Originally Posted by
veganbikes
I mean I had been thinking about that for a long time. It is kind of sad that is just an April Fools joke. If someone with some serious machining and design skills could take internals of the Rohloff and mate it to a 12 speed free hub and add a front derailleur for at least a double you could really have a few extra gears (a little over 6k to be fair)
I love it and hope to see more like it.
I don't think it would actually be terribly difficult to do - at least physically making the parts. The Rohloff uses a carrier for the cog and freehub body geometry is well defined so you'd just have to combine the two, plus a longer axle and you'd be pretty much there. I think the biggest concern would be axle strength since if you just made the axle longer you'd have a long unsupported length outboard of the bearings.
Plus you may need to use fat bike rear spacing to get it all to fit and chainline might end up being a mess
