iTrod

I am thinking of selling one or two of my children in order to buy a Co-Motion Rohloff Americano (Gates belt-drive) with S&S couplers, and Schmidt SON SL front generator hub. I am interested in comments, opinions, and/or reviews from any owners of Americanos or Rohloff Americanos. And of course, anyone else may chime in.

I plan to use this bike for fully-loaded pavement (and occasional dirt or gravel road) touring. I still haven't ridden cross country, but it is on the old bucket list. I am also a newbie to randonneuring and feel this would be a better rig than my Giant Defy Advanced 1 (2011) for brevets over 200K.

veganbikes

Being the proud new owner of a Co-Motion Cascadia, I can say that their frame quality and construction is great. I can also say their customer service is also top class as well. I think if you want a top-end touring bike MUSA, and not super expensive Co-Mo is a great option. Sure full-custom is great but the wait can be big for the top level builders, and they aren't all as well versed in touring bikes.

Sell children, it is the right thing to do. They will understand when you have a sweet new bike ; )
However if they don't understand, then you should have raised them better. Children are boring flesh-o-poids you have to spend a lot of money on for many years and cannot ride cross country.

ShortLegCyclist

I shopped Co-Motion pretty hard, especially because I am easy distance from Portland and could get one of those sales tax free.

I ended up going with a Seattle custom maker instead, R + E Cycles, despite the sales tax consideration, but at some point in the future I would be thrilled to own a Co-Motion as well.

Co-Motion uses tandem grade tubing on their Americano, Pangea, Siskiyou and Divide touring bikes and as a result they are going to be heavier than some competing models.

It came down to how often I was really going to be doing fully laden bicycle touring as opposed to hotel room based travel bike touring, and the answer for me was 99% the latter.

For that application, the extra heavy duty build of the Co-Motion bikes was overkill and that's why I went with the Seattle maker, as the Rodriguez bike comes in not only svelter on the scale but also about a thousand less in cost, even factoring in the sales tax.

My bike does have a tandem grade fork, but otherwise thinner and lighter tubing than the Americano and its siblings.

DropBarFan

Co-Motion seems like an awesome company; I esp like how they were early adopters of Gates/Rohloff. Not readily apparent if Americano can use fatter (>38 mm) tires. I'd go for Pangea 559 (26") wheels; allows fatter (even snow) tires; 559 works better for S & S cases etc. & with a nice Co-Motion a generator hub is perfect frosting on the cake.

John N

I have a Rohloff. My biggest complaint on it is that it is a bit noisy for the first 4-5 thousand miles, especially early on. It does get better but be prepared for it. Also, if this bike is for touring, be sure to get as low a gear as possible (Rohloff recently lowered the ratio so you can go lower). The standard gearing is too high for touring.

Enjoy the ride! John

Tourist in MSN

I have a Rohloff on a Thorn Nomad with chain drive. One thing I like about chain drive instead of the belt is that for riding on mostly road surfaces without a heavy load I can use a 44 chainring (16t rear cog), but if I want to switch over to lower gearing for a trip where I could see some big hills it only takes a few minutes to put on a 36 tooth chainring, remove a short piece of chain (a second quick link makes it easy) and readjust my eccentric bottom bracket for chain tension. But with a belt, you better pick the exact gearing you want when you order it because it would be a major effort and investment to change your gearing. If I had my taller road gearing when I did the White Rim trail, I would have had a lot of trouble on some of the hills. I might be the only one that owns a Rohloff that changes chainrings for different conditions, so if you are pretty confident that you know the gear range you want, then disregard this as an issue.

Rohloff is nice but you might decide that it on an Americano is too heavy for randoneering. So, if randoneering is a major part of your reasoning for buying it, you might want to think about that a bit more.

