Pop N Wood

Thinking of ordering a Tout Terrain Blueridge bike with the pinion 12 speed gear box

Blueridge GT Touring Bike | Expedition | Tout Terrain (tout-terrain.de)

Stupid amount of money but hey, we only live once.

I've read a lot of good things about how Tout allows the gear box to pivot to adjust the belt tension. One guy said he vastly preferred that to his other belt driven bikes with sliding rear drop outs because moving the rear wheel often requires readjusting the fenders and I'm guessing disc brake calipers. Also love the rear rack being part of the frame. British Racing Green works for me.

Just wondering if anyone has experience with this model or ordering directly from Germany. Tout lists a bike shop in Seattle and Peter White in New Hampshire, but they both said they stopped importing the bikes during the pandemic even though they really loved the bikes.

Anyway looking for opinions one way or the other.

Tourist in MSN

I have not ordered a bike from Germany. But I have had very good luck ordering parts from Bike24.com and Starbike.com, both in Germany.

In 2014 I ordered a bike frame (not a complete bike) from UK (when UK was still in Europe), I expected to pay about 4 percent in customs duty, but ended up paying about 6 percent. I think the duty on a complete bike from Germany might be double digit. I suggest you try to find out the customs duty cost before you order to make sure you are not surprised later. You pay that, so the seller in Germany might not know how much it is.

In my case, the US Post office mail carrier came to my door with my frame and needed payment. But if they ship DHL, I am not sure how the logistics would work for duty.

What is the percent jump in each gear shift on the 12 speed? My Rohloff has about a 13 percent jump with each shift, I would not want shift steps to be much bigger than that, but I think the 12 speed pinion has bigger jumps than that.

I think PedalingWalrus has the 18 speed Pinion, but different bike brand.
https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/1...idean-way.html

Kelly I

I have heard only good things about Tout Terrain bicycle quality. They are priced accordingly. My husband purchased a Priority 600 bike with a 12 speed Pinion, belt drive. He said the price was so good, how could he not try the Pinion drive. He likes it, as a fact, he rode the bike for 57 miles/3,500 feet of climbing today!

morgoth924

Percent jump in pinion 12 speed is a bit bigger compared to rohloff, see Sheldon Brown for comparison, it didn't bother me, steps are good for me as they are. As an option, you can opt for the 18 speed pinion, lots more steps, just smaller (Q-factor increases, though). Tout terrain bikes are of a very high quality, at least, mine is and so are the others I looked at at my dealer (amber road, silkroad, ...). Mine has the cinq carbon fork and magura 5 brakes, nowadays they mount different brakes, don't know how they compare. As I got mine from a dealer, I have no experience with shipping. Was a bit of a gamble between rohloff and pinion; with rohloff, TT uses a "bearing outside" type bottom bracket, I don't like that so it helped me decide to go for the pinion. About 450 miles on it (only used for commuting,so far), a very stable dream to ride!

Pop N Wood

Touts web site is a bit of a mess, no single page summary of all their options, but I'm not seeing the 18 speed offered as an option anymore. It used to be a selectable option a year or so ago.

From what I read the 12 speed has a magnesium case and is a good bit lighter than the 18. I honestly don't know what to make of the huge gear range. I don't push the heavy gears like I used to, better off on a touring rig with more closely spaced gears. Found one other reference comparing the gear steps to a standard derailleur bike. Need to look at that.

The blueridge has drop bars, which I prefer for hand positioning on long rides, but the TRP brifters used by Tout route the cables straight to the inside like the old Shimano STI shifters. Like one guy said the shifter arrangement looks like some 2000's afterthought. I really don't like cables flapping in the wind like that. I would rather have a twist shifter, would hate to go straight bar for that reason.

morgoth924

The 18 speed pinion is indeed gone from the options list. The 12 speed mounted on my bike (c-series) is the magnesium one, a bit lighter than his cast alloy cousin (p-series).
Gear range is huge indeed, depends on your usage, I suppose. Currently I use 6 as lift off gear, all the way to 10 and sometimes 11 when weather is favourable (wind direction) and I'm in a hurry. Could do with a five speed! But that would limit my options if I want to go and travel with this bike.

