WVDave

I recently sent my 2014 Speedster back to the factory intending to have some cosmetic repairs done to the frame near the couplers. After talking to them about expected repair costs I decided to bite the bullet and convert it to a Rohloff version with a Gates drive belt. I had previously converted the timing drive to a belt and was quickly spoiled by not having to deal with oiling that chain and dealing with the grease which seemed to be attracted to our best cycling clothes. It turns out what I wanted to convert to was actually Co-motion's "Equator" model. They ended up replacing the back third of the bike. They requested I send all three parts (also including the fork) so that they could be sure the paints matched and that the connections were secure. They sent back essentially the frame of a coupled "Equator" and included the Rohloff hub in a 36 spoke wheel and the ring needed to convert my triple chainrings to a Gates drive ring. The repainted portions of the tandem (the fork and front two sections of the frame) looked brand new. I decided to reassemble and convert the tandem myself rather than take it 6 hours away to a tandem shop or my local bike shop. I have backyard bicycle mechanic skills, fine tuned by several frantic assembly/disassembly cycles in foreign hotels with this tandem. For the most part the conversion/reassembly process was pretty intuitive. One tricky part involving installing the Co-motion bar top shifter, running the cables and housing and hooking up the external shifter mechanism to the hub was made much easier courtesy of a Co-motion produced "Youtube" installation video. Routing the rear brake cable on the handlebar past the Rohloff shifter was causing me problems. Coincidentally Ethan from Co-Motion happened to phone me right then regarding a parts exchange and told me about a routing hole through the base of the shifter which solved my problem. Of course, nothing ever goes entirely to plan. A small portion of oil needs to be added to the hub via a small hole in the hub plugged by a small allen screw. Of course, I dropped this part on the floor and the allen screw did it's best to roll and hide. I'm proud to say it took less than 1 hour to find that bugger and my garage floor is much cleaner that it has been for a long time. I just finished the reassembly and have not yet taken the tandem out of a ride...the stoker has a 55 degree minimum temperature requirement prior to any rides at this time of year. So far, on the stand the bike shifts even better than I hoped. I noticed the wheel does not freewheel as long as it did before but turning the pedals (on the stand) seems to require noticeably less effort than with the original system. Rohloff asserts that the efficiency loss is approximately the same as the derailleur system. Previously I had a kick stand on the tandem which was useful on unloaded rides but not as satisfactory on tours because we had to lift up the back wheel to engage it. Losing the weight of the kickstand as well as replacing the drive chain with a belt was offset by the heavier weight of the Rohloff wheel. However, the bike feels slightly lighter now. Packing and unpacking the bike for flight will be significantly easier and I hope result in the bike being more resistant to damage from TSA. We plan to take an extended loaded tour in May and I'll write a review at that time.

I now find my self with some parts no longer needed. I had 8,000 miles on Speedster's original the disk brake equipped Velocity Dyad rear wheel which has a White Industries hub with a 48 hole rim. I had my local bike shop replace the original rim using the original spokes after only 1,000 miles due to damage from a Michigan bridge. The guy does a great job building a wheel and he just repacked the hub this past summer. I'm not sure how much the wheel is worth, especially with the number of miles on it. However, I would like to send it on to a good home... someone who needs a disk brake rear tandem wheel built to withstand loaded touring. weight. I also have the two Ultegra shifters which are well broken in in our West Virginia mountains.


48 Spoke Velocity Dyad Rim with White Industries Disc Hub.


Shimano Ultegra Shifters

oldacura

I'd be interested in how you like the Rohloff compared to derailleurs once you get some miles on it. What is the gear range? How many gears?

WVDave

It has 14 unique gears, none that replicate any others. The gear difference is 526%. Gear #1 is 19 gear inches, while #1 4 is 100 gear inches. Gear 1 is comparable to how my Speedster was geared with the derailleur, while Gear #1 4 is slightly lower than with the derailleur. We rarely used our highest gear with the derailleur, so the Rohloff setup should match our real world gear needs.

lichtgrau

Last fall I finished our tandem project where our Ti-frame was equipped with the Rohloff speedhub. The "goal" (what was more of a forecast probably) was, to ride this thing for about 500 km in the first year. Finally we rode about 1800 kilometres until now and to me our Rohloff was one of the best decisions we have taken for the tandem.
Since we are located in a more or less suburbal area (close to Berlin, Germany) our tours are likely to be interrupted by a traffic lights suddenly showing red. Usually approaching there in a higher gear I found it more than once on every tour very comfortable to just choose the right gear for the start while waiting for the green light... something hard to be done even with the best electronic derailleur...
Then, secondly, my favourite design was to have the timing chain at the same side as the drive chain... also easily to be done with the Rohloff.
And last but not least I always liked the idea of a gearbox that's not completely exposed to the sometimes nasty conditions of weather, dust or mud. The longer I ride the Rohloff the more strange the idea of an open gearbox of the derailleur system is to me. I mean, I still have to care for the chain(s) and a belt would probably be the next desired option, but the fact, that all of the switching and power/rpm conversion is done by this little perfectly engineered triple planetary gear in a boxed and always perfectly lubricated environment let my technical heart sing. Having the scratching/screaming noise of a neglected derailleur system on my other bikes after a "weathery tour" always in my mind...

