Originally Posted by
Ariane
Well the Rohloff hub you have may well have not been looked after properly as drag has never been my experience with my Rohloff hubs.
That hub has had very little use, and no abuse. You can look up the official minimum drag, whereas many "performance parts" have no measurable effect at all. Human power is precious, and human brains are built to conserve it. That's why we ride bicycles. It is unfortunate that direct drive to a big wheel loses efficiency in other ways, but quite wonderful that a chain drive can both transfer power, and provide a wide gear range. If there is a chain, gears are redundant.