I have only seen one Americano, I was on an ACA tour and one guy had one. I asked him if he really could get that much bike into the S&S case, he said it took a lot of time to do it, but yes he could. Other than that, the guy that owned that bike loved it and it was a very impressive setup. I asked him why he had huge rear panniers, no front rack or panniers. He said that his bike frame was so solid it did not really matter if he distributed the weight better or not. And since he was flying to and from the start point for that tour, it was simpler for him to leave the front panniers and rack at home and just load up everything on the back. That was a very strong endorsement for the strength of their frames.

I can say that I am glad I went with a 26 inch wheel size for my S&S bike.

Did you ask Co-Motion if the bike (complete with racks) will fit in the S&S case and stay under 50 pounds for airline travel? When I built up my Nomad (which is a heavy bike), I assumed I would be carrying my fork in a separate piece of luggage because of the length of my fork. Will you have to move some bike parts to a different bag for weight?

I assume you will use the Co-Motion twist grip shifter, but did you consider different options for the shifter?
https://cyclingabout.com/rohloff-hub...op-handlebars/

I think you are going to love this bike.

ShortLegCyclist

I second that vote for 26" wheels though I would imagine that the 650b Siskiyou would deflate and fit easily into the case too.

I also use chain rather than belt for the reasons Tourist in MSN listed and I have also switched out from a 56 to a 46 chainring depending on application. You can run a 38/16 and this with 26" 1.5 wheels/tires gives you around 17 gear inches in 1st gear, which is so low that the only possible application is hauling 70 pounds of luggage up a hill, which is something I don't foresee doing personally.

haroldrides

I have the Pangea Rohloff with the S&S couplings and I love it. I did a tour in France in May and it was perfect for me.
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/..._id=15957&v=6M

djb

Harold, this is nothing about the bikes, but I'm a sucker for trip journals and have biked a bit around Toulouse, so your trip blog was a fun read. Pretty much sums up the biking experience in France and one of the reasons that I enjoy being in France.

fietsbob

The workmanship is fine , Eccentric BB shells for the IGH is a common tandem part . Hecho in Oregon.



Bike Friday is made across town , you can get a Rohloff belt drive disc braked one of those too .

they pack smaller because the wheels are smaller so Air travel gets even cheaper , its just another suitcase.

What was a 16:38 range in a 26" wheel , a 16:53 is similar with a 20" wheel..


And then there is Herr Shlumpf's 1.65X Overdrive crank or using a double chainring & chain tensioner.

to extend the range to the higher side ..

B. Carfree

I also looked very seriously at CoMo when I bought a new touring tandem, in part because I live in the same city as CoMo. In the end, a custom bike from R+E was just too much better and cheaper to boot. I also found that Dan Towle at R+E is far more knowledgeable than the folks at CoMo which was really helpful in solving some of our unique fit issues. While we didn't go with Rohloff, R+E has apparently built many more Rohloff bikes than anyone else. Add in the total custom fit and it's a no-brainer.

By the way, folks who don't live in Washington don't have to pay the sales tax on items produced in Washington. One simply signs a form affirming out of state residence and the tax is waived.

As others have noted, 26" is probably the way to go. While you're at it, bear in mind that super-supple 55mm wide 26" tires are coming out this year from Compass , so make sure the frame can accommodate them.

Jim Kukula

That's my setup... well, slightly fatter tires... but I am down in that 17 inch gear all the time! There are lots of hills around here with 8% grade, 12%, even 16%. I've got a BMI around 25, the bike is about 40 pounds, and I carry about ten pounds of luggage routinely. Probably doesn't all add up to 70 pounds... close, though!

djb

I've ridden a just over 19g.I. bike with about 25 lbs of stuff in areas where if I have had front panniers and a tent, I would have needed about 17g.I.
I'll take really low over really high any day of the week.

ShortLegCyclist

Well, a Rohloff geared to 17 gear inches in first is going to top out at around 90 gear inches in 14th, which means when you ride it unladen, you are going to spin out down most hills.

What we need here is not a Rohloff but a Pinion Drive!

veganbikes

R+E is pretty awesome from what I have seen and heard, that Outlaw is a pretty sweet machine. I have thought maybe well into the future looking into getting one.

