Thorn Cycles Forum
Community => Rohloff Internal Hub Gears => Topic started by: dereksheph on October 22, 2016, 05:41:40 PM
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I recently took ownership of a new Nomad Mk2 which I am hoping to take on my round the world trip starting next summer. Apart from the test ride at SJS in Bridgwater and lots of research, I am a newcomer to both Rohloff gears and such a heavy bike. I added the Son hub and lights as well as the heavyweight racks. Here's the problem.... I'm struggling to climb on the bike! I recently started a three day trip from my home in Elgin to Dunoon. Yes, lots of ups and downs but nothing that on my Ridgeback Panorama I would've considered daunting. I managed two days riding then had to call for the cavalry!!! I cramped up on both legs and was completely shattered after a day and a half. I am no Froome but regularly make both UK and European trips fully loaded. I'm also in reasonable shape for an oldie. Day trips around the relatively flat areas of Moray are fine, but any extended climbs really bust my legs.
I'm now wondering if Rohloff just isn't for me. Should I have opted for a LHT ? Do I just need to get used to the Rohloff ? Or should I join a winter spinning class and get myself stronger?
Has anyone had the same experience? Can anyone offer any advice. Obviously, I have a huge amount of investment in this trip next summer and have to be certain that my bike and I will get on together! I do have until January to hand the bike back but I really like the robustnes and feel of the bike when it's cruising along on the flat.
Many thanks for any replies.
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What tyres are you using?
I found moving from Marathon XR to Dureme made my Thorn easier to ride and more comfortable.
What chainring/sprocket combination are you using?
It may be worth tuning the combination to give a lower gear range.
I hope you get to enjoy riding uphill fully loaded.
I have to confess I have walked up some parts of hills when cycle touring fully loaded and yes, you do get fitter as the days go by.
Julian.
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I agree with everything Julk said. But while I think tire selection is important, when it comes to slow steady climbing up a hill, at very slow speeds on steep hills the tires are less important because you are going so slow. At that point the gear ratio and steepness are the critical factors. Tire selection is more important on flatter terrain where you are at higher speed.
I have pushed fully loaded touring bikes up many hills. On one tour I had an inclinometer on my bike and every time it got to 9 percent grade, I got off and pushed. I need about 3.5 miles per hour minimum speed to maintain good directional and vertical stability. If the hill is too steep, then 3.5 mph gets my heart rate up to a rate that I do not like to have. But pushing, I can slow down to a speed that matches my progress with my desired exertion level.
Rohloff and derailleur gearing will both get you up the same hills, it is a question of your gear ratio. For riding around home unladen on my Nomad, I use a 44T chainring and 16T sprocket, but for a heavy load on a bike tour I use a 36T chainring (also with a 16T sprocket) instead. I assume you have a 17T sprocket as that is the typical one sold by SJS, but what is your chainring size? My Nomad with the 44T chainring has a lowest gear of 20.1 gear inches, with a 36T chainring the lowest gear is 16.5 gear inches. My Sherpa with a 24T chainring and 11/32 eight speed cassette has a lowest gear of 19.3 gear inches. I suspect most Sherpas have a slightly lower lowest gear than mine as I have a 24T chainring when I suspect the norm is a 22T. If I had a 22T, that would give me a lowest gear of 17.7 gear inches with that cassette. My rando bike which I never put a heavy load on has a lowest gear of 25.1 gear inches.
I used to complain about the weight of my Nomad, but this past June and July when I spent a month in Iceland, the bike was so solid carrying a heavy load that I quit complaining about the weight. It is important to have a solid bike when carrying a lot of stuff and I did not regret having a Nomad on that trip. I would not recommend a Long Haul Trucker, I used to have one and I finally got rid of it. If you wanted a lighter bike than your Nomad, perhaps a Raven Tour with Rohloff or a Sherpa with derailleurs? But if you go lighter, your capacity goes down too.
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Thanks for the replies guys!
Yes, it is a 44T chainring and a 17T sprocket. The Duremes also came recommended. Perhaps the changes you made might also work for me. I am no expert on gear ratios etc and have no worries about getting off and pushing if necessar. I'll give SJS a shout and ask what they're thinking. My main concern is that I'm not really carrying a huge load...28Kgs approx which I would normally have no issues with at all ! I am determined to make the Nomad work for me if at all possible as I've been coveting this bike for a long time.
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Although the Nomad is not a fast bike it is a great bike! Tyres make a massive difference. I use supremes for my daily communte, and switch to duremes for touring. Mondials are also a heavy duty option. Climbing is simply a matter of dropping down the gears and taking in the scenery. You won't win a race on a Nomad but you will get there in comfort.
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I don't think it's the Rohloff. I have been using hub gears (as well as derailleurs) for decades and, when bikes and tyres are similar, I don't notice huge differences in efficiency (which I estimate by comparing average speeds) between most hub gears and decent derailleur setups.
The Nomad is a very heavy bike. I wanted one after my 2011 tour, but was persuaded by Andy Blance at SJS/Thorn to get the lighter and slightly less robust Raven Tour instead, as I don't intend to do round the world touring.
