I spell it Rohloff. Not Roloff.

I have derailleur bikes, a Rohloff bike and my fold up bike uses an Sram Dual Drive rear with a derailleur. So, I am using the full range of derailleur options and IGH options.

Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, I agree with much of the above discussion.

If you get a Rohloff, my only suggestion is that you get a bike with a frame and rear dropouts that are designed for a Rohloff. Other frames would need a long torque arm. The frame has to have the strength to take a lot of torque if the the long torque arm is not used, that clearly is a design issue.

Unless the bike shops in your area handle Rohloff bikes, plan on doing your own work on oil changes, cable changes, etc. One of my neighbors is a bike mechanic and has worked in a large bike shop for years. When he saw my Rohloff, he said that it was the first one he had ever seen, nobody had ever brought one into the bike shop he worked in. And quite frankly my Rohloff is the first one I had ever seen. I bought my Rohloff hub mail order from Germany and built up the wheel myself. (I worked as a bike mechanic years ago, I can do my own work.) If I did not want to do my own work, I clearly live in the wrong community as no bike shops here handle Rohloff bikes.

One comment that was not made above is that each gear upshift increases the gear ratio between 13 and 14 percent higher. On my derailleur touring bikes with one and a half step gearing, I know exactly where my next higher and lower gears are and I often will shift for a slight change of grade or windage by shifting both the front and rear derailleurs to make a half step shift. A half step upshift is generally a 6 to 8 percent change in gear ratio on my derailleur bikes, thus a half step shift is about half the gear ratio that one shift is on the Rohloff. Thus, I found that the wider spacing between gears was something I did not like very much.

If the above paragraph is confusing, maybe this will clarify it. On my derailleur bikes, I usually ride with a cadence of about 72 to 78, if I spin faster than about 78 I upshift to drop my cadence down to about 72, and vice versa. But, with my Rohloff bike I found that the wider gear ratios mean that I pedal with a wider range of cadence from about 71 to 80.

Right now I am planning two possible trips for next year, I expect to take one but not both of those trips.
- One trip would be with my Rohloff bike, it is more isolated area with gravel roads and I would want a heavy duty 26 inch wheel bike if I do that trip.
- The other trip I am considering would be with a derailleur bike because on that trip I would have a lot of climbing on pavement and I would want my lighter weight 700c touring bike.

There are debates on which is better, the EX box or internal cables, chain vs belt, eccentric vs sliding dropouts. I am going to stay out of most of that debate, but I see an advantage of the EX box in allowing me to shift the hub with a 8mm open end wrench if I have a cable failure.