"I would be just a bit skeptical since it seems to be pretty crudely done and probably not by an unbiased observer."

The beauty of testing your own gear is that you can run a totally honest test and still come out on top every time. You just sellect the paramaters to sound neutral but actually favour your product. I'm not saying anything we don't all know.

What would worry me on the efficiency is what the off peak efficiency is. We all know how chains degrade and how that hurts performance, but what if anything is the similar problem here.


"The best part, I think would be how quiet if would be, almost worth it just for that factor."

The only problem there is that the Rohloff hub, both at the word of friend and foe, is often quite a noisy beast itself.

"The touring community has always been a bunch of naysayers, they still think bar-end shifters and cantilever brakes are greatest inventions of all time."

Well they aren't far wrong, it just depends what specific attributes you are looking for. Let me know how your brake/shift levers work with the Rohloff.

"The main thing is that there is no noticeable difference."

Noticeable difference could be about 20%. What is it they say about tightening spokes without a spokemeter. Pros will swear they did wheels on different days the same and they will be worlds appart. Whatever the difference it isn't going to be a tight test within a few points to go by observations of people in a parking lot tooling around on loaner bikes. The Problem is that Rohloff and other gear hubs are already down on efficiency in many conditions so we sure don't want something that multiplies more inefficiency in there.

Minimaly the three parts one would need would be the belt, and the two sprokets. Are they selling those separately and what do they cost? I can provide the frame. That Carbon Drive website crashed my computer several times today, so I am in the dark.