But once you add all the luggage for a long tour the extra weight of the Nomad shouldn't make a huge difference.
For me, the two biggest factors affecting riding efficiency are the riding position, where I find drop bars more efficient than most other bar setups because of the better aerodynamics, and tyres. Very robust tyres suitable for round the world touring are much harder to pedal than the same size tyre in a lightweight but less robust model. So if your Nomad has expedition tyres and flat bars, on normal roads I would expect you would have to ride slower and use lower gears than on your Ridgeback Panorama.
Until I bought my Thorn, my long-distance tourer was an old mountain bike, with a frame about the same weight as the Nomad, but not designed specifically for load carrying.
Before using it on my last long tour in 2011 I modified this bike with drop handlebars, the lightest fat tyres I thought I could get away with (Marathon Supreme, but the Marathon Dureme recommended by Julian are tougher and only slightly slower), and changed the (derailleur) gearing to be as low as possible. Timing before and after rides, the bar and tyre changes combined made about a 10% improvement in average speed.
I never bothered when I was younger, but in 2011 I also trained specifically, starting about 6 months before my tour and doing 50 km loops about twice a week as fast as I could, with occasional longer rides when time permitted.
To ride the heavy bike (39 kg with luggage at the start of the trip) up the mountain passes in the Pyrenees and Picos d'Europa, I had an 18" lowest gear, which I used often.
On my current Thorn Raven Tour I specified 38x16, which gives a lowest gear of 17".
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My 36T chainring and 16T sprocket has a ratio of 2.25. Not much different than the 2.375 ratio that MartinF has. I weigh about 80 kg. You did not say if you are over or under 100 kg. Rohloff has a specification for minimum ratio.
https://www.rohloff.de/en/technology/workshop/sprocket-ratios/index.html
I picked my chainring ratio of 36T to 16T to give me a cadence of 72 at 3.5 miles per hour in my lowest gear. Thus, I used some logic in my planning, as a cadence of less than about 72 is not very smooth so I set that as the minimum that I wanted to pedal at for sustained hill climbing at my slowest speeds.
28 kg is a pretty good load. Add a few more kg for water and food, and you want a pretty good bike. The Nomad is rated for roughly double that luggage weight. I suspect that I have had close to 28kg on my Sherpa and it handled it fine, but that was on a good quality road. I would not have wanted to have my Sherpa on some of the rougher roads with that size load, but my Nomad handled that on the bad roads just fine. Also I used 57mm wide tires on my last trip with my Nomad, my Sherpa is limited to about 50mm with fenders.
There are two kinds of Duremes, the old ones that I think are discontinued rolled quite smoothly with little rolling friction and the tandem rated ones that roll slower. I have both. The tandem one I bought, not realizing that it was the heavier stiffer tire until it arrived in the mail. I have used the tandem rated tire on the front but I did not want to put it on the back because I was afraid it would have a lot of rolling resistance with a load on it.
For touring on my Nomad I used 57mm wide Marathon Extremes, they have been discontinued a few years now. I thought that they roll pretty good on pavement (tarmac) but also had enough tread to work reasonably well on gravel. On pavement they were noisy but I could live with that.
If you want to see some photos of my Nomad, see this link.
http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=11917.0
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Many thanks Mickeg...lots to think about ! The differences in chainrings and sprockets makes a lot of sense ! I'm just back from a unladen ride up a couple of steeper local hills and, although much tougher than my morning ride on the Panorama, I managed much better. Perhaps there's a "getting to know you " period with changing to Rohloff ? I believe a part of the issue is probably my attitude to climbing whilst touring. A less aggressive and a more steady approach might help. I was still down to first gear on part of the climb and was really blowing hard ....and that was unladen!!!!!. Add 30 Kgs and I could be in trouble:). I suspect there will be still more tweeking to come....
All advice is greatly appreciated guys - your experience is absolutely invaluable !
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It's not clear why there is such a big difference between your two bikes, climbing the same hills! The first question - do you know the difference between the lowest gears on the two bikes? Looks like the low gear on your Nomad, with a 44x17, is 18.8 inches http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gear-calc.html
what's the low gear on the Panorama?
Also, do you stand when you climb? I don't know if it matters, but posture could come into play somehow.
Another possibly relevant bit: how much do you weigh? I weigh about 180 lb so I figure the extra weight of the Nomad etc. doesn't matter too much. If I were more like 140 lb, a lighter bike would be more noticeable!
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Also, do you stand when you climb? I don't know if it matters, but posture could come into play somehow.
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Good point on posture. I use drop bars on my Nomad, Sherpa, and my 700c bikes. But Thorn suggests flat bars on the Nomad, which probably results in a different posture.
Are the bikes being compared using different bar types?
I only have one flat bar bike (my errand bike) that I do not use for hill climbing, so I really have no real experience climbing hills with flat bars. Could that be a difference?
