Cool. Why are you posting on this thread then if you have no interest in the ideas of others? The fun part if hearing what other people have to say even if you disagree. I'm sorry but your post makes zero sense to me. I've learned a lot from others here.

More importantly for most of us since we probably won't find ourselves in South America is that you can find an equally remote bike shop that has derailers in the US. Or Canada. Or Europe. Or etc. Trust me, Lewiston, Id and Beckley, WV are off the beaten bicycle track.

According to these guys "Even with oiling, IGH hubs should still be overhauled once a year with heavy or extreme use." That's more often than I overhaul my derailer system. Frankly, if you are adjusting you derailer system every week or even once a year, you have done something wrong. Once the cables set in, you shouldn't have to make any kind of adjustment to keep the shifting nice and crisp.

Most peoples' experience with IGH have been with awful 3 speed hubs. That puts most people off to their use. A Rohloff or NuVinci or Shimano hub may work better than the old 3 speeds but most people have figured out how to make derailers work and don't find them finicky at all.

I do have to say that a Rohloff had better work forever. For the price, it should do a whole lot more than just propel a bike down the road. I have no problem spending money on bicycles but Holy Cow!

I noticed he nuked this post but he's just mad at me for a tiff we are having elsewhere.

Don't take things so personally, Jawalk3r. We can disagree without being disagreeable. I know that IGH is a wonderful choice for you but you'll not find too many people going that route. The expense and weight are going to put most people off. As for derailer shortcomings, there aren't too many of them. I teach people how to maintain their bikes all the time and nearly every problem short of a bent derailer can be fixed in less than 30 seconds. A bent derailer takes maybe 5 minutes more. It's a pretty simple system to understand, operate and maintain.

Wow, it has been months since I saw so much passion in a debate on this forum.

Just to add a little fuel to the fire, ... ...

I have an expedition bike with a Rohloff and two lighter touring bikes with derailleurs. I would trust the drive train on any of them equally for touring.

+ 1. Good response.

None of us have good responses. We're all arguing on the internet, myself especially. I think the real takeaway is that at the end of the day, the word "Best" will always be different things for different people.

This is true regardless of hub type, so it certainly isn't a negative for an IGH.

Not if it's under warranty.

??? I'm interested in what they have to say, because I like to understand their reasoning. That doesn't mean that their opinion is going to affect my own decisions.

I could say exactly the same thing.

I'll go with manufacturer recommendations over "these guys." I'm not aware of any IGH that needs to be overhauled annually.

I'd suspect that, over their useful life, they are cheaper than derailer systems of comparable quality. It's hard to say for sure, since I've not heard of anyone wearing out their Rohloff or NuVinci, certainly not enough people to provide a reasonable sample size.

This is what you said:

"I have no interest in your opinion or what gear you choose. I've put much thought and consideration into my own needs, and have arrived at the well reasoned conclusion that derailers have too many shortcomings for them to be a good choice for me."

If you want to change your mind and now you want to read the opinion of others and think about their reasoning, that's great. We always read stuff here that we disagree with. That's what makes it fun and interesting.

It looks like you are the one who can't play the ball instead of the player.

What are you talking about?

That's incorrect. They are a very popular choice in places where most people ride bikes. Unfortunately, in the US, adult who rides a bike is an outlier. Of course, the products forced upon us by the Bicycle industry are an important part of why most people don't ride bikes in this country.

Jaywalk3r, you just quoted someone out of context and then asked "What are you talking about?" when you omitted the context yourself...

Meaning that your opinion isn't going to change mine; I do my own thinking and analysis. You're reading too much into things. Obviously, the context of which the statement was made, i.e., this forum, implies that I'm interested in reading the opinions of others.

You'll notice that the post I was responding to mentioned a standard I had to meet to change his opinion. I was simply pointing out that I had no interest in changing his opinion. It doesn't matter to me what his opinion is, that is, I don't care if he agrees with me or not.

Such an ironic reply, given that you failed to quote the post to which you're referring.

