Jim Kukula

I have a Thorn Nomad Mk2, a Rohloff hub with a 16 tooth sprocket and a 38 tooth chainring. The gear ratios of the Rohloff are given at:

https://www.rohloff.de/en/technology/...ios/index.html

The range is thus 0.279 to 1.467. My wheels are nominally 26 inch, so that makes a low gear of 26 * 0.279 * 38 / 16 = 17.23 inches, and a high gear of 26 * 1.467 * 38 / 16 = 90.59 inches. That's a range of 526%.

I measure the diameter of my wheels, with Schwalbe Marathon Supreme 2 inch tires, as more like 25.2 inches, so my gears are actually a bit smaller!

This is pretty much the lowest gearing allowed by Rohloff for a 26 inch wheel.

Jim Kukula

Maybe a 17.23 inch gear seems too low but I use it all the time. Getting up Platte Clove Rd:

https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/55678498

I still had to stop to catch my breath a few times. And I wasn't carrying much of a load, just some water and snacks and spare clothes. Of course the Thorn is not a light bike and my BMI is in the 25 zone so... the extra weight of the Thorn hub is utterly negligible!

MassiveD

"So basically it sounds as if the pro to the rohloff is low low maintenance but the con being if you break down in the middle of nowhere, you're up **** creek? Where as its pretty easy to replace derailleur parts wherever you may be? Is that the long and short of it? Also how loud is loud?"

My take on that is specify a dual use drop, that way if something horrible happens, and you have a great derailleur bail out option, you just clip the R. out of the spokes, pack it or post it, and get the derailleur wheel fitted. In a real pickle the Rohloff gives you the bombproof hope you won't go there, but you can have it so that you could use that old MTB wheel, and derailleur if you had to.

All that said my worry in your case is that if your idea of fun isn't studying up on mechanics, will you really be happiest with a product where it would help if you were the local expert since nobody else is going to be. There are R. related things that happen along the way, and it has it's own set of problems. You (with the internet) are going to need to be the expert guy since most people haven't seen one, once you get out of there.

I had to get custom spokes ordered in. Nobody sold them (R. to a common velocity rim), and a lot of the custom options are not good. Are you an expert on spokes? Want to be. And it goes on.

Rohloffs are a bit oversold, the gears inside are great. Just about everything else could do with being swapped out. Which is why there is a really long list for everything but the gears available aftermarket. I mean everything. The Rohloff also isn't designed for touring, so it doesn't really fit the use all that well. None of this stops it from being regarded as a brilliant piece of kit, but if your desire to have the best, the absolute most ideal is kinda bullying you in this direction, don't feel the pressure. It is compromise kit like everything else adapted to touring. The people that have them can be evangelical about them but that's to be expected.

I think it is one of those deals where if you really wanted to go for the R, you are probably going to be happy, which is probably equally the case if you spend the 1000 on some other part of the bike.

MassiveD

I thought I read that Rohloff brought out a different ratio hub. Is that standard, or are there options? My recollection was that it didn't sound like an improvement for touring, but I didn't pay much attention since I am not buying another one.

A good article to get some more info is:

https://www.thorncycles.co.uk/thornpd...thARohloff.pdf

Slightly happy in places, since stuff like broken flanges is only not slowing you down if you weren't moving in the first place. But and excellent piece. You might enjoy the technical stuff and list of tools, as a window into the world of maintaining these things.

This site points out some pros and cons, and some fixes. The picture of the idler shows the kind of drop you can get to which a derailleur could be fitted, if need be. You dopn't want an idler, you might want the option. Mention of some problems fixing rear tires. and what to look out for.

https://www.rodbikes.com/articles/pop...-clickbox.html

https://www.rodbikes.com/articles/rohloff.html

Just spent some time surfing "Rohloff hub failures", yikes! There are a lot of failures and every one I read was a tourist form Katmandu to Bolivia to Sudan.

MassiveD

"This all added up to quite a lot of work. If in Europe, I would simply have gone to a repair shop and left it in their capable hands. Instead, I had to get help from a bike forum, read the instructions manual and sweat a lot over trying to remove and adjust parts."


"I think I probably underestimated the maintenance that would be required on such a long trip, even with a Rohloff hub. Would a derailleur system have been better? That is hard for me to say. But the one advantage would have been that local bike mechanics would know the system and finding replacement parts would have been relatively easy (rather than having to get parts shipped from the UK)."

https://takeonafrica.com/bike-expedit...equipped-bike/

Andybg

I am fortunate enough to own a thorn raven sport tour (rohloff) and a thorn mk1 Nomad (derailllieur) - very similar to the LHT 26" wheels or the current Thorn Sherpa

The rohloff is fantastic and is very nice to use however when it comes to using in the back and beyond I would always favor the Nomad. It all comes down to spares. The gearbox is all but indestructable but the spokes, cables etc are not and not easy to get replacements as they are a special length, The same goes for running a front dyno hub

You can carry a few spares but not a full set for a new wheel if required.

If I trash the rear wheel on the Nomad I can run any mountain bike rear wheel (can move bar end shifters to friction) where on the raven it would need to be rebuilt.

My best advice would be keep it simple

swc7916

That's not my experience at all. In the higher gears it's quieter than a derailleur. In some of the lower gears it makes a whirring sound like you're running a generator; I wouldn't characterize it as "grinding" at all.

Our bike uses an eccentric bottom bracket, not an idler pulley, to adjust chain tension. As such, there isn't the "chain slap" that you get with a derailleur and the chain stays much cleaner.

Six jours

Different folks have different opinions of what constitutes an "annoying" sound. I seem to like my bikes quieter than many other folks. The fenders in particular make the Rohloff noise unpleasant to me.

Jude

For a great midrange bike, look into a Surly Troll. I have one. Also, I know of at least two blogs of people doing off-road Alaska to Argentina tours on them. One is www.whileoutriding.com, the other I forget.

It's a rock-solid bike for not too much money, much like the LHT, but it's got the geometry of a mountain bike, room for way fatter tires, the ability to add a suspension fork for really hairy terrain, the ability to have disc or rim brakes unlike the LHT, and seems to have served people very well as both a mountain bike and a touring vehicle. My own experience with it is a lot less extensive, but I love it so far. It's also able to take a Rohloff hub and just about any combination of gears, brakes, fenders, trailers, racks, etc. that you can think of.

It doesn't have the touring-specific geometry of the LHT, so its handling while loaded probably won't be as good as a dedicated touring bike, but by all accounts it still does an awesome job while loaded up with cross-continental loads (see the link above).

The fact that it's Rohloff-ready was icing on the cake for me; someday I'd like to get one, but that's fairly far off in the future that I can spend that kind of money.