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Hi,
Yes, my Nomad has flat bars with the ergo grips and my Panorama has drop bars so posture may well be a contributor. I know the Panorama has 48/36/26T Chinrings and Shimano Cassette 11-32 9speed. I'm afraid the calculations are a mystery to me. I weigh 196 lbs and am 6 feet tall.I also try to stay in the seat when climbing only getting up if I'm really struggling.
The rohloff obviously has less gears but I also find there isn't the fine tuning I can get with the Panorama on which I very rarely if ever get down to the lowest gears and climb most gradients on the middle chainring I get onto the smallest chainring when hauling up longest mountain roads or when I'm absolutely knackered.
D
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700C wheels, I do believe, so 26x32 gives a 22.1 inch low gear... I let Sheldon do the work!
But if you are not using the lowest gears, hmmm, another possibility is that you're picking the gears somehow by feel, and you haven't got the feel of the new gears yet. Are you watching your cadence? Seems like you want to be putting the RPM and torque at whatever comfortable level by tweaking the gears, and then compare the speeds. I think you can analyze the effectiveness of the bike by considering several aspects.
The mechanical bit is how efficiently power at the pedals is converted to power at the wheel. The bikes shouldn't be significantly different unless there is some problem like rubbing brakes.
Weight and aerodynamics and suspension etc. will govern, for a given road, how power at the wheel turns into speed. For example, the Panorama has 32-622 tires I guess. Those are going to be a lot more efficient if the road is smooth, but not so easy on rough stuff.
There there is bike fit, posture, gear range, etc. These govern how effectively you can get horsepower to the pedals.
Definitely worth playing with the tires. Put on some 35mm lightweight slicks. One of these days I am going to try the Compass McClure Pass or like that.
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Thanks for the advice Jim. Can you explain to me the difference in lay man's terms the difference that a 22.1 inch lower gear will be to a 18 inch lower gear ... in terms of the effects when climbing ?
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Well, at the same speed, an 18 inch gear will have you pedaling about 20% faster than a 22 inch gear, and applying 20% less torque! How desirable that might be, is really hard to say. People ride up remarkable steep hills without having low gears! The general advice is to save your knees by keeping your torque low. It's not just a question of speed... you need a certain amount of torque just to stay in place when you're on a hill!
Here's another game. How steep a hill can a person climb? That's the point of low gears, after all! Suppose I want to keep a cadence of 60 rpm. That's 3.9 mph on the Panarama, or 3.4 on the Nomad. How steep a hill can you climb at those speeds?
Let's use http://www.bikecalculator.com/ Suppose you are 190 lb and the bike + luggage are 80 lb. Suppose you are comfortable with a steady 120 watts power. You can climb a 5.7% grade with the Nomad, or a 4.9% grade on the Panorama. The steady 120 watts might be what you can sustain for a half hour climb up a mountain. For just a couple minutes you can likely do more. Hey, Wiggins can do like 400 watts for half an hour! It's really an individual thing!
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[Jim posted while I was typing up this reply, but I'll post it anyway even though I am repeating some of what Jim has said.]
For climbing, there is quite a difference between 22-inch and 18-inch. Going from 18-inch to 22-inch is a 22% increase in the distance traveled on each pedal stroke. (It is a coincidence that both numbers are 22.) Put another way, if you pedal at 80rpm with the 22-inch gearing, in the 18-inch gearing you would to pedal at 98rpm to be at the same speed.
By comparison, on your Panorama, going from the middle chainring (36-tooth) to the big chainring (48-tooth) is a 33% increase.
Your comment about not using the lowest gears on your Panorama suggests that you are a "masher" (pedal more slowly, perhaps standing on the pedals), rather than a "spinner" (pedal faster in a lower gear). Yet you mention that you like to stay in the saddle while climbing. So I'm not sure what your riding style is. If you like to use your lowest gear on the hills, and spin your way up, then I would suggest switching to a 40t chainring. (I believe that you currently have a 44/17 combination.) If you prefer being in a higher gear on the hills, then keeping your 44t may be better.
I am a spinner, and I commute up a big hill on my Nomad. I have a 38t chainring and 16t sprocket, which is around 17 or 18-inch gearing. If you have a 17t sprocket, then having a 40t chainring would produce almost the same ratio. (In fact, I had the 40/17 combination until I got my Chainglider. They don't make a Chainglider for a 40t chainring, so I switched to the 38/16 combination.)
- DaveS
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Derek, let me add to the posts by Jim and Dave a few notes on my experience with a derailleur bike and my Thorn Raven.
My derailleur bike, an Eclipse, has gearing quite similar to your Panorama. The Eclipse has 700c x 35mm Schwalbe Marathon Racers. I have a 24-36-48 triple ring at the front, and a 9-spd 11-32 cogset at the rear. (I used to run a 12-36 at the rear, a setup which gave me one more lower gear than the current set-up, and one less at the high end.)
My Raven has lower gearing than, say, Dave's Nomad: I have a 36T chainring and at 17T rear sprocket. The tires are Schwalbe Supremes, 26 x 1.6".
On both bikes, I use similar drop bars, Velo Orange Grand Cru randonneur bars.
