biggieou

Hi all, I live in NE Ohio and am nearing being able to purchase a trike. Catrike's, etc. are out of my price range and I think I have settled on the TT Rover. How does the 8spd handle hills(not mountains, just hills). I'm not in Olympic shape, but better than some. I will mostly be on the hike and bike, but also want to ride on the road. I know Peter C has a Rover and loves it, I was just wondering what everyone's thoughts were.

Retro Grouch 

Number of speeds has almost nothing to do with how well a bike or a trike will handle hills. The short, quick test is the number of teeth on the largest rear cog. If everything else is similar my bet is you'll find the number of teeth on the big rear cogs are identical. Consequently hill climbing will be identical too.

mriley

I just bought a TT Rambler with 8 speed SA hub, just like the Rover. (The Rambler is a little lighter and I liked its looks - that's why I bought it instead of the Rover.) It handles hills just fine. Sacramento is not as hilly as Ohio, but there are some hills around Folsom Lake. Nothing I could not get over, and I'm 70 years old. The range of gearing is what's important, and I think the Rover is about 25 to 75, high enough for a trike. I think you'll be satisfied. Don't forget to use some kind of pedal restraint, like heel straps or clip-in shoes, just to prevent your leg being caught under the axle in case your foot is shaken off the pedal by a bump.
M Riley

biggieou

Thanks for the replies! I will definitely buy clipless pedals when I get the bike.

JanMM

Fixed that for you. Have fun!!

biggieou

Can someone explain the difference in the Rover 8 and the Rover Nexus 8? I'm assuming better quality parts, but is there a significant difference? Can I shift gears while pedaling with the Nexus set up?

BlazingPedals

I'm not sure about the difference between the S/A and the Nexus. Probably reliability. Shimano seems to be the acknowledged leader in IGH tech. Either option gives a low gear of about 24". Most trikes have lower than that. At the other end, even the 80" is on the low side of normal. I tend to assume that the gears on a bike (or trike) reflect its capabilities. In this case, it just is not designed to go fast or to climb crazy-steep hills. But, that's what I would expect for a ruthlessly-cost-reduced model.

gbalke

From the TerraTrike web site: "The Rovers are also available with the newer, lighter and more mechanically advanced Shimano Nexus drives. These drives not only shave off added weight but allow you to shift under load." That means pedaling!

roka

My wife has the Rover 8 with the SA hub. My Brompton folding bike also has an SA hub. You do have to stop pedaling when shifting the SA hub. Not really a problem, just something you have to get used to. One advantage is that when you come to a stop in too high of a gear (like a sudden stop at a stop light) shifting down is a breeze unlike a derailleur system.

As for climbing hills she doesn't have any problem with them. She's 63 and in good shape. The SA hub on the Rover 8 is geared pretty low. I test rode her trike and found the gearing on the top end too low for me. So I bought a Tour II for myself. We both still ride our DF bikes but those trikes sure are fun!

tcs

Going down through the specifications, the two 8-speed Rover models seem to be identical except for the rear hubs. Rover isn't clear if they provide the regular Nexus hub or the better "red band" model. The Sturmey-Archer 8-speed design, which debuted in 2009, is much simpler mechanically with far fewer parts, and it has a wider over all gear range with even steps that mimic the "alpline" gearing on all those millions of 'ten speeds' sold back during the 1970s. The Shimano 8-speed, dating from 2004, is a robust design with, frankly, random, uneven gear steps. As can be inferred from the specifications, the Sturmey hub equipped model has gears of 24, 32, 36, 41, 47, 53, 61 and 79 gear inches. The Shimano Nexus equipped model has gears of 20, 25, 29, 33, 39, 47, 55 and 62 gear inches.

mriley

People are getting all excited about the fact that Terratrike is now offering the Shimano 8 speed hub. I have used both the Shimano (on a DF bike) and the Sturmey Archer 8 speed hub on a trike. Both work fine. I have been happy with both. I have (or had) about 6000 miles on the Shimano and it never even needed adjusting, a fine piece of equipment. I have fewer miles on the SA, but so far it has been just as good. As the previous poster said, the steps on the Shimano are unequal, but I never found this a problem. With the SA, you have to stop pedalling when shifting, but I always did that anyway with any IGH to save wear on the internals. In short, go with either one, but personally I like cheaper.
MRiley

tcs

I thought about this as I rode my Sturmey-Archer XRK8(W) equipped bike yesterday. Did I 'stop pedaling'? The cranks never stopped rotating, but I definitely slacked off on pedal pressure right as I shifted gears. I'd think that qualifies as 'stop pedaling', but maybe not in the way folks imagine when they hear the term.