Any downsides , little Rohloff fanboy? Yes, there is of course the slightly higher weight compared to a good derailleur system. Doesn't bother me too much since I'm still close to my 20 kg weight goal for the fully equipped touring tandem (suspension seat post for the stoker, some good mudguards, rack...). The only real adjustment for us was, that we have to ease the load before switching gears a little more than with a good derailleur. In the first months I used to announce my intention to switch gears to lady stoker and meanwhile I'm "allowed" to give silently a little counterforce on the pedals before switching. Works better and better within fractions of a second...

So, yes, I'm still enjoying my red "Coca Cola Can" in the spinning centre of the rear wheel of our tandem a lot and in the moment I don't know a system I would like to trade it in for.
Have lots of fun with yours...​​

JanMM

Rohloff system sounds pretty appealing.

fietsbob

https://www.cyclemonkey.com/ also has the Rohloff USA Service and Wholesale business and a retail shop ..

They can modify Sram and Campag Brifters to use the https://www.cyclemonkey.com/gebla (not Shimano AFAIK)

then 1 shifter pulls the hub's rotary gear shifter around one way, the other one, the other way 1 gear at a rime , as I understand

Read of Seattle's Aaron Goss re drilling 16 more holes in a 32 hole hub and mixing the added spokes in as radial so crows foot pattern in 48 hole rims..

But, they made a 36 hole hubshell because Germans ride tandems in the Peruvian Andes, on tours..



Yes you have to make the frame a 135 wide rear , since that is the hub's width ..
But you get to use 2 single bike cranksets , because you dont need a cross over drive


[OP mass of single space text was difficult to wade through ] ...

2 R'off bikes no tandems.. (part time in LBS... with a dealer's account )




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oldacura

So - slightly heavier than a good derailleur system? Also - I thought there was a slight efficiency loss compared to a derailleur - correct?

Sounds very intriguing. I too like the appeal of a perfectly sealed and lubricated gearbox over an exposed drivetrain.

WVDave

[QUOTE=oldacura;20728981]So - slightly heavier than a good derailleur system? Also - I thought there was a slight efficiency loss compared to a derailleur - correct?

After loading the tandem on the back of the car and taking our first ride on a familiar route the bike seems to weigh the same as before. This is partly the result of removing a kickstand and accompanying plate on the frame. I expected the back of the tandem to be noticeably heavier when picking it up, but it did not. There is a significant weight saving by changing the drive chain over to offset the heavier internal hub. On the work stand the rear wheel definitely does not free wheel nearly as easily as it did with the derailleur system. However pedaling the bike actually felt more efficient than with the derailleur and chain system. I suppose we coasted downhill at an imperceptibly slower speed.

parkerdj

I know its been awhile since you posted about converting your Co-motion Speedster tandem to Rohloff, but I am very interested in doing the same with our 2015 Co-motion Speedster tandem. I received a quote from Brian at Co-motion and as you already know, it is not a cheap conversion! So I'm mainly interested to know if you still think it was worth it (converting your old tandem to a Rohloff Hub), or would it be better to just sell the old tandem and buy a new one with a Rohloff Hub? Your thoughts would be very much appreciated. Thanks...

WVDave

We've put almost 4,000 miles on our Rohloff Speedster since the conversion and I couldn't be happier. Our custom Speedster fit us perfectly so we didn't want to try to replicate the fit with a brand new bike. Also, I liked the idea of the lateral tube which was eliminated on the Speedster (and on all of their models) soon after we purchased our Speedster. I had the opportunity to talk directly with Dwan Shepard during a factory tour and he was quite confident that their current open frame designs are as strong as the frame on our Speedster. I'm sure he knows what he talking about. The Rohloff shifts magnificently and has spoiled me to the point that I am bothered when riding my brifter equipped single bike. One thing I would consider if I had it to do over is that the Speedster is limited in the width of rear tire it can handle. We've been doing more gravel/dirt riding recently and I can only fit 32 mm width tires on the rear (they actually measure 34 mm) . I still dream of riding the rest of Adventure Cycling's Continental Divide route (my wife/stoker says absolutely not) and I think a wider rear tire would be needed. 32 mm is adequate for the gravel bike paths and dirt roads here in WV, but probably not the Continental Divide. I think the Speedster fork can handle a wider front tire. If you see gravel/dirt riding being important to you perhaps consider their Java Rohloff model. It's essentially a Speedster but able to handle wider 700c tires. Rohloff shifting is a dream, especially in sloppy conditions and it's wonderful on multi day tours not having to have to clean/adjust/tune the chains and shifting each night. We have a timing belt also. In summary, since we're never going to do the Continental Divide, converting our perfectly fitted Speedster to Rohloff was the right decision.

parkerdj

Appreciate the feedback and great to hear you are very pleased with the conversion to a Rohloff Hub. Our situation is very similar to yours in that our current Speedster fits us perfectly and we really don't want to go through the hassle of setting up a new bike. And after talking to Brian at Co-Motion, it sounds like we would essential end up with a "new" bike anyway because they would completely redo the rear triangle part of the frame to fit the Rohloff Hub, and then strip/repaint it from front to back. So even though it is expensive, it still ends up being cheaper then selling the old one and buying a new one. And I REALLY like the idea of less maintenance (i.e. almost NONE) with the Rohloff Hub and Gates belts!!! As far as tire width, we are currently running Schwalbe Marathon 700 x 35mm tires with fenders as well (48mm PDW Full Metal City Fenders), which is plenty adequate for the roads and rail-trails we ride on. My wife/stoker is in total agreement with yours - absolutely NO off-road/dirt riding on the tandem! So I think you've convinced me that converting to a Rohloff Hub is the way to go. Thanks again for your feedback, I really appreciate it.