BoulderDay

I am wondering if anyone has experience with Veer Belt Drives on a tour? I would like to convert a Salsa Marrakesh to Rohloff.. The Alternator Dropout will allow tensioning a belt, but does not have a Split Seat Stay. I can go Gates Carbon by having a frame mod done, but If I can avoid breaking the integrity of the frame I would prefer it. The issue is there isn't much data on Veer as it is relatively new compared to Gates. Any insight?

veganbikes

Gates is a known quantity and has been for over 100 years. I think the idea of Veer is cool but I don't know that I would want it on a touring bike. Me I would say get a frame that will work with a belt and Rohloff since I am going to buy Rohloff anyway I would rather just get it all set up from the get go. Keep the Marrakesh for other purposes or take all the parts from it and put it on the new belt compatible frame.

Tourist in MSN

Just curious, do you already have a Rohloff with chain drive? Or is this a re-do of the whole drive train.

I ask because I have been quite happy with my chain drive Rohloff that I built up almost ten years ago. At that time I chose chain so that it would be easy to add or subtract a few links and change chainrings because for touring with a heavy load I want a lower gear range than I have for use near home where the bike is only lightly loaded, if any load at all.

The Veer kit was mentioned at the Thorn forum. Not much is said but you might find something of use there.
https://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=13283.0

BoulderDay

I am buying a Marrakesh specifically because it has a long wheelbase, has adjustable drops, is built touring specific, is available in North America and won't break my bank account. I am leaving the the bankrupting to the Rohloff. Your point on running chains is valid. I just don't like dealing with greasy chains. I am using wax for road riding and commuting, but it seems impractical for touring. but maybe not... I am coming up with some ideas on how to make it work.

Veer did get one kudo when I asked this question on ******:

Yet I asked the company some questions through their support email and I have heard nothing back. I personally don't think the company is well managed and may die. I don't want to invest in a drivetrain that may disappear from the market.

Tourist in MSN

I used to use a petroleum based chain lube, and the accumulation of greasy crud on it when touring convinced me otherwise. I now use a wax based lube. Near home I use some Pedros wax that when I run out of it I will quit using it. On the bike and for touring I use Finish Line Dry Ceramic. And after it rains, I might need to add lube when things have dried out, but I keep my lube handy in my handlebar bag.

(This may be a mistake on my part, now this may turn into a thread with 100 posts on chain lubes. If so, I apologize in advance.)

I bought my Rohloff from Bike24 in Europe in 2013, saved a lot of money by doing that. I expected to pay some for customs duty, but I got lucky and that did not happen. I think their shipping fee was about 30 Euros, but that was a decade ago. If you order it from Europe, triple check that you are ordering the exact one you want, if you got the wrong one it would be expensive to try to return it and they might not accept a return. I messed up and use a credit card with a 3 percent currency conversion. The credit card company might need a phone call first if you send a thousand bucks to a bike parts company in Europe. All of my documentation was in German, but it all is on line in english.

Make sure that the wheel builder reads the Rohloff instructions for wheel builders. You lace it two cross, not three.

If you are new to Rohloffs, you need to keep the shifter cables quite loose, the indexing is in the hub. If I am in gear 9, my shifter can be anywhere from the 8.5 to 9.5 position due to cable slack. If the cables are too tight, it can result in missed gear shifts.

I bought mine when the sprockets threaded on, that was before the splined sprockets. Now, you may have to decide if you want the slim or standard sprocket carrier for getting chain line right.

If you have any other questions on setting up a bike with a Rohloff, let us know. I am very happy with my Rohloff bike. But I still use derailleur bikes for some things, there are advantages and disadvantages to both.

For use near home, I am running a 44T chainring, 36T for touring. And add or subtract four chain links when I change chainrings. A second quick link makes that easy to change, see photo.



As an FYI, you probably will read old and new data on oil volumes, they changed:
https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/1...ification.html

BoulderDay

Tourist in MSN thanks 🙏 that's some good information. I've been reading alot on Rohloff, so I was aware of the 2 cross pattern. I saw a Rohloff wheel for sale on pinkbike... But it was crossed over the cover screw instead of the gap between.... That's another no-no according to OEM instructions.
On the chain lube front I was considering wax plus a wax top up Silca's bag can be used in a sous-vide fashion... So easy to pop the chain off and boil up in camp. But I may try the finish line you suggested. Cheers!

Tourist in MSN

I am happy to take some time to provide info to those that appreciate it.

If you are looking at used hubs, I am not sure when Rohloff added reinforcing rings to the flanges. Rohloff flanges have cracked at spoke holes. They started providing reinforcing rings with new hubs. Those rings do not really add any strength, but if a flange cracks, your spoke can still maintain tension so that it is not a catastrophic failure, it is only an inconvenience to deal with later. Since I regularly put heavy loads on my Rohloff bike and go on rough terrain, I added the rings to my hub a few years ago. I bought my hub in 2013, the rings were added several years after that.

When at home, if I have been riding on gravel or otherwise have a lot of grit on my chain, I put on a medical glove on one hand and a paper towel that has been soaked in kerosene, crank the crank a dozen times to wipe off the worst of it. Then let it air dry. But on a tour, I never clean my chain at all. I just add lube when it starts to get noisy. I keep lube in my handlebar bag so it is easy at any time to pull it out and add lube, no more than two minutes and I am done. When I carried my lube in a pannier, it was too easy to put it off to later, and then I would forget once I am in the campsite.

On chain maintenance, I know a few people that do the melted paraffin thing. They swear by it. They are roadies. And they can tell you how many miles they have on their chain since it was last hot waxed. And some of them can tell you how many total miles on a chain. That is much more work than I want to do. Chains are cheap.

If you go with chain drive, if you have an even number of teeth on your sprocket and chainring, this has some interesting info on chain elongation.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/chain-life.html

I did cut a small notch in one tooth and I always put a link with outer plates on that tooth. And latter added some nail polish for color on that tooth so it is easier to find it. With worn chains, it becomes readily apparent that the teeth with the inner plates wear more. And if your chain line is off (mine is off about 5mm), the side of those teeth also wears down faster on one side.

I cleaned up the sprocket and took some photos of the wear before I flipped the sprocket. The tooth on the left had the chain links with inner plates on it.

If you compare the two teeth, it is hard to see that the left tooth has much more wear on it, but the teeth initially were centered over the holes in the sprocket and if you look at just one tooth and the underlying hole, you can see the left tooth is much more worn than the tooth on the right as it looks like the tooth moved to the right. But the tooth did not move, metal on the left side of the tooth is no longer there. There was much more metal loss on the tooth on the left.



But I am guessing that 95 percent of Rohloff owners do not care about this much detail. But if you are researching it, I thought you might. I am an engineer (retired) and do all my own work so these kinds of details are interesting to me. That said, I have no clue how many miles are on that sprocket, I do not keep track of that.

Good luck with your decision on what to do.