The Eclipse is a titanium-framed light touring bike which I use for day rides. (It used to be my touring bike, but I had endless headaches with my rear derailleur, so three years ago I bought a Raven-mit-Rohloff.) The Eclipse weighs about 3 lbs less than my Raven, with comparable racks, lights, etc.: The Raven is just less than 31lbs, the Eclipse rather less than 28.
The gearing of the two bikes reflects their different uses: The Raven is my touring bike, so has three gears which are lower than the lowest gear on my Eclipse. The Eclipse has 4 gears at the upper end which are higher than the 14th gear of the Raven.
On regular rides--recreation, long trips in town, day rides--I rarely use the 2 or 3 lowest or highest gears. On these rides, the bikes feel different, as you might guess, but their performance (more precisely, my performance on the different bikes) is virtually identical. On my usual 55-km loop up into the hill across the river in Québec, my times on the two bikes are essentially the same--about 3 hours of riding in hilly terrain. The lighter Eclipse feels faster and nippier, but it isn't/I'm not. I think the reason is that the Raven fits me better, so that my power transfer (such as it is) is more efficient, and I get less tired on longer rides.
The "interior" gearing of the bikes is very similar: The "base" gear of the Eclipse, 5th cog on the middle ring, is almost identical in gear-inches to #11 on the Raven's Rohloff, 55 vs 55.07. This is by design -- these ratios let me maintain the 80-85 RPM cadence that works for me.
The differences in gearing show up when I have to climb hills with the bike loaded. I can climb hills on the Raven, lugging camping equipment, food and water, which I could never manage on the Eclipse, even when I used the 12-36 rear cogset.
As an example: This past summer, I did a 2300-kms-plus tour of the Rocky Mtns and Cascadia in the Alberta and the US states of Montana, Idaho, and Washington, and I was able to climb a lot of long ascents in the 6 - 10% range quite easily. The weight of my gear+food+water varied -- usually it was less than your 28 kg, occasionally it was more. I used my #1 gear only four times, three of those being on the last few kms of long climbs (25-30 kms) where the grade was about 10%.
On the other hand, I used my #3 and #4 gears a lot -- they were my default climbing gears. (And by the way, I had one day when the headwinds were so brutal that on level ground I used the same gears, #3 and #4, that I had used to climb Logan Pass in Montana's Glacier national Park.) It's worth noting that my three lowest gears on my Raven are all lower than the lowest gear on my Eclipse, which has the 11-32 cogset mated to the 24-36-48 triple chainring. I climbed nine high passes on my tour, and I don't think I could have managed any of them on my Eclipse with its current gearing, and probably not with its previous 12-36 either.
I'll be 70 next year, and my size and weight is not much different from yours--I'm 5'11", and weigh about 183 lbs at the end of each summer. Friends tell me I'm a strong cyclist ("for my age" left unsaid!), but I'm no speed merchant, nor ever have been.
We all have different capabilities and preferences, and it took me quite a few years to figure all this stuff out. I knew what wasn't working very well for me, but only in the last couple of years have I worked out the gearing so that it suits me and my purposes. I have low gears which are quite a bit lower than those of most cyclists. I only ever use them when I'm lugging a loaded bike up long and/or steep hills -- but on those occasions, I am soooo glad I've got 'em.
Hope this helps, Derek. I can give you the gear-inch numbers if you're interested--let me know if so--but you may not need or want them.
Cheers,
John
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A little more background on the gearing, the term "gear inches" goes back to the days of the penny farthing, a bike where the crank was attached to the wheel axle. If the wheel was 36 inches in diameter (a bit under a meter), then with one crank of the pedal you would have one wheel revolution and would travel a distance equal to pi (3.14159) times 36 inches, or about 113 inches (or about 2.9 meters). People started to use gearing calculators when the new chain drive bikes that came out a century ago so that they could compare how fast the crank turned on the chain drive bikes to how fast the crank turned on their penny farthings.
So, if you have a low gear of 18 inches, that is the same as if your crankset was attached to the axle of an 18 inch diameter wheel.
Since nobody rides penny farthing bikes anymore, an 18 inch gear for a low gear is not as intuitively obvious as it might have been a century ago, but that is still a common way to calculate gears. I am in USA, we still use inches. I do not know if Brits still talk in terms of gear inches or in some other unit for comparing bike gearing.
I do not know what tire you have on your road bike, if it was a 32mm wide 700c tire then your 26T chainring and 32T rear sprocket for your lowest gear will give you a gear of roughly 21.8 gear inches. JimK calculated you have a low gear on your Nomad of 18.8, I calculated 18.6 gear inches (I probably used a different tire than JimK for my calculation), 18.6 and 18.8 are essentially the same number.
My Nomad is roughly 40 pounds, thus about 9 pounds (or about 4 kg) more than John Saxby's Raven. I built up my Nomad to be very heavy duty, I do not know if it is heavier than yours or not but it might be.
Thus your Nomad has a slightly lower gear for hill climbing than your road bike, but it is a heavier bike than your road bike and you have a different posture on the Nomad with the more upright saddle position.
