Rohloff love #783

[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]

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

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.

Bummer about the tree(s) giving you stick,

GROAN...

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

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]

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.

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.

What bike would you use for that type of riding that has a Rohloff?

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

[mickeg]

Nice looking bike.

Shimano brifters have a reputation for quitting at in-opportune times.  A friend of mine was getting ready to do his third cross-USA trip about a year ago.  A month before the trip his quit working.  I let him ride one of my bikes with bar end shifters to try them out, he had bar ends put on his bike for the trip.  And on that trip, someone else had her Shimano brifter quit working, she finished her fully loaded cross-USA trip with three gears (she had a triple crank).

[martinf]