Van nicholas makes a splittable drop bar so you can use the twist shifter. Was considering that, but went for a surly moloko instead.

Tourist in MSN

I think Pinion uses a shifter similar to a Rohloff shifter, two cables (one for upshifts and one for downshifts) on a twist grip shifter. I have never seen a Pinion, I can only describe my Rohloff shifter.

Rohloff shifter is sized for mountain bike bars, 22.2mm diameter. There are other after market shifters made by others for larger diameter bars. I tried about three different locations for my shifter before I settled on the Hubbub adapter that allows me to put my shifter on the handlebar end (in my case right side). With my shifter there, I can have both hands on the handlebars where my hands are at a distance from the steerer tube for better leverage when steering on difficult terrain, while still being able to shift simultaneous with two handed steering. No brifters needed. Standard brake levers used.



More on options for shifting a Rohloff:
https://www.cyclingabout.com/rohloff...op-handlebars/

I did a bit of searching this morning, this link has a good discussion of Pinion system, including gearing steps.
https://bikepacking.com/gear/pinion-gearbox-review/

One thing to keep in mind, expedition bikes are heavy bikes. My Rohoff bike weighs a hair over 20 kg (well over 40 pounds). It is not the Rohloff that made it heavy, the bike is heavy because it is heavy duty. My frame (a Thorn Nomad Mk II, not a Tout Terrain) is rated for 60kg of luggage weight, not counting the weight of the rider. My rims are very heavy to be able to carry that. I have had more than two weeks of food with my camping gear on my bike and it had a robust enough frame that it handled the load just fine. But, when you get on an unloaded bike to take it out for a quick spin, it still is a very heavy bike. Thinking car equivalent, you are not driving a sports car, instead you are driving an F350 Superduty pickup truck. So, if you get an expedition bike, be ready for a bike that feels like an expedition bike, even when unloaded.

Pratt

I got my Tout Terrain Silk Road from Peter White. He builds great wheels. I have a Pinion 18 with a chain drive. Huge range of unduplicated gear ratios, with a twist grip shifter. You can shift while standing still. Bike is very robust, but not excessively heavy, nor any pricier than any other big end tourer. I have a generator front hub that runs lights and can recharge a phone.
Hope this helps.

GamblerGORD53

Rohloff14 with a chaincase is the way to go for me. I just wouldn't like the wizziness of how the Pinion drive works. That is where the drag is. IMO.
My shifter is on a DIY post clamped to my top tube. ZERO fuss and can shift with either hand.
I don't trust those lopsided BBs either. Seems to me that dirt would clog it up.
I finally got a proper 1/8" chainwheel, little chain wear since.
There has been a large following for the Priority 600 pinion though.

Thigh Master

I recently veered away from Co-Motion to a Tout Terrain Blueridge Xplore GT with Pinion 12 speed. Sure the website is a little complex but Matthew at the dealership in Tucson has been great over the phone helping whittle down to the final order. With any luck will be finalized tomorrow.

tcs

This is a six-month-old thread.


There were some questions raised but unanswered. Should anyone pull this out of the archives in the future...



The disc brake mounts are on the sliding dropout. As the axle goes, so goes the brake.

Quote:

What is the percent jump in each gear shift on the 12-speed (Pinion)?

According to Pinion,
P-Line, 18 gears, 636% total range, 11.5% steps.
C-Line, 12 gears, 600% total range, 18% steps
C-Line, 9 gears, 568% total range, 24% steps
C-Line, 6 gears, 295% total range, 24% steps

FWIW,
Rohloff, 14 gears, 526% total range, 13.6% steps
3X3 Nine hub, 9 gears, 554% total range, 24% steps
Shimano Alfine, 11 gears, 409% total range, 13~14% steps except for the bottom gear @ 29%
Enviolo Trekking, CVT, 380% total range

Efficiency:
https://www.cyclingabout.com/speed-d...arbox-systems/

Quote:

I think Pinion uses a shifter similar to a Rohloff shifter, two cables (one for upshifts and one for downshifts) on a twist grip shifter.

Pretty much.


The Enviolo shifter uses the same two-cable system.



A road test claimed you could not shift while pedaling (turning the cranks?). Comment?