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Guys, I'm overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of the members in this forum. I am not really a forum person and this is my first experience of this. You have certainly helped hugely in me making decisions based on facts rather than ignorance. I have decided to stick with the Nomad. I'll change and reduce the size of the chainring, increase my normal cadence and work a little on my fitness. Andy at Thorn has also been exeptional in his help and advice. I now know how to blow out a rim by overinflating my Duremes !!! I am really excited about starting this trip and knowing that there are folk out there who will share experience, advice and encouragement for free makes it more worthwhile. Never underestimate the value of this to a novice such as myself !!! If this were the pub, I'd be happily standing you all a beer or two.
My next set of questions is the electical charging set up from my Son hub and Plug etc..... but that's maybe a conversation for another day.
You have my heartfelt gratitude and if you are ever in Elgin in Moray, the beer's good but the single malt is even better !
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SON hub and the Plug, that is Dan's expertise. He will probably provide a few links of his past writings. I used different hub and USB chargers, thus can't offer much help.
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SON hub and the Plug, that is Dan's expertise. He will probably provide a few links of his past writings. I used different hub and USB chargers, thus can't offer much help.
I should be able to post the links this evening. I have had to devote some time to "work" recently to make up for doing this...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4oEGx6B0gzBZE9hcy1EUUpkZWc/view
:)
All the best,
Dan.
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Welcome aboard, Derek!
I have answered your specific questions about my dyno-charging setup in a PM posted to you today.
Also, here is a pointer to my (Gallery) links showing how I wired my Sherpa and Nomad for dynamo powered lighting and charging.
http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=12065.0
To all: Please post further discussion of lighting and charging systems on the Forum boards dedicated to them. It will make it easier for future seekers to find the relevant posts; thanks! You can find these boards here:
Lighting and Electronics: http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?board=10.0
Battery Charging from a Dynamo: http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?board=32.0
Travel'puters and e-readers: http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?board=33.0
All the best,
Dan.
Danneaux,
Thorn Cycles Forum Administrator
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Yep ... 38 on the front and 16 on the Rohloff works well for me on a Thorn Raven Tour. 4300km so far from Scotland to Istanbul (end of the trip unfortunately :-[ today) I have found that this combination has been great for general touring in Europe. That is a 17.2 to 90.6 gear inch spread.
Coupled with Schwalbe Marathon Plus 1.75 I have found it to be an excellent wide range, free running combination from the Alps to the flat. And not a single puncture.
I carry 30kg including two days food and water, full camp gear etc, and when the hills get steeper, just walk. Its a nice change of pace. Its not a race after all. Get to see lots of wildlife too who you are walking quietly and not panting hard up the hills!
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My first post. I'm 62, 5'8, 170 lbs. My 2014 Rohloff14 has 10,500 miles now, just did 3rd oil change.
I think the OPs problem now is mostly a stiff new hub. It will be 2,000 miles and oil change before any loosening. Mine is still getting faster. My guess is he also has cranks too short, mine are 180, so should a tall guy. 44/17 is plenty low enough. Any less = two feet push. IMO 38/17 is just laughable for anybody with good knees, may as well walk DOWN hill. No wonder he didn't use the 3 low gears. For down/up dips, the best practice to get in 14th and full power momentum until speed sags to 22 before down shifting 2 or 3 at a time. A steep slope will throw you off the back anyway.
I have used 46/48T with 16T and also have the same miles with an 18T SA 5w.
I had the 48T on my 4200 mile 2014/5 trip to VN and Chengdu, 46 would have been better no doubt. Any less ... no way. My time ran out before the plane ride. My heavyweight custom is 60/70 lbs without payload. It was 120 lb on that 1st tour. So yah, I was in 1st gear on almost any hill. Didn't push any in VN. In China it was freezing 3c the last week in the mtns, so I started pushing more to sweat less. I also decided that walking at 3.4 mph is better than riding at 4.2. YMMV
I still passed trucks going uphill and Hondas going downhill. ha
I love my front hub SA XL FDD dyno DRUM brake. Works 100% of the time. Now has 20,500 miles , just a new bearing at 17,000. Already out lived a pocketful of rim pads, likely out live my Rohloff.... I also 1000% recommend Velocity Dyad rims, which don't have goofball eyelets.
PS ... I wouldn't leave home with stupid DeFaillers for a million dollars.
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Stunt Pilot
Most impressed with your journey to Istanbul :) I would be most grateful if you briefly share your route and any general advice. I would love to tackle such a feat.
Cheers,
Dave B
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Dave B - I have the GPS tracks recorded for the whole journey which I will post later on www.touronabike.com I am a bit lazy when it comes to updating the web site but will get some notes and photographs on there as well as on the forum when I return home.
Cheers
Richard
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I tried to post this a while ago with photos of my naked Nomad but no sign of it !!! so....
Many thanks again folks!