As a rule, I don't quote people out of context. I do, however, tend to snip irrelevant parts of the posts I'm quoting.

Second time you've said that and 180 degrees from your previous post; glad to hear it. I know I find your posts challenging even when I disagree with them; they get me to think.

No, 0 degrees from my previous post. My apologies if you did not infer my intended message from that one.

If your implication is that you're cool-headed and unfased, your rapid-fire responses in the last page or so belies a little bit of defensiveness.

Since you seem to think your IGH can do no wrong, let's talk about actual measured drawbacks:

1. Less Efficiency

Bernhard Rolhoff himself found IGH's to be 2% less efficient than derailleurs. (Source)

2. More Expensive

I have about 10,000 miles on my rear Shimano XT Derailleur. Since nothing is visibly wrong with it, I can expect many thousands more. Say you get your 56,000 miles out of your hub, you'll still be far behind in cost/mile. My derailleur costs about $100, so I can go through 15 derailleurs (150,000+ miles) before spending as much as you.

That implies either of us are riding that often. In reality, I'll probably go through three to five derailleurs in the lifetime of my touring versus your one Rolhoff. That means I've spent one third of what you have.

3. Still Needs Maintenance

As I confirmed from my own experience, which was also backed up by other derailleur users like cyccommute, derailleurs are set-and-forget. I haven't made an adjustment in years. Your IGH still needs to be overhauled, oiled, flushed, and otherwise maintained. On top of that, your chain still needs maintenance and replacing, exactly the same as a chain in a derailleur system.

4. Flange Failures

Hub flanges on Rolhoffs also have the potential for failure. Here's what Robin Thorn has to say about it: "Such failures are either due to crash damage or an undetectable small flaw in the alloy billet. Rohloff use aerospace alloys but even Boeings occasionally drop out of the sky. The only way to be really certain that you never have a component failure is to never buy a component and never fly, drive a car, descend stairs or boil a kettle."

Again, I'm not trying to say derailleurs are better, just that everything CAN fail and derailleurs are easily replaced.



But don't take my word for it...

Here's an account from a Rolhoff user, Helen Lloyd, who rode from the UK to Cape Town using a Rolhoff. The whole thing is worth a read, but I'll highlight the important bits for you.

"Up until the 15,000km mark I would have unreservedly said that I made the right choice with a Rohloff bike. Maintenance has been limited to 2 hub oil changes and occasional cleaning of the bike and oiling of the chain. Periodically I have had to adjust the EBB to tighten the chain, but this is easy to do.

By 16,000km however, it became apparent that I would have to remove links in the chain as I had used up all the play in the bottom bracket. Also I would need to replace a worn sprocket and the chain (the front chain ring also now needs replacing). At the same time, the rubber twist-shift gear changer seized up. Being in Africa, finding a bike mechanic with even the basic tools can be hard. I also started to notice a wobble in the rear wheel (worn hub cap bearings). 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.

(see previous blog post for more details)

All of this was rather unexpected. For example, I had asked SJS for advice on what spare parts to take, but they thought I would get to Cape Town on the one chain and didn’t think I’d need to reverse or replace the sprocket. I therefore didn’t even have a sprocket removal tool with me and had to have it sent out.

The parts I am expecting to have to replace – the internal hub mech and also the cables – are so far ok. I have spares and although may struggle with the replacement since I haven’t done it before, am prepared to do it (I even downloaded the video and instructions onto my laptop before I left).

The worry with the wobbling wheel was that I was at the time unable to stop for long due to expiring visas. But I will not do more damage by cycling on it and so can continue until a more appropriate time to stop for a couple of weeks to send the wheel for repair if it gets worse. So not a problem for now.

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)."

16,000km is about 10K miles. So, you may be due for a hub failure pretty soon..

Getting back to the OP's query, for me the "ultimate" touring group is the 9-speed XT of a few years ago. (9-speed LX would also be fine with me.) Which is why I continue to stock up on spare / replacement parts, these days at clearance prices.

