the UK. I haven't seen a distributor in the U.S. From what I understand the Thorn bikes with the Rohloff hubs are specifically made to fit a Rohloff hub. Are there any USA made "complete bikes" that come with the Rohloff speed hub? I'd be real interested in a bike like this for commuting as well as touring.

ANT bike near boston assembles a great bike with Rohloff hub.
I think Peter White carries the Tout Terrain with a Rohloff.

http://www.bilenky.com/prod36.html

Okay (-butting in here-) ....what I'm casually wondering here is--do the ANT and Bilenky bikes use the actual Rohloff dropouts? Or are they just fitting a Rohloff hub to a horizontal-dropout frame?

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To the OP: there are specific dropouts for the Rohloff hub, but the hub can also fit on most kinds of bikes if the O.L.D. is wide enough. With non-Rohloff-specific dropouts you'll just need a couple other minor parts.

Harris Cyclery is one place that sells the hubs in the US, and has some info about fitting it to bike frames:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/rohloff.html

...most of the people I've seen (online!) that had Rohloff bikes, didn't buy the bike made that way. They put the hub on the frame themselves.
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I am not sure but I believe Bilenky uses the Speedbolt2 OEM plate. The frame is not made to accept the Rohloff. Not sure about ANT bikes.

http://www.raceco-mtb.com/images/produits/vignettes/ROPASPE.jpg
http://aebike.com/page.cfm?PageID=30&action=list&Category=483&brand=351&modelid=8641&type=T

http://www.bikefix.co.uk/i/rohloff_torquearm.jpg

If you use a Surly frame you will need one.

http://www.surlybikes.com/blogimages/rohloff_bd2_lg.jpg

The Tout Terrain at Peter White Cycles is made to accept the Rohloff.

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/images/products/frames/tout-dropout.jpg

DOUG5150:
"Okay (-butting in here-) ....what I'm casually wondering here is--do the ANT"

-ANT utilizes Rohloff specific dropouts

I've looked at thorn cycles in the UK. I haven't seen a distributor in the U.S. From what I understand the Thorn bikes with the Rohloff hubs are specifically made to fit a Rohloff hub. Are there any USA made "complete bikes" that come with the Rohloff speed hub? I'd be real interested in a bike like this for commuting as well as touring.

I had a tough time locating a complete bike, too.

I bought a Koya Miyata Expression EP (http://www.koga.com/us/bike.asp?id=8377393) a few weeks ago. It is a complete dutch bike with the OEM hub and nifty chain tensioning setup. I am told that there are none available except for the last remaining 54cm one at the commuter-centric shop that I patronized (http://www.commuterbicycles.com). Koga will make this model no more. The Koga site lists distributors, but in the US there are not many at all.

I use the bike for commuting. It is very nice. It replaces my Electra Amsterdam, but what I really wanted was this classy rohloff bike (http://www.rohloff.de/index.php?id=231&L=1&bikeid=418), but I could find no distributor for it.

-david

[QUOTE=Doug5150;5134138]Okay (-butting in here-) ....what I'm casually wondering here is--do the ANT and Bilenky bikes use the actual Rohloff dropouts? Or are they just fitting a Rohloff hub to a horizontal-dropout frame?

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See the ANT website; he writes there that the Rohloff-specific frames are built witht the Rohloff-specific dropout that eliminates the need for the torque arm and the outside control box. Mike built one for me and it is set up that way.

i'm rockin' one i got built up at harris on a karate monkey. i love it like a son.

I've looked at thorn cycles in the UK. I haven't seen a distributor in the U.S. From what I understand the Thorn bikes with the Rohloff hubs are specifically made to fit a Rohloff hub. Are there any USA made "complete bikes" that come with the Rohloff speed hub? I'd be real interested in a bike like this for commuting as well as touring.

Off-the-shelf? It doesn't exist in the US.

Yea, ANT builds them, but that's a custom-built bike. Once you're talking custom, just about any frame builder out there will build you anything you want.

I've never gone shopping, but most of the custom builders I've run across advertising a Rohloff frame are typically doing so for MTB. For example, Moots - http://www.moots.com/custom-rohloff.php

there's a thorn on the sales floor at harris. at least as of a week or so ago. i think for around 2500 bucks. a good deal really.

I have been talking with Richard Schwinn at Waterford about building a commuter/tourer with a Rohloff hub, not off the shelf, but they recommend the Paragon sliding dropouts with a Rohloff adaptor.

Not sure why they prefer that arrangement to the actual rohloff dropouts....

American bike company Cannondale builds Rohloff equiped bikes in their street and touring lines (http://gb.cannondale.com/bikes/07/ce/urban/index.html) - but at least through the 2007 model year, doesn't offer them in the USA! They seem to use Cannondale-proprietary Rohloff-specific vertical dropouts with an eccentric BB.

TCS

I have been talking with Richard Schwinn at Waterford about building a commuter/tourer with a Rohloff hub, not off the shelf, but they recommend the Paragon sliding dropouts with a Rohloff adaptor.

Not sure why they prefer that arrangement to the actual rohloff dropouts....

That's the way I'm getting my Steve Rex frame built. You want the sliding dropouts so you don't have to use a chain tensioner or an eccentric bottom bracket. The sliding dropouts make it easy to adjust chain tension, and my understanding is that if you ever want to switch away from the rohloff, you can buy a different set of adaptors.

Richard

I have been talking with Richard Schwinn at Waterford about building a commuter/tourer with a Rohloff hub, not off the shelf, but they recommend the Paragon sliding dropouts with a Rohloff adaptor.

Not sure why they prefer that arrangement to the actual rohloff dropouts....


I also talked to Richard at Waterford about making a Rohloff specific frame. He would only go the Paragon dropout route. My guess is that he doesn't want to go thru the hassle of making or having to find a dropout.

Thorn cycles in the UK says they had to pay $10K for the Rohloff dropout mold.

You would think that there would be a pretty good market for Thorn bikes in the U.S. I wonder if they have ever had distributors here. For those of you that have riden a bike with the rohloff... how does it compare to the nexus 8 speed?

I've purchased stuff from St. John Street Cycles, which is the UK distributor for Thorn. No reason why they wouldn't ship an entire bike to the US as well. Utopia Fahrrad in Germany has Rohloff bikes and might also ship internationally. There is a lot of good bike stuff out there -- you just may have to obtain it from other countries.

Paul

You would think that there would be a pretty good market for Thorn bikes in the U.S. I wonder if they have ever had distributors here. For those of you that have riden a bike with the rohloff... how does it compare to the nexus 8 speed?Rohloff has a much wider range than the Nexus. It is similar to doubling a Nexus, as you might be able to do with a Schlumpf MD or HSD crankset.

No reason why they wouldn't ship an entire bike to the US as well.

Bike shipping stories off the internet:

High: a Frenchman got sick touring across America and his friends called FedEx up and said "pack up this bike and take it to Paris". It was there in a few days and cost about $750 US.

Low: a American collector bought an old bike from a British collector. They used a freight consolidator company and did the packing themselves. It arrived in a little over 6 weeks and cost about $70 US.

Best would be if you had a cycling savy friend traveling across the pond who could bring a bike back as luggage.

TCS