I did have to think about this - I started riding derailleur equipped bikes in the 1960s, and picked up the habit of slacking off pedal pressure when shifting any multigear bike.

gbalke

If the pedals are moving. you are essentially still pedaling, regardless of the force you are using. If pedals are moving, so is the chain and the rear sprocket and internal parts of the IGH driven by that sprocket.

Look at it this way; I'm hitting you over your head with a big stick. Do you want me to stop, or just slow down?

tcs

I'm sitting on the bike, turning the cranks backwards. gbalke says I'm pedaling.

BTW, your analogy confuses speed with force, two different things.

mriley

"Stop pedaling" means don't move them. Some of the old SA literature suggests pedaling backwards if you are having trouble shifting - not necessary now, but the hub shifts better (and longer) if you stop moving the pedals. Not sure what the reason is.
M Riley

PaPa

Whether you pedal an IGH or not during shifting, is irrelevant. What is relevant, is how much 'load' or 'torque' you apply to the pedals during shifting that matters. Mating gears don't like to move laterally when their teeth are loaded, so simply backing-off the pedal pressure is enough to appease most gearboxes.

BlazingPedals

This is my experience, too. I had a Sachs 3x7 on my V-Rex for a few years. I was advised to stop pedaling to shift the IGH, but in reality spinning slowly under no-load worked just as well. The feet didn't have to completely stop as long as there was no force being applied.

bhtooefr

From the S80W manual:
From the current Rover manual:
From the previous Rover manual:
I believe the docs on my Path also said that soft pedaling (which would mean, spinning the pedals with minimal torque while shifting) was OK, but TerraTrike has backpedaled (pun fully intended) from that statement it seems. But, I would think that torque is the problem, not movement - I'd guess that TT just had too high warranty claims from people who thought they were soft pedaling.

VegasTriker

It's interesting that there is a posting on Bentrideronline by TNRambler titled Internal Gear Hub Question IGH8speed. He lent out his trike equipped with the Sturmey Archer S80 8 speed hub and it came back with only 2 speeds. The information from Terratrike clearly states that SA hub failure will not be covered if the breakage is caused by improper shifting. How does one prove the problem is NOT caused by pedaling while changing gears? A replacement hub is at least $175.

There's a second set of posts in the trike section of bentrider with the title TerraTrike Path - Upgrade or Replace? by a poster with the name Zaphod Beeblebrox. Take a look at the replies about half way down the page from some people who have had either the Rover or Rambler with this hub. All hubs can fail eventually, especially if they have been abused or used beyond the limits they were designed for. Low mileage failure should be rare for a well designed hub though.

tcs

Yep. But also in that thread is a poster who got new internals warranted from Sturmey (their customer service has been great for most folks), and a link to a youtube video where a fellow took his non-functioning SA8(W) hub apart, cleaned it, relubricated it and then it worked fine (an approach which would be $175 less out-of-pocket than your suggested $175 replacement cost). Also, while SRAM and Shimano don't support their hubs with retail availability of spare component parts, Sturmey does. Many of the internal parts for their 8-speed hub can be purchased individually.

JGaerlan

Anybody Know the hub width of the Single speed Rover at $699 ? Somebody told me it was the same as the Nexus 8's at 135mm. Have a special project and need a 135mm OLN width and do not want to spend as much as we will be gutting most of parts anyway. Thanks

VegasTriker

"Anybody Know the hub width of the Single speed Rover at $699 ?"

Ask this question of Ashley Guy of Utah Trikes www.utahtrikes.com. Until recently they were a very large dealer for Terratrike products until the company decided to ban dealers from selling long distance.