And if I may, it's impressive to see such passion for internal gear hubs; usually this is reserved for things like threaded vs. threadless headsets, disc vs. rim brakes, 26" vs. 700c wheels, and Brooks vs. the world (this last may even be the "third rail" of Bikeforums ). Joking aside, I get what Jaywalk3r is saying about what's right for him, but I've come to my own "well reasoned" conclusion and I'm sold on the simple and comparatively cheap reliability of derailleur systems.

That said, I do have to admit that availability for derailleurs (9-speed long cage, anyway) ain't that great, at least in my neck of the woods. My LBS in Manhattan (not going to name names; not the point) couldn't source for me a new, 9-speed Shimano Deore derailleur (this was in May)--claimed from his inventory search there weren't any in the whole country! Obviously, this was nonsense, and I ended up going home and ordering it online.

Mike

I would not use an IGH mostly because of the weight. I don't want 3 or 4 lbs of hub on my back wheel.

For a touring gruppo I would go with a SRAM, or Deore MTB crank if you want super low gears or any one of the good compact cranks around....TA Carmina is nice. Hubs I'd go with White Industries T11, a 12/36 SRAM cassette and X9 rear derailleur. For BB I'd get Chris King, Phil Wood, White Ind

This is what my girlfriend's Kona Cinder Cone circa 1993 is specced with (maybe upgraded by the previous owner- who knows). At any rate, it shifts smoother than either of my bikes (Shimano XT cir. 2010 and Shimano Deore cir. 2009) and I suspect the entire bike will outlast anything I've got from this generation.

She spent $200. Next time I need an expedition touring bike, it'll be a 90's steel 26 inch mountain bike.

the touring group that I used, Ultimately, for most of my touring , several trips in Europe.

80's Campag Euclid MTB RD & FD , Sun Tour Bar end shifters, friction/ratchet. XT M730 cranks, steel 24,49,50 chainrings.

SedisSport Chains... 13-34t, 6 speed freewheel. Phil Wood 48 hole and Specialized 40 hole hubs ..

newer wheel set, built, a Bullseye hub pair, same 48/40 drilling ,used on my last, Irish_Scotland Tour.. upgrade: Enduro 6001 bearings.

I'm hardly being defensive. I simply responded to the posts addressed to me as I read them. Some people are certainly comically defensive about their precious derailer systems though!


A 2 percent loss of efficiency is nothing to worry about. You'll lose more than that by not having your tires at exactly their optimum inflation level. I don't know about you, but I don't have the means to check my tire pressure that accurately or precisely on tour.

Initially, yes. But not over the life of the hub. Total cost of ownership favors the Rohloff.
To a much lesser extent than your derailer system, as I understand. (My NuVinci requires no maintenance within the hub.)
That's quite a reach. At any rate, that's a potential with any hub.

The plural of anecdotes is not data. And a sample size of one would be pretty meaningless, anyway. I've seen many failed derailers. And there are many success stories of Rohloff hubs on tour available. A bad experience certainly seems atypical.

Most tourers carry a load on their rear wheel, and would not notice the extra weight. The NuVinci is the king of heavy hubs, and the weight is completely a non-issue, even on an unloaded bike.

First off, I can accurately check my tire pressure by hand because I've done it a few thousand times. I know when it's low within 10-20 PSI from experience. 2% on the Rolhoff adds to everything else. of course, you can say it's "nothing to worry about" as a response, but the numbers are the point. 2% less efficient on an otherwise 99% efficiency form of transportation over tens of thousands of miles matters to some.


Not if you die of old age before going through 15 derailleurs.

YES! FINALLY! We are getting somewhere! It's a potential failure with any hub, except my hub costs $50 and your hub costs $1,500! That makes a Rolhoff or NuVinci a helluva lot less than ideal for the Ultimate Touring Gruppo...

Both fail, one is replaceable. At any rate, your own anecdotal data seems to guide you like a freight train, smashing through the acceptance of any logic other than your own. So, roll on...