Ok, I had to do a google search on "Tall Poppy Syndrome".

What kind of tandem--Co-Motion? Recently saw two local couples on a ride, both on Co-Motion tandems. Not cheap but they looked like they were enjoying themselves. Once saw tandem track sprinters at the Worlds: super-fast but for aero the poor stoker is squashed right against the captain.

you might want to add in a requirement/stipulation about not rear ending parked cars.

(humour on the interwebs is a hard thing to get across.....;-)

I am still feeling the effects of that ;)

Yesterday I wrote up the safety protocols and today I spent the afternoon taking staff and residents for rides around the facility. Very cool.

years ago on a family organized ride we did (a supported ride for families with kids) there was a dad + daughter on a really cool bike similar to this, but with more of a bucket seat setup, and a single front wheel, like a recumbant, but the the front rider/passenger had a set of pedals I think also. At the time I thought it would be a good idea for us, but in the end we didnt need something like this, but very neat to see that they do exist.

and of course, very neat and fun for the resident in your situation.

I start only 2-3 threads per year.

I would appreciate it if you wouldn't hijack them with off-topic posts.

I believe your duet posts are interesting, but they deserve their own thread. I know you are capable of starting your own thread, so please do.

Well, now the thread police have visited...

Looks like the Pinion has one advantage over the Rohloff, the freewheel is downstream of the gearbox, so freewheeling doesn't involve a bunch of gears and seals creating a shedload of drag like a Rohloff, might make up a bit for the huge weight.

seeker, interesting technical points about it, I saw one on a mtb maybe 3 years ago or something, a mechanic had one at an event.
To me, it comes down to similar arguments of derailleur vs rohlof, pretty neat technology but boy with the money spent one could do a really nice bike trip (airfare etc).

I also think that with this fellow, given his past experience with Co-motion, that he was either given this bike as a promotional thing because his videos do get seen by a lot of people; and or he got it at a discount.
In any case, whether someone has the money to purchase it or not, its a pretty neat bike and fun to see another bike using this drive and belt system.

I'm very curious about the Pinion and other gear box systems. I'm a fan of hub gears, but I'm also a fan of swapping wheelsets. I don't want an expensive rear hub, because then I need another one for every wheelset I build up. A Gear box solves this problem by taking the gearing out of wheel. I think it's a good idea, but I don't know how reliable they are, and it seems like most systems require a compatible frame.

I also like coupled bikes. I probably spent $500 more to get a frame with couplers in it than I would have for a comparable, normal frame. It's only been on 3 flights, but at a minimum of $100/flight to fly with a bike, I think the couplers have already almost paid for themselves.

I also have a bike with a Gates drive, and I like that. I think if my touring bike frame were compatible, I'd go that route.

So, all-in-all, I like the features of this bike. But I'd have to have money to burn to pay that price. But if I did have the money, that's pretty close to my ideal set-up, at least as far as gearing goes.

Wow.. didn't know it was so distracting.

By all means, carry on.

Re' the Pinion vx Rohloff weight penalty, it is significant when looking at the P1.18. But the more recent Pinion C line uses a lower weight magnesium alloy body. The C1.12 weight is much closer to that of a Rohloff. This article (A New Pinion Gearbox for 2017: The Lightweight Pinion C-Line - CyclingAbout) claims it to be approx. 100g when cranks, shifters, etc. are included; albeit with "only" 12 gears with 17.7% steps and a 600% range.

Rohloff vs Pinion, a few additional thoughts. (I have never seen a Pinion, so I readily admit that I could be wrong on a few points.)

I built up my Rohloff bike. I ordered the frame and rims from the UK; the Rohloff from Germany; the chainrings, bottom bracket, spokes and nipples from a USA supplier; the crank from Amazon; the dynohub from Asia (SP was not sold in USA when I bought it); etc. My point is that I got the exact mix of parts I wanted. Someone posted above that you can only buy the pinion with the frame. I do not know if the frame & pinion suppliers will sell that as a package or if you have to buy a complete bike. But even if you can buy just the frame & pinion without the rest of the bike, you likely are paying a substantial markup on it, while I bought the Rohloff from the cheapest source I could find that had my specific model of hub. I saved a lot by not buying the Rohloff from the same seller as the frame. My savings on the Rohloff might have been enough to pay for the S&S couplers.

Very few manufacturers of pinion frames exist, so the choice of bike model is quite limited. My Rohloff bike has a Rohloff specific frame, but a lot of Rohloffs are found on non-Rohloff frames too. Thus a greater variety of options exists with the Rohloff, you can put it on almost anything that has a wide enough dropout. I think they now are making Rohloffs for fat bikes too.

I do not think either Rohloff or Pinion has a better selling point for robustness or reliability, maybe a decade from now one will have a better reputation than the other but not yet. They made about 185,000 Rohloffs before they made mine, fewer pinions than that are out there but I would not hold that against them.