Tourist in MSN

Rohloff:
Manufacturer says yes but do not pedal hard. I as a user say, only if your torque on the crank is nil. I usually slow my cadence slightly, thus still pedaling but have no pressure on the gears when I shift. Shifting is nearly instantaneous, so the amount of time is maybe a tenth of a second.

Exception, if I am going up a hill and need to down shift, I try to downshift when my right side pedal is at the top of the stroke so that I have the least torque on the crank when I shift. Why the right side? I am not ambidextrous, I only try to do that on one side.

Pinion:
If the Pinion is like the Rohloff, there is your answer. If not, I am sure someone will so state that here as there are a few pinion owners on this forum.

Pratt

I can shift while pedaling. Easing up a bit helps, just as one would suspect since metal on metal has to slide somewhere. One potential advantage is a rear wheel with no dish, and thus maybe a little more robust.
Another potential advantage here in Vermont is multi gear shifts with a quick twist. The terrain often changes from a 19 inch uphill to a 100 inch downhill, or vice versa, in about 50 feet.

djb

thanks for this, that's especially good to know the percentage steps between shifts.
The Pinion 18 speed with the 11.5% is really, really nice, the Rohlof 13.6% is pretty nice also.

Thighm, as someone who rides a roadbike, I'm sure you appreciate tighter percentages between shifts as most rode bikes have fairly close cassettes. When touring, and with more typical wide cassettes, the percentages are bigger, but in the end when touring, it generally is fine because we tend to slow down a lot more faster , so the jumps are usually alright.
That said, tractor trailer 18 wheelers have closely spaced 15 speed transmissions, because its easier on the engine to have closer shifts pulling a big heavy load, so a touring bike would be really nice with closer shifts--and thats why having more speeds has been really nice for bike touring (compared to the 5, 6 speed bikes I had when starting to ride a lot)
Here is the chart for my 9 speed heavy duty touring bike setup, the jumps in percentage are okay, but not great.

You can see how the P18 must be really nice to ride with the 11.5 % jumps, throw in belt drive and this is a darn nice bike drivetrain.

Tourist in MSN

One really nice thing about a Pinion or Rohloff compared to a cassette 1X, is that with the Pinion or Rohloff, every gear change is almost exactly the same as every other gear shift in percent change of gear ratio.

For example, with my Rohoff, if the grade changes slightly and it is getting a bit harder to pedal, if my cadence drops to say 65 rpm, if I down shift to increase my cadence, it will rise by about 13.6 percent to about 73.8 rpm. Does not matter what gear I was in, when I downshift or upshift my change of cadence will be almost exactly the same because the range of gear shifts was designed to be nearly identical. Not perfectly identical, for the Rohloff, each shift is within 13.2 to 13.9 percent, with the average of about 13.6, which is so close you can think of each shift as being an identical change in cadence.

Someone on this forum often cites a Sunrace 10-50 cassette. Not sure what the tooth counts are on that but Sram makes a 10-50, and I found the tooth counts for that. So I will use that as an example. With that cassette, each gear shift ranges from 12.5 to 20 percent. So, using my example of a slightly steeper uphill and wanting to downshift one gear, that increase in cadence could rise to anywhere from 73.1 to 78.0. That is a big difference from one shift to the next.

On my Rohloff bike, my cadence is almost always in the 65 to 74 rpm range. You do not notice how much you appreciate each shift being nearly identical to each other shift, until you get used to a bike that shifts that way. Then when you get on a different bike that does not have consistent shift changes, you immediately notice that.

djb

Big time. I would love a setup with a touring bike range that I enjoy, but with much closer percentage shifts, like on my road bike. This is why I like the idea of a 11 speed and a practical double, just theory for me now, but a future bike probably.

Rick

The OP should setup the SILKROAD XPLORE II 275 model with drop bars. The 18 speed pinion is available for this model and it uses a belt also. The reason for the 12 speed on the other model is because they sell the brifters on it made by Cinq and they are only made for 12 speed pinions. I looked into brifters for the Rohloff and found they only shift one or two gears at a time. I like being able to twist five or more gears at a time on the Rohloff or Co-Motion shifters.

