brunop

i go there at least once a week. best shop in america for touring and rando. hands down.

vik 

Sure - rub it in!.....

eric von zipper

Got in touch with SJS, inquired about the Nomad Large M/L Top Tube and found out that there are no more. Just wanted to post that if anyone else had been thinking about a Nomad. I've decided to go with the Sherpa.

vik 

What size Sherpa are you thinking of getting?

antokelly

you wont be disappointed ,im still building up mine ,today i just got my new wheels from sjs sun rhyno on xt hubs .a class wheel ,great job on the build .the frame itself is excellent,

bokes

Erik,

saw this yesterday on craigs list in SF bay:
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/bik/469890675.html

Or have you given any thought about a Raven with a Rohloff?

eric von zipper

Edit: I just did some measuring and the M 535L would be the one. What do you have, Vik?


Whoa. That is sweet. I've been a little shy about a Rohloff b/c I have no idea how to go about fixing it. Any thoughts on them for a long tour?

eric von zipper

That's the same wheel build I had on another bike. I was very happy with them.

vik 

I've got the M535L Sherpa.

bokes

You don't have to be able to fix a Rohloff because they don't break. According to the SJS article there have been 50,000 Rohloffs made and not one has ever broken down. (to the point where the bike wasn't rideable). But don't take my word for it, there's plenty of Rohloff threads and info (check out the docs on SJS)
I love my Rohloff and will never go back to derailleurs on my touring bike. I saw about a dozen cyclists with Rohloffs on my cross country trip this summer, and every single one of them was thrilled with it too.
I only regret not having bought one sooner.

eric von zipper

I did a little looking online about Rohloffs and they seemed to be great. I emailed the owner and I think I'd love to have that bike, but it's a out of my price range right now. I have a lot of the parts to put on the Sherpa frame already which will cut down on the overall price of the build. Thanks for posting that link.

Vik, I got your PM and sent an email. Thanks.

vik 

SJS was a little cagey with the way they stated the reliability of the Rohloff. First off I know of at least two Rolhoff's that had hub flanges break making the bike unrideable. Second if you have any trouble with the shifter, cables or external components of the Rolhoff system you either better have carried spares or you are out of luck as you can't walk into a small bike shop in Mexico and hope to find any like you would a rear dérailleur.

The statement SJS made is true, but doesn't tell the whole story.

I think the benefits of a Rohloff hub are good enough they are worth considering, but they do have some significant disadvantages. You won't find spares anywhere, but a handful of specialty shops in the NA and Europe, a dedicated Rohloff frame cannot be retrofitted with a rear dérailleur and cassette wheel.

A dérailleur system needs more maintenance and can be damaged more easily, but you can get inexpensive parts anywhere in the world that they have bikes. With friction shifting bar ends you'll be back in business with virtually any cassette and dérailleur combo.

DukeArcher 

Not true. We mainly sell external box rohloff, and If any cables or shifters break, all you need to do is take the box off and use an 8mm spanner (or the multitool rohloff provides) to choose a gear. As for complete failure, we have never seen one. The worst problem we have come across is gear slippage, and once the rohloff is re shimmed, the problem is gone.

vik 

Well SJS certainly knew about this Rohloff failure as they arranged to send out a replacement hub. Then there is this guy's Rohloff failure. I'm pretty sure if you spend some more time you can dig up more failures.

This is not to say the Rohloff is rubbish or a bad product, but one of the selling points I often hear [such as at SJS/Thorn] is that they never fail. Well they do fail and for an Expedition bike with a Rohloff and no rear der hanger you are left with very few options, but to wait until someone ships you spare parts. Not the end of the world, but something the vendor should be honest about when they sell you the bike/hub.

Quotes from SJS/Thorn Rohloff Brochure:

“What problems have you had and what is the
service life?”
I asked, getting straight to the point, after
introducing myself.
“No joke, Andy, but we have never had a hub fail,
so we can’t tell you the service life, but some of
our customers have covered 70,000km of world
travel” was the reply from the product manager,
Carsten Geck. (This is now 90,000km AB October
2005.)

As mentioned earlier in this article, there has
never been a case of a Rohloff hub’s internals
failing.

As I stated in a previous post I don't think SJS/Thorn are lying in their PR material, but they are certainly suggesting there are no known failures of Rohloff hubs and it almost comes down to layer speak. A broken hub flange is just as much of a problem on a remote tour as an internal failure and if you are not uber careful when reading the Thorn brochure you might easily miss the fact they talk about internal hub failures only. A more genuine approach would have been to acknowledge that such failures do happen say they are infrequent and that SJS/Rohloff will back up the problem. That way a customer can more accurately determine if the Rohloff is a better choice to a dérailleur system.

This statement from the guy in Tibet with a cracked Rohloff hub on his Thorn Raven Tour says it all: "... Cracked Rohloff Hub-I thought that was impossible!..I thought these things were bombproof, obviously that doesn't include chubby Englishman.."

This guy from Brazil had a Rohloff hub problems - the ultimate resolution was not posted on Thorn's forum.

sloe gin

Vik, you've trawled the internet and found 3 Rohloff wheelbuilder failures out of the tens of thousands sold. There MUST be more. Keep searching - we all need to know.

vik 

Nope I'm done and trawling consisted of reading one other post on BF and then spending 30 secs doing one google search.

I'm not saying they are a bad product or that you shouldn't use one. I just have a problem with vendors talking about them like they never fail. That leads to customers buying the product who get disappointed.

Personally I'd buy a Rohloff for some uses, but I'd balance the pros and cons to see what makes sense in a given situation. You can only do that if you know how the product can and does fail.