I would like a wider range than the 526 percent that the Rohloff has. But, on the priority list, that is very very minor. For riding around home where the bike is not loaded down, I run a different chainring with higher gearing and the range of 526 percent is perfectly adequate. On a tour where I set up the bike with lower gears for hill climbing (I use a smaller chainring for touring), I did spin out a few times on downhills, thus a wider range would be nice but only for the 1 or 2 percent of my total miles that were on those downhills that were shallow enough that I wanted to keep pedaling anyway. Anything steeper, I would have wanted to coast, in which case the gearing does not matter.

My Rohloff bike is a 59cm frame size. To fit the bike in an S&S case, I have to remove both crank arms and I do not know if I could fit a pinion frame of that size in an S&S case. Maybe I can, but I can say that the conventional frame is a pretty tight fit in the case, there is not a lot of contingency left over.

I stated above that the Rohloff was perfectly adequate for me, I have no desire to buy a pinion bike. But, the pinion bikes sure look good and I would love to hear more about pinion owner experiences with the bikes.

On things like this I think it best to keep an open mind. Who knows, you might learn something.

I never seriously considered Rohloff until Gates belt drive came along. Having just replaced a broken front derailleur cable, then cleaning all the crud from my 3x9 drivetrain, I'm now imagining how much cleaner a belt-drive bike might be, which has always been the main appeal to me and led to Rohloff consideration.

I doubt I'll ever own a Rohloff Speedhub, and a Pinion-equipped bicycle is much less likely. I can repair and maintain derailleur drivetrains, and I have spare drivetrain parts, all purchased cheap. When they're clean I'm sure they pedal a little easier than a gear hub (efficiency).

I have no idea if Mr. Alf's CoMo bikes are free/discounted. His Youtube bike touring videos receive 300K views per month, he maintains a website and sells books. He seems to be on the road several months a year. Probably a good idea for CoMo to sell him bikes at cost (or less) for the publicity. I noticed he uses a $500 UL tent, a $1,000 drone and seems to have just got all new Ortliebs to match the Siskiyou. So perhaps he is the Bicycle Touring PRO.

as you say, who knows. He does seem to be successful at doing what he does business wise, and if so or if not, good on him on being a well seen entity on the interwebs (and promoting something that we all are very fond of, and that most of us probably enjoy promoting as well).

that Dutch couple (sorry, I can't remember names) ended up on some neat alu frames with the same pinion belt drive setup, I believe as a promo deal.

again, the bike nerd in me finds these bikes pretty darn neat.
I'm more than a bit of a fastidious fellow for keeping my drivetrains clean, if done regularly its fast and keeps it all clean and efficient--but I can certainly see the appeal of the versatility of the various internal geared hubs and not dealing with chain lube/cleaning--especially in yucky weather.

The lab tests I have seen on efficiency suggested that the Rohloff was almost as efficient as a derailleur system, maybe 2 percent less on an energy transfer basis. Those lab tests were with a new hub. Every Rohloff owner will tell you that they are much better after the first several thousand miles when the internals are more polished and the seals worn in. But those lab tests were on a chain drive Rohloff, not belt.

Last summer when I was in Iceland I talked to several Rohloff owners including two with belts, one had the newer style belt and the other the older style belt. One of them (I think he had the newer style belt) said that he thought that his belt drive was slower than chain drive. He was traveling with two friends, both had chain drive bikes and for this trip he brought his belt drive Rohloff. He said he was slower than them on this trip and he very specifically blamed the belt drive. The other belt drive owner I talked to said that you can not buy a belt in all of Iceland, so they had a spare belt with them.

I regularly ride my Rohloff bike and also several derailleur bikes. My Rohloff bike is a bit slower but I blame the 57mm wide knobby tires for that. My other bikes all have road tires on them. I think if I was runnng road tires on my Rohloff bike that the Rohloff would not slow it down to a degree that would be noticeable. But I do not think I would notice a 1 or 2 percent efficiency loss. I often leave my dynohub powered headlamp on because I can't feel any additional drag from it, but I know that having the light on will cause a few extra watts of drag.

I dont think I'd notice 1 or 2% either, I might notice some more weight, but I know I would notice the lighter weight of my bank account of $1500 more or less. ;-)

Completely anecdotal, but earlier in this trip I ended up cycling with a few different people in Baja. Aside from the one much slower guy who was always behind us, there were three of us cruising together: me with a relatively new rohloff and a belt, a Dutch guy with a very well broken in rohloff and a chain, and a Mexican guy with a regular derailleur and chain drivetrain. When coasting down a hill, the derailleur equipped bike was faster than the two rohloffs, and the chain rohloff was faster than my belt. Obviously the three bikes and riders were very different as well, but the difference between each bike while coasting was significant.

Pinion is Made in Germany.. they get engineers with out college debts, so they make consumer products.

that USA sends to make weapons , where the money is , just to pay off their loans.

Rocket Science Economics.

^^^ that's as close as we get to proof in BF.

"The mechanical efficiency of bicycle derailleur and hub-gear transmissions" starts on page 3 of the linked pdf below. See Figure 12 on page 9 for a summarized graphic comparison of gear hubs to derailleurs. The conclusion is that hub-gears are ~2% less efficient than derailleur drive. I don't know what 2% loss feels like when pedaling, perhaps it's imperceptible to recreational bicyclists. However, I'm sure 2% is a big deal when you're trying to set HPV speed records.