Tourist in MSN

Every few months I check the Cycling About website to see if they have anything new to say. And just discovered major changes are coming for Pinion gearboxes next year. I suggest anyone that is considering getting a Pinion should check this out, as it may mean that they might decide they want to either hurry up and get an old one, or wait for the new ones to come out.

djb

thanks for that. Interesting.
I guess my reaction is the same as towards battery operated electronic systems by all the main players--not so excited by it for the usual reasons--but I have to say that I am one of those riders who doesn't really like grip shifters, so this will absolutely open up their market.
Still very pricey bikes though.

Rick

I saw this video last month and even did a posting about the Priority model coming out with Smart Shift. I like the idea of electronic shifting, but Pinion only has it for the 12 speed. Rohloff partnered with Bosch and they only have electronic shift for ebikes. Initially there was some speculation that they would do it for non ebikes. There is an Australian company that has an electronic shift for Rohloff. There is not much info one it either. You would think that Rohloff might come out with an electronic shift, but they are probably not interested enough as of yet. They build over 60,000 hubs a year.

Tourist in MSN

I really do not mind grip shifters for the Rohloff, the indexing is in the hub and not in the grip shifter. So, when you shift, it goes right into gear. Cable friction and adjustment does not impair the indexing as long as your cables are loose enough. I assume the Pinion operates the same way. I am not sure if I would like grip shifters for a derailleur or not.

For touring, if I got a Pinion I would probably prefer the older cable operated grip shifter over the electronic.

Tourist in MSN

I think the biggest market for Rohloff is in Germany and there are a lot of higher end e-bikes sold there, so they might never find a reason to make one for muscle powered bikes.

I had no idea that they made that many hubs now. From the serial number on mine (180,XXX), it now takes them three years to make as many as they made in the roughly 15 years before mine was built. My hub was made in early 2013, I believe they started making them in 1998.

That Pinion video said that they can make the newer version Pinion shift under load by sensing where the pedal stroke is so that it shifts at the point of the crank orientation where torque is low. The Rohloff is not able to sense where the crank arm orientation is, so I do not see Rohloff being able to do that. But I started biking with non-indexed derailleur gears and three speed gears, so I never pedal hard when trying to shift on any kind of bike, I learned decades ago that shifting under load is not a good idea.

tcs

Changes discussed in the video seem to be to the C-line (the 24% gear step model) electric shift versions.

As a historical point, multiple gears at the bottom bracket have been tried many times in the last ~130 years, and for whatever reason(s) it has never caught on. Probably most successful were the Adler bikes of Germany.



Yeah, you've never heard of them. I don't know why centrally-mounted gearing has never caught on in the past, so I can't speculate if Pinion has surmounted those issues.

Say, does anybody offer a sub-frame to adapt a Pinion gearbox frame to a regular bottom bracket? Hmm. Probably not.

Rick

I heard somewhere that Rohloff hubs were real popular in the US compared to some other countries. I only saw one Rohloff hub in the flesh prior to going to the shop were I ordered my bicycle. I had seen them online since the early 2000s.

I ordered my Co-Motion Pangea Rohloff in Dec 2013. I believe you are correct about there startup date.

They could do a torque sensing BB but this would be complicated. People like us wouldn't need a sensor but there are those who would not play well with something that requires them to think about letting off of the pressure before shifting. When Indexing showed up in the bicycle shop I was working in. The Suntour Indexing was flaky at first. We started using non index type housing on the short section before the derailer. This improved the shifting. The derailers have been improved over the years so they are more forgiving of bad shifts. When I started bicycling you had to pay attention and let off the pressure. I have seen twisted derailleur hangers because of bad shifts.

Tourist in MSN

If I was going to design a gearing system from scratch, it would be at the hub, not the bottom bracket area. The hub rotates much faster than a bottom bracket spindle, thus less torque on the rotating parts, that means the gear teeth can be smaller as they rotate faster and handle less loading than the gearing that is driven by a bottom bracket spindle. And the gear shafts would need to have better strength, along with the casings that those shafts are anchored in on the Pinion.

A bicycle is the opposite of a motorcycle, the motorcycle engine turns over faster than the rear wheel. Putting the gearbox with the engine means the gearbox components spin faster, but can be smaller as they handle less torque.