Stunt Pilot
Yes, Id be very inerested in your route to Istanbul too ! I don't have a definite route in mind and quite happy to meander - making decisions as and when I come to forks in the road !! :)
GamblerGord649
Many thanks for your input and advice. I've ordered a 38T chainring and will swap this in. It'll be really interesting to see how this works out for me. Your thoughts on cranks was really interesting. I think most of the folks on this forum have had the initial period of major experementation, trial, error and finding the perfect set up for them. I still have the winter and spring to get the set up right for me.
Dannaeux
Once again, many thanks for the advice on your many and varied electrics and charging set ups. I'm sure I'll find my way through to a solution for my needs.
Just back from a Sunday ride here in beautiful Moray. Just stunning !! We really do have some of the best scenery in the world right here on our doorstep !!!
Cheers
Derek
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.... My guess is he also has cranks too short, mine are 180, so should a tall guy. ...
We disagree on several topics, but I will only mention one here, crank arm length. I am 6' 1/2", have a 32 or 33 inch inseam on most of my pants. I have 175mm cranks on most of my bikes, but 170mm on one bike. After I ride 40 or 50 or more miles, I find that my knees do not feel bad unless I am walking up some stairs. Going up stairs is clearly a slower task than before the ride. And from climbing stairs after a ride, I have concluded that my knees feel a lot better if I rode the bike with 170mm cranks than with 175mm cranks. I am not switching from the 175 to 170 on my other bikes, but I have concluded that my maximum crank length is 175mm.
If your knees have that much additional flexibility that 180mm works for you when I have several inches of height on you, that is great. But I suspect most others do not have that flexibility that you have.
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Hello Derek - brief comment from a phone - what tyres are you using? Tyres make an amazing difference to how a bike feels. I have a pair of little-used 26 x 2 Duremes, great for mixed loaded touring. If you want them, pm me.
Lewis
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Hi Lewis
I have Duremes on the bike and yes, I agree - they do make a difference. I went from 1 1/2 inch tyres to 2 inch Duremes and got a bit of a shock at the difference. More so than between my Crevelo road bike and the Ridgeback.
Thanks for the offer though!!
Derek
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Thanks Stunt Pilot. I look forward to reading your post.
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I reckon the most suitable crank length varies from person to person.
At just under 6 foot tall, my own favourite crank length is 150 mm. This suits me better than the 175-180 mm length that should go with my height and leg length according to conventional wisdom.
With 150 mm, I spin lower gears at higher rpm than I used to do with the standard 170 mm, so go about the same speed as I did before. Apart from difficulties in finding non-standard length cranks I haven't noticed any disadvantages from using 150 mm since I swapped over 20 years ago.
150 mm crank length has two advantages for me :
- it feels more comfortable,
- I no longer get knee pains, which I used to get periodically with 170 mm.
The bicycle designer Mike Burrows advocates short cranks, and gives some reasons here :
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/short-and-sweet-a-discussion-on-crank-length-by-mike-burrows.aspx
But short cranks aren't necessarily right for everyone, I have known several short people who were quite happy with 175 mm cranks.
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170mm here, Martin. They seem a good match for me 5'11" or 180.3cm and for my preferred fast, light "hummingbird" cadence of 110-120RPM, which I can do all day in comfort. What I can't do is overstress my knees pushing low cadence in high gears.
I have a fully restored 1970 Motobecane Astra U-frame Folder with a Thomson crank ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottom_bracket#Thompson ) and 145mm arms matched with 406mm (smaller 20in) wheels. As you might imagine, my legs are just ablur when I ride the thing. A bit short even for me, but it somehow feels about right on the little bike, equipped as it is with a Sturmey-Archer 3-sp.
As with all things, individuals vary in requirements and preference, just as you said. I think it is most important for people to get what works for them.
All the best,
Dan.
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Dan,
Really interesting. I'm finding that my cadence depends on which bike I'm on. Carbon road bike = faster cadence feels comfortable. On a touring bike , I become a "masher" with low and slow. Cranks are the same length on both bikes. Evidence from this thread would suggest that it's a very subjective call.But 130 all day in comfort ?? Once I get over 80 rpm with the rohloff, my legs start to tighten and it feels very strenuous:).
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Hi Derek!
I think part of it is my low gearing, shared by all my bikes and started because I began cycling "with intent" many years ago as rehabilitation for injuries received in a car crash -- my knees removed the door-side window crank, bent the shift lever, and cracked the cover under the steering column. I think because I could not pull high gears then, I developed the knack early for spinning and stayed with low gears to prevent unpleasant twinges.