IHPVA - International Human Powered Vehicle Association <--- download pdf file hp52-2001.pdf

Rohloff's own efficiency comparison to derailleur drive seems to say that there's no significant difference in Rohloff vs derailleur (Figure 5), which contradicts findings of the above IHPVA evaluation.

https://www.rohloff.de/en/experience...y-measurement/

So IHPVA says "gear hubs 2% less efficient" and the folks selling >$1000 gear hubs say "there's no difference".

The Rohloff/Gates bicyclist in Iceland was probably right to blame the belt:

Chain or belt drive: which is faster? - BikeRadar USA

The 2001 publication you cited is the reference that I had in mind when I suggested a 2 percent efficiency loss in the Rohloff compared to derailleur. But I stand behind my previous statement that a new hub (like they tested in the lab) is less efficient than a hub with several thousand miles on it. I am most certain that my hub is more efficient now than in 2013 when I bought it. Perhaps I am largely perceiving a smoother feeling hub due to less noise as why I feel it is more efficient, but nonetheless I am convinced. Thus, I feel that a well broken in hub is more efficient than the new one. I however make no claims beyond that. Regarding that lab test being from 2001, to the best of my knowledge the upgrades that Rohloff has made to their hub since then do not effect efficiency so that report should still be valid as far as Rohloffs are concerned.

Thanks for the link on that belt vs chain piece that you listed. I found that quite interesting. It did mention that a chain with no pre-load would be more efficient than a chain with a small amount of pre-load. I find this pertinent to the IGH discussion because a frame that uses a bottom bracket eccentric or a sliding dropout to adjust the chain can easily be used to set a chain to have zero pre-load tension (the chain sags slighly when not under tension) which apparently is more efficeint than a frame that requires a chain tensioner because that tensioner with spring pressure creates some pre-load. But you could also argue that the pre-load created by the derailleur cage spring tension also creates a watt or two of drag. Interesting. But again, we are talking about a watt or two, so not a big deal.

I have no clue what an HPV speed record is, but since I avoid too much speed, I don't really need to know, whatever it is I am not trying to break it.

I like the Rohloff for some things, but derailleur bikes for others. I have three touring bikes, two with derailleurs and one with Rohloff. I do not think that there is any single best system for all conditions. My last two tours were with derailleurs, the tour before that with the Rohloff. In each case I felt that I brought the right bike for the trip.

I think demand is the most important factor: Germans seem to prefer sturdy & practical commuter & touring bikes so there's a much bigger market for IGH/Pinion. BTW on last trip to Germany some years ago I saw that MTB's were quite popular for commuting. Ironically MTB's were created in America for recreational use. Also, isn't Gates a US company?

Shimano seems to have adequate engineering resources & huge market yet they don't seem interested in competing with Rohloff or Pinion.

On longer tours if one wants to be super-scrupulous with chain cleaning I imagine one could tote a bottle of mineral spirits or scrub with citrus degreaser then water.

Except I'm sure he didn't spend $8,000 on it. Given that almost every one of his videos is just a long Co-Motion advertisement, I'm sure he got it for much less.

Here's Alff's review of new Siskiyou bike after he's toured on it for a while:

In the video, he did not like the twist grip shifter up by the stem very much. I would not like that either, I am running the HubBub Adapter to put my Rohloff twist grip shifter on the end of the handlebar. Since I have been using bar end shifters on bikes for decades, it is perfectly natural for me to reach down to the bar end position to shift. I also have interrupter brake levers, bike computer, GPS, bell, and sometimes a heart rate monitor on my bike, all of that stuff goes up front on the "dashboard" too. So if I tried to put a twist grip on my bike like he has, I would have to give up some other stuff, I probably would lose the interrupter levers and maybe the bell. There are a couple companies that make aftermarket Rohloff shifters that mount the same way as his pinion shifter, so some people must like having a shifter there.

I am not sure but I think he has a rear flat mount disc brake mount on the seatstay, it was interesting that he could fit the brake inside the rear rack the way that he did. I would have assumed that the brake would have been mounted on the chainstay instead.

He certainly sounds happy about the pinion drive so far.

I share his thoughts on 650b. But I am sure availability varies a lot from place to place. I would not be surprised if in some places the 650b would be available in knobby tires only.

In the video he said that Tubus was made in Germany, but I think they moved frabrication to asia for the steel racks some time ago.

With Rohloff I'd go with the HubBub bar-end, folks say it works pretty well, but I can't find a Pinion equivalent. I use bar-end shifters on my derailleur bike but if spending the big $$ for Pinion or Rohloff it seems a bit backward not to have an OEM brifter option for added safety & convenience. I reckon they could make a sturdy & easy-to-shift brifter for around $500. Not cheap but hey, we're already talking about $5-8K bikes here.

Local Rohloff riders I see all use drop-bars but Germans stubbornly stick to idea that drop-bars are only for racing-type road bikes. Heh, Bicycling Magazine even mentioned that way back in the 70's.