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Rohloff love #783

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PH:
2am this morning, 60km into an overnight Audax on one of my derailleur bikes, just admiring the stars on a crisp clear night, not really paying as much attention to the road as maybe I ought .... crunch, crunch and the pedals stop going round, bit of a twig caught in the chain and snapped the rear derailleur in two :'(
Game over, I could maybe have bodged a single speed together, but with another 150km to go and a fair few hills at the end, I conceded defeat, scooted back down the few miles to the nearest town (Grantham) sat in the 24hr McDonalds drinking coffee (Which is pretty decent) till the first train took me home.
Yes I know, my own fault and easily avoidable, but that's the way I ride and I also know the Rohloff would have just shrugged it off.  I'm keeping score this year on which bike I prefer to use and that's a pretty big mark against the SOMA, though up till that point it had been a lot of fun to ride...

John Saxby:
Wow!  Most nights at 2AM I'm fast asleep, Paul.  Good on yer!

Bummer about the tree(s) giving you stick, and tough about time spent in a Macdonald's, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and at least it was warm'n'dry. Envy you living in a country where you can still catch a train ;)

I switched to Rohloff after years of gathering despair & frustration with misbehaving derailleurs, which usually chose halfway up a hillside to decide & declare, "Nope, not going there, don't do low gears, especially not just now. You'll just have to deal with 12% on a loaded bike, or move to Benelux or something." Never a moment of regret for making the change.

Be interested to follow & hear your reckoning of the balance betw your Rohloff and the derailleur(s).  Your comment recalled the recent links on the matter posted by the guy who was assessing the two on his 29er MTB, if memory serves:  he highlighted the vulnerability of low-hanging derailleurs to marauding branches/shrubs/roots/stones.

Cheers,  John

mickeg:
That was most unfortunate.  But at that time of night, I probably would have closed my eyes for too long and gone off the road with the result of injury to myself instead of just to the bike.  So, in that regard, you are lucky.  Also lucky to find a 24 hour anything to wait at.

I am not questioning your thought process, but I have both a Rohloff bike and several derailleur bikes.  I see each as having advantages and disadvantages.  And having a derailleur break that way to me sounds like a one-off occurrence that nobody could predict.  I have not had that kind of problem since the mid 1980s when a bolt on a early 1960s Campy Gran Sport derailleur decided to unthread itself from the rest of the derailleur while I was in the middle of a century.

I wish you better luck next time.  What bike would you use for that type of riding that has a Rohloff?

PH:

--- Quote from: John Saxby on May 19, 2018, 01:24:42 pm ---Wow!  Most nights at 2AM I'm fast asleep, Paul.  Good on yer!
--- End quote ---
I like riding through the night, I work od hours anyway and it's quite east to manipulate sleep patterns to accommodate it.  I have a couple of 400 km Audax rides coming up so needed the practice.

--- Quote ---Bummer about the tree(s) giving you stick,
--- End quote ---
GROAN... ;D ;D

--- Quote ---and tough about time spent in a Macdonald's, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and at least it was warm'n'dry. Envy you living in a country where you can still catch a train ;)
--- End quote ---
McD's have become a regular haunt of Audaxers, warm and dry as you say, there's also lots of 24 hr ones and the policy of closing the restaurant and only keeping the drive through open is becoming unusual.  If nothing else, the coffee is consistently good. There's also the advantage of usually being able to park the bike within sight.
Yes to the trains, not perfect but they do make not having a car a practical lifestyle for me.  There aren't many weeks when I don't make at least one train journey with a bike, though it's the folder at busy times.

PH:

--- Quote from: mickeg on May 19, 2018, 05:53:47 pm --- And having a derailleur break that way to me sounds like a one-off occurrence that nobody could predict.  I have not had that kind of problem since the mid 1980s when a bolt on a early 1960s Campy Gran Sport derailleur decided to unthread itself from the rest of the derailleur while I was in the middle of a century.


--- End quote ---
You're right, bikes in general are reliable, even so the the Rohloff is phenomenally so.  I've had mine since 2004 and it's done at least 70,000 miles, in that time I've had two roadside issues - A broken female connector which was an easy bodge but wouldn't have made it unridable if not.  And a broken flange, which after removing the flapping spoke I continued to ride. Over the same time period, my two derailleur bikes (Which between them do less than a third of the Rohloff's mileage) have had rides cut short three times including this one - the other two were, failed Shimano freehub and seized R/H Ergo shifter.

--- Quote ---What bike would you use for that type of riding that has a Rohloff?
--- End quote ---
it's currently in a Mercury, though the same hub has Audaxed in other guises, originally a Raven tour and a custom Ti frame between that and the Merc.
This one - I may have posted the photo before ;) Taken at the half way point on the Skeggy 300 Audax a few weeks ago

Sutton by Paul, on Flickr

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