Don’t get your knickers in a knot. Your BB is just an example that everything has a failure rate, some larger, some smaller, with different consequences. Rohloffs have a failure rate but it is pretty small. For some folk, that peace of mind is worth a little slower average speed.
I guess my point is that few people need to absolutely maximise their mechanical efficiency to finish PBP. Other aspects of their ride probably make a bigger difference, most of the time. A story - PBP03 when 2 of 3 British tandems with the same new model of Hugi tandem hub failed to finish. The other team had their hubs fail during their second 600 that year and they carried a spare freehub with them in case the hub failed again (it didn’t). No way to fix a freehub with no drive without specific spare parts and ziptieing the cassette to the spokes for another 900km doesn’t work very well on a tandem.
I agree that a Rohloff on a fast road bike won’t suit many folk, for exactly the reason you stated. Others wouldn’t find that characteristic to be an issue because they have other priorities.
I have ridden a lot of miles with Drew and a few miles with Sophie (a very talented rider). They have some interesting stories to share.
Last edited by LWaB; 08-08-21 at 08:28 AM.