Jim Kukula

Adding weight just makes the bike go downhill even faster! I like to wear a baggy shirt that flops around in the wind when I get going much over 30 mph and acts as an extra brake so my rims don't get too hot. I don't like getting much over about 35 mph. The other day I was flying down some steep hill probably a bit faster than that and this car started nosing out of a driveway not far in front of me. Cars were coming up the hill on the other side. One of those occasions where my life starts to flash before my eyes. Fortunately that driver saw me and stopped, so here am I alive to tell the tale.

I don't need to go fast.

ShortLegCyclist

Yah, completely agree there

Where the 90 gear inches comes back to haunt me is going up the other side of the rollers, have to wait and wait and wait until I can start pedaling again while I get slower and slower and slower and that hilltop isn't getting any closer somehow

djb

Ya, about 90 g.I for me spins out at only about 50kph, but I've regularly gone up to 70kph on the steep ups and downs. The times I've let a bike run and get up to 80, 90+ kph, it's been on roughly 90 gear inched bikes, so for me I don't feel overly limited with that gearing--yes it's nice having more, but I could live without it.

rifraf

I use 34/16T on my bike.
Aren't hills for coasting down, enjoying the view?
Never been an issue for me and when towing a trailer (laden) is when you really appreciate gears at the lower end.
The top gears of my Rohloff never get used, even when the bike is unladen.
I'm more interested in the scenery than my wristwatch and speed.

Oh and thumbs up on a dynohub.
My Son28/DB provides lighting and keeps my garmin, headlight torch and phone charged.

Tourist in MSN

Regarding the discussion of gear inches, I made my comments above in post number 6 about preferring chain drive so I can switch chainrings if I go somewhere where I will want different gearing. Going up a steep hill with a load, I want 36/16 chainring to cog ratio but for around home use unladen I prefer much higher gearing at 44/16.

That said, I know how disgustingly dirty a chain can get after a lot of dusty riding where you have been applying lubricant, so I can understand why some people would prefer a belt drive.

I have been leaving my dynohub powered front light on more and more over time, I suspect that helps somewhat with cars. And 95 percent of my miles are wearing high visibility clothing.

I stopped twice to cool my rims riding downhill on Going to the Sun road, but otherwise I have not dropped elevation enough at one time to have to worry about heating up my rims on any other trips.

DropBarFan

Looks like that was a nice trip (except for the airline problem). It might be a testament to the strength of 7 & Co-Motion frames that they were not damaged by the rough treatment. How much lighter was the Ti 7 frame than a similarly-sized Pangea frame? While many tourists are happy with production cro-mo steel frames, having a lighter frame can help in staying under airline weight limit.

haroldrides

I can't tell you the specific weights of both bikes. The Ti 7 bike was indeed lighter than the Co-Motion but I don't think this was specifically because of the titanium frame. The titanium is indeed a bit lighter but the Rohloff and the 50mm tires on the Co-Motion likely contributed somewhat to the extra weight. Once loaded with panniers I think this was not really significant. Both had the S&S couplings and when packed in their respective cases both came in just under the 50 lb weight limit. So we included them as second items of baggage rather than classifying them as bicycles. We flew KLM and in this instance it was more cost effective. On other trips the opposite was the case. I believe with Air Transat and Air Canada it was better to call it a bicycle rather than include it as a second piece of baggage.

elcruxio

Umm... No one is going to question that the Americano frame costs over $2000 USD? Just the frame. Made out of chromo. I'd accept 2k out of titanium... Well no, I wouldn't. Carbon maybe. You can probably get a Pegoretti with 2k...
And its chromo...

fietsbob

China can work for less than US ..

does Pegoretti make touring bikes ? No. but you can tour on a Road racing bike if that is Your favorite.

elcruxio

I can also tour on a touring frame which is also made of chromo and fifth of the price. Surly for example. Or dish a bit more in and I can get a Salsa. Or put forward that 2k and I can probably get a custom reynolds 853 with touring wall thickness.