I tend to pedal in very round circles easily and with good flexibility (souplesse), but when I am tired, I pedal in quadrants to give my muscles a rest without stopping. On long (300-400km) day rides, I adjust my water intake, eat while on the bike and rest my muscles in this way to stay in the saddle for up to 17 hours. A good,comfortable saddle is key to all this. ;)
My Nomad is geared 36x17, and it has worked out well for me. The bulk of the gearing (both steps and splits) duplicates that on one of my favorite randonneur bikes. My most-used cruising gears are very close to the rando bike's 58-62 gear-inches, spotting in at 55 gear-inches in the Nomad's direct-drive Gear 11 and 62 gear-inches for Gear 12. Where I live, the town is surrounded on three sides by steep hills, opening out to a long Valley to the north. If I want to leave by west, south, or east, I have to climb, so the low gearing always comes in handy. To reach my beloved deserts of the Great Basin, I must first climb over the summit of the Cascades mountain range 100km away, so more climbing. Same if I wish to go along the Pacific shoreline 100km to the west; I must cross the Coast Range -- usually on logging roads and with lots of carried water (as much as 26l/26kg plus food for extended time away from resupply). At those times, the low of 15 gear-inches followed by 17, 20, and 22 are most welcome *for me*. I realize I may be the exception in my preference for low gears and a fast, light cadence, but it has worked well for me for the last 39 years of Adventure touring. I try not to think about the wear-cycles on my knee and hip joints, but so far so good. :o As I often say, if I tried to pull high gears, my knees would explode with the shrapnel likely causing injury to innocent bystanders. No one wants that. ;D
The beauty of cycling is we can all do it differently and still do it right! I think it is important to go with what's familiar and comfortable for *you*. Cycling is very much a repetitive-motion pursuit. Get it wrong and you get it wrong over and over, with risk of injury. :( Get it right, and it is almost effortless. :)
All the best,
Dan.
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I have all my bikes (except my errand bike) set up with drop bars and nearly identical posture. Saddle height above bottom bracket, saddle set back distance from directly above the bottom bracket, reach from the saddle to brake lever hoods, etc., just about all measurements are about the same on all bikes. And my cadence is about the same too. Derailleur bikes, I generally ride about 72 to 78. Rohloff bike with a wider range between gears has a cadence about 71 to 81. If I am pretty tired at the end of the day or am pedaling with minimal effort down a hill, then I often drop cadence down to the 60s. My one bike with 170 crankarms instead of 175, I think the cadence on that is 1 or 2 rpm higher.
If a bike feels fast, it can make you want to go even faster. But I often find that when I get home after a ride with an unladen bike, my actual rolling time on a bike that felt lightning fast is only a few percent faster than my rolling time on a slower bike. And once I have gotten used to several bikes, I pretty much ride them all about the same with about the same effort. The exception would be my errand bike which I rarely use for a ride over 5 miles (~8km), on that bike I usually pedal slow and steady without getting my heart rate up very much. And the errand bike is a much more upright posture, so it does not really favor fast riding.
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Derek, Alan said you had round the world plans. I got a Raven 4 years ago and it has been a joy to cycle on 3 trips through Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and France. I'll have to stop in Elgin next time I'm up north. I'm thinking about the North 500 in early May.
Stuart Morton
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.... My guess is he also has cranks too short, mine are 180, so should a tall guy. ...
We disagree on several topics, but I will only mention one here, crank arm length. I am 6' 1/2", have a 32 or 33 inch inseam on most of my pants. I have 175mm cranks on most of my bikes, but 170mm on one bike. After I ride 40 or 50 or more miles, I find that my knees do not feel bad unless I am walking up some stairs. Going up stairs is clearly a slower task than before the ride. And from climbing stairs after a ride, I have concluded that my knees feel a lot better if I rode the bike with 170mm cranks than with 175mm cranks. I am not switching from the 175 to 170 on my other bikes, but I have concluded that my maximum crank length is 175mm.
If your knees have that much additional flexibility that 180mm works for you when I have several inches of height on you, that is great. But I suspect most others do not have that flexibility that you have.
I used to race criteriums when in college, and I don't know if it's still the same, but back then using the shortest cranks was the thing. I'm 6 foot tall and my bare foot stand over is about 33 15/16th of an inch but I have a short reach. (I don't ever bother with a professional fit, because I've found them to be worse than useless. They all try to fit you into a formula that does not factor aspects of morphology into it (they don't ever consider muscle type, nor do strength tests - and they certainly don't time you in the 400 meters :) ) and have given me horrid results) I also am naturally set up to mash, though through peer pressure :) I've learned to spin, but I suspect it's done my results more harm than good. Anyways though nowadays I'd be recommended 175mm cranks, I was running 160's (completely though to be wrong for someone depending on anaerobic skills and bursts of power) It worked for me like a gift from heaven. Everything just simply went well once I increased the gearing. So what I'm trying to say is that all the details are personal, and sage advice is not as good as experimentation. Of course the golden rule here is to change only one thing at a time and not judge is too quickly.
The other thing I learned was that minute shifts in position make a large difference sometimes, so work on you seat position first and then the reach. Sometimes it feels wrong for a while, but all of a sudden performance improves, once the muscles get a chance to adapt.
Keep at it - you will get the bike working for you in time. :)
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Of course the golden rule here is to change only one thing at a time and not judge is too quickly.
Excellent point, and too often forgotten in our rush to fix problems quickly.
The other thing I learned was that minute shifts in position make a large difference sometimes, so work on you seat position first and then the reach. Sometimes it feels wrong for a while, but all of a sudden performance improves, once the muscles get a chance to adapt.
Another good point. I've found that even a 5mm difference in seat height can make a noticeable difference.
- DaveS
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I'm big on a more upright posture as you grow older, but I just wonder if in this case an unfamiliar new posture perhaps requiring getting used to hasn't conspired with it being a less efficient cycling posture than on the drops, with the combination aggravating a less powerful transmission ratio (as Dave says, there's a difference between 22 and 18 gear inches!) -- a bunch of individually insignificant straws adding up one big straw.
I would start by setting up the transmission ratio right for the rider's age and ability and intentions, according to George's (mickeg's) suggestions, with a bit of a margin. and checking the bike fit, particularly the saddle height, very carefully, as I've seen people when they first change over from drops to flat bars leaving the saddle too high.
Something that is often overlooked is that the Rohloff box is intended to be set up for normal cruising (your standard cadence at your standard load on a well surfaced flat road) not in gear 14 but in gear 11, which at 1:1 is the most efficient gear in the box, with gears 12, 13 and 14 as overdrives for downhill use or lightweight sightseeing on days off from high-mile touring. It's a small point but if a tourer is already on some kind of a limit, riding in a gear a couple of per centage points less efficient than the best available may just be the finger on the scales.
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I tend to cruise in 8. The idea definitely appeals of adjusting my combo down the 44% or whatever 3 so gear 11 comes into view. Ah I would sure be able to climb, with three more clicks down at the bottom!
I put the Rohloff and chainglider through their paces today! Wandering around, maybe 15 miles into my ride, I am a good half mile or more down a road - ooops, kind of like a dead end. Wildfowl Management Area, a big fence and a rough road on the other side going the wrong way. But then an open gate and a rough road headed in the proper direction. Let's see! (This is why I call my Nomad "Fearless"!) Well the rough road peters out but beyond that is a kind of grassy stretch that for sure trucks or tractors have been down this year. Well another mile or so... yeah the right direction, but it just ends by a canal. Along the canal... hmmm, like a very old dirt road, all grown over with maybe clover and a hundred other wild things, quite distinct from the large open pasture alongside. I can see there's a road maybe half a mile further. So I just plow through all that vegetation. The Rohloff and the Chainglider - there is nothing to get caught by all that vegetation! It's slow going but smooth enough. Grrr, all kinds of barbed wire makes the last six feet pretty rough, but it drops me exactly where I wanted to be, right on the road home.
Not clear there'd be an easy way to get a chainglider to work with a much lower geared combo than my 38x16. The chainglider is very nice!
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I expect you know, Jim, that the sort of riding you describe isn't exactly what I meant by "cruising". You'd expect on such terrain to be in a low gear.
But if you're already down to 38x16 -- that's where I started out, too* -- and you're cruising in gear 8 (one of the two noisiest gears in the box!), than you must have an even lower cadence than mine.
That sounds like the kind of bind that a nice guy doesn't deserve. I think it is difficult to change your cadence once you've settled in as a cyclist (I tried without too much success) but I wouldn't want to give up the Chainglider and go back to cleaning the chain after every ride. Also, I'm used now to having clean trousers-bottoms.
All the same, it seems to me like out of every dollar you paid for that Rohloff box, you're not using 50¢ worth...
*Since I fitted a central motor to that bike, I've had to use a dished chainring to preserve my preferred tread with (more poncily "the Q factor"), and the smallest one that fits has 44 teeth; just as well I have a motor to help at the top of the hills in the "Rome of West Cork", though several years after heart surgery, thanks to my bike and my treadmill and the pharmaceutical industry, I'm generally quite a bit stronger than I was back when I fitted the motor.
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For sure, picking up my bike and lifting it over a six foot high gate, after riding a mile over soft ground covered with thick vegetation, that's not exactly cruising!
Using Sheldon http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gear-calc.html - 38x16 with 26 inch wheels, a cadence of 80 rpm is 9.9 mph in gear 8. Probably my cadence tends to be more around 85. Someday maybe I will get a fancy computer to track all that. Bah, probably not.
I enjoy going back over my route and recording it when I get home. It helps me remember where I went. Today's ride: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/20813716 - 12% in that steepest bit. I wasn't watching my speedometer! But it occurs to me... someplace recently was some discussion about twitching handling in a Nomad at low speed. I have a Carradice Super C handlebar bag with a fair amount of miscellaneous junk inside. I think that really helps to stabilize the steering. Occasionally I ride without it, e.g. with cleaning oil in the Rohloff. Without the bag I do notice a bit of twitchiness. With the bag, I am often enough below 2 mph without any such annoyance. Yeah at that point my cadence ... I am just trying to maintain forward movement!
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Yes, that's the other hard point of speccing your transmission. On the Rohloff the first one is gear 11 being the most efficient so that it should be your cruising gear. But on any utility or touring bike, the second limit is that the lowest gear should be specified for the lowest speed on which you can keep your balance. (I take the view that a Rohloff owner who has to push has specified his gears wrongly.) I found by trial and error that my balance limit is about 3.5kph and specified my gears accordingly (it came to 38x16 for 622 rims with 60mm Big Apples)