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Rohloff, yeah, nah, yeah, nah.

Old 08-22-21, 07:07 PM
  #101  
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Something I haven't seen remarked on here much, is the similarity between a Rohloff and a single-speed as regards not chainline, but chainring concentricity. I was fiddling with ratios today, and put the 42 on the front, in place of the 46. The 46 came from Universal Cycles mounted to the Sugino crank, and must have been carefully place, for the chain rain smoothly over the rear tensioner and cog. But with the 42, the chain was dancing around a bit and I could feel and hear the vibration. Which is fine for Sunday morning with my sweetie, but not great when just spinning the cranks. I pulled out my dial indicator, and sure enough, the new ring was off-center. Some persuasion and careful iterative retightening of the bolts brought it into near-perfect centeredness, and the tensioner calmed right down. Perfection!

Or, maybe I just need to back off the Surly tensioner! But better to have a smooth chainring than something trying to approximate a Shimano Biopace...
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Old 08-23-21, 04:37 AM
  #102  
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Originally Posted by BoltBreaker
Something I haven't seen remarked on here much, is the similarity between a Rohloff and a single-speed as regards not chainline, but chainring concentricity. I was fiddling with ratios today, and put the 42 on the front, in place of the 46. The 46 came from Universal Cycles mounted to the Sugino crank, and must have been carefully place, for the chain rain smoothly over the rear tensioner and cog. But with the 42, the chain was dancing around a bit and I could feel and hear the vibration. Which is fine for Sunday morning with my sweetie, but not great when just spinning the cranks. I pulled out my dial indicator, and sure enough, the new ring was off-center. Some persuasion and careful iterative retightening of the bolts brought it into near-perfect centeredness, and the tensioner calmed right down. Perfection!

Or, maybe I just need to back off the Surly tensioner! But better to have a smooth chainring than something trying to approximate a Shimano Biopace...
I suspect that some of the component manufacturers have gotten a bit lazy on quality control for chainrings and crank arm spiders with derailleur bikes, any non-concentric parts do not matter with a sprung derailleur cage.

I tour with a 36T chainring on my Rohloff bike, but around home use a 44T chainring, so changing chainrings is a regular, scheduled event. The bike has a cheap (Amazon) crankset, and I bought cheap no-name chainrings. And an eccentric bottom bracket for chain tension, not a sprung tensioner. Each time I change chain rings, I am fiddling it for about 10 minutes to try to get it close to perfect.
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Old 08-25-21, 10:05 PM
  #103  
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I suspect that some of the component manufacturers have gotten a bit lazy on quality control for chainrings and crank arm spiders with derailleur bikes, any non-concentric parts do not matter with a sprung derailleur cage.

I tour with a 36T chainring on my Rohloff bike, but around home use a 44T chainring, so changing chainrings is a regular, scheduled event. The bike has a cheap (Amazon) crankset, and I bought cheap no-name chainrings. And an eccentric bottom bracket for chain tension, not a sprung tensioner. Each time I change chain rings, I am fiddling it for about 10 minutes to try to get it close to perfect.
My belt equipped Co-Motion with the Rohloff has to be near perfect on the alignment. I have a 50 tooth belt ring up front and a 20 tooth belt cog in the rear. This is a 2.5 to 1 ratio and the lowest ratio Rohloff allows for GVW more than 100 kilos. Gates has come out with a belt ring and belt cog with more contact on the belt. I think they are called expedition parts. A company named Ragina is making maintenance free motorcycle chains coated with industrial diamonds. If they made them for bicycles I would be interested in going to a chain on my bike.
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Old 08-26-21, 05:13 AM
  #104  
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Originally Posted by Rick
My belt equipped Co-Motion with the Rohloff has to be near perfect on the alignment. I have a 50 tooth belt ring up front and a 20 tooth belt cog in the rear. This is a 2.5 to 1 ratio and the lowest ratio Rohloff allows for GVW more than 100 kilos. Gates has come out with a belt ring and belt cog with more contact on the belt. I think they are called expedition parts. A company named Ragina is making maintenance free motorcycle chains coated with industrial diamonds. If they made them for bicycles I would be interested in going to a chain on my bike.
Yeah, the belt is supposed to be tight all the time, the chain is supposed to have some slack on the half that is not under tension when pedaling, so a bit of variation in how much slack a chain has is likely tolerated better with a chain drive system. When I built up my Rohloff bike, I chose to put expensive stuff on the bike where needed, but lower cost where it was not. And my $25 crankset off of Amazon is holding up just fine. But the tolerances are a bit loose on it.

I also have a chainline that is about 5mm off. I wanted a Q factor (pedal width) on my Rohloff bike to nearly match what I have on my derailleur bikes, so my bottom bracket spindle is about 10mm shorter than it should be for a perfect chainline. A chain can tolerate that where it is my understanding that belts do not tolerate that well.

Whenever I put a chain on my sprocket and chainrings, I am careful to always put the chain links with outer plates on the same teeth that have always had outer plate links. That is because the links with outer plates are the links that elongate with chain wear, and the sprocket teeth wear to match the chain wear.

Last year I finally flipped my rear sprocket after seven years of use. The above mentioned chainline error and the above mentioned variation in teeth wear from alternating chain link elongation were readily apparent in my sprocket wear. Photo is before I flipped the sprocket.



The tooth on the left always had chain links that had inner plates, the chainline error caused more wear on one side of those teeth, but the chainlinks with outer links did not rub on the sides of the chain teeth.
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Old 09-15-21, 02:59 AM
  #105  
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Sound of Rohloff Speedhub in various speeds

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Old 11-21-21, 06:33 PM
  #106  
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Getting in the miles as I break in the Rohloffer, some observations:

0. The noises it makes while breaking in are weird. I guess people just get used to it?

1. If I shift across the 7-8 divide while stopped, there's a definite clunk getting going as it shifts both from high to low range and also onto the gear I selected. Not a BFD.

2. I tend to drop a deuce... er, shift across two ratios... when hitting a steeper slope, as a single ratio shift is often absorbed by the loss of forward momentum of shifting in the first place, since I have to relax the pressure on the pedals for a clean shift. But this is an @gugie frame, so dropping a deuce is all part of the gambit I signed on for, and no real issue, as it's easy to climb back up a notch as the gradient allows.

3. I am utterly enjoying the wide range of ratios! There's no local hill I cannot ascend while seated, nor have I found a descent I cannot pedal through at speed. It's what, 525%? So nice. If it were just an 7or 8 speed hub, with the same range, it might lighter, and I would love it all the more.

4. And... yes, it's heavy. Not really an issue on this heaving touring rig with diaga-tube, but my arms strain hefting onto the Park stand.

A pretty picture from today's ride through Oakland (bike waiting on big boxy front bag, and likely shift back to drop bars):

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Old 11-21-21, 08:30 PM
  #107  
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Originally Posted by BoltBreaker
Getting in the miles as I break in the Rohloffer, some observations:

0. The noises it makes while breaking in are weird. I guess people just get used to it?

1. If I shift across the 7-8 divide while stopped, there's a definite clunk getting going as it shifts both from high to low range and also onto the gear I selected. Not a BFD.

2. I tend to drop a deuce... er, shift across two ratios... when hitting a steeper slope, as a single ratio shift is often absorbed by the loss of forward momentum of shifting in the first place, since I have to relax the pressure on the pedals for a clean shift. But this is an @gugie frame, so dropping a deuce is all part of the gambit I signed on for, and no real issue, as it's easy to climb back up a notch as the gradient allows.

3. I am utterly enjoying the wide range of ratios! There's no local hill I cannot ascend while seated, nor have I found a descent I cannot pedal through at speed. It's what, 525%? So nice. If it were just an 7or 8 speed hub, with the same range, it might lighter, and I would love it all the more.

4. And... yes, it's heavy. Not really an issue on this heaving touring rig with diaga-tube, but my arms strain hefting onto the Park stand.

A pretty picture from today's ride through Oakland (bike waiting on big boxy front bag, and likely shift back to drop bars):
0 - Less noise as they wear in, it takes a lot of distance to polish the spur gear teeth.

1 - Gears 1-7 use the third planetary gear system that acts as a low range, but when in gears 8-14 that third planetary gear is direct drive. Think of it like driving a Jeep or a 4X4 truck that has a low range in the transfer case, when you put it in low range you really know you are in low range.

You have flat bars and are switching to drop bars? If so, this may help:
https://www.cyclingabout.com/rohloff...op-handlebars/

I use the Hubbub adapter, have the twist shifter on my bar end. That article has an incorrect photo of the Hubbub adapter. The article has some wooden home brew gizmo, the real Hubbub adapter is aluminum.

But be forewarned that drop bar bikes usually have shorter top tubes, you might find that a frame that fits great with flat bars might be too long with drop bars.
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Old 11-21-21, 08:51 PM
  #108  
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Originally Posted by Tourist in MSN

You have flat bars and are switching to drop bars? If so, this may help:
https://www.cyclingabout.com/rohloff...op-handlebars/

I use the Hubbub adapter, have the twist shifter on my bar end. That article has an incorrect photo of the Hubbub adapter. The article has some wooden home brew gizmo, the real Hubbub adapter is aluminum.

But be forewarned that drop bar bikes usually have shorter top tubes, you might find that a frame that fits great with flat bars might be too long with drop bars.
My shifter is on the stem! And I plan to keep it there.



Also, I have various Nitto stems to sort through any variations, but expect I'll be fine with my current 7 cm extension and wide (46 or 48 cm) Nitto Noodle bars.
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Old 11-22-21, 05:50 AM
  #109  
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Boltbreaker, that is a particularly interesting frame. It also probably has the longest head tube that I've ever seen, what frame size is it?
The shifter position seems particularly awkward to use, but you clearly are comfortable with using it and will keep it there.

fascinating bike
have you ever considered those drivetrain covers, to keep everything nice and clean? I understand they do have some contact with the chain, and some people dislike the sound.
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Old 11-22-21, 11:11 AM
  #110  
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I should show my bike too. Biggest hunk of metal and CF around. LOL. That's a tandem threaded fork.
This was on a 112 mile day ride. I left the folding lock at home, case behind the seatpost.




This pic was at Long Beach, WA. 18,150 miles now with the Rohloff, maybe 5,000 with my SA XL-RD5w. It easily floats along at 15 mph when not loaded. The front wheel has been downgraded to a new roadster Simcoe. Brand new SA / Dyad wheel the same now on this bike.
On the rack are plastic bike bins, formerly sold in UK by an independent guy. I have tailored cloth pullout bags inside, zero dirt worries. Works perfectly for me, as I don't camp. A few crashes didn't break them, because they are tight full. They each fit exactly half what I always put in my suitcase and it's all the same stuff.

This no grocery bag pic is at Camp18 on Oregon Hwy 26,


Here at Seaside Oregon.

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Old 11-23-21, 10:45 PM
  #111  
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So, Rohloff...or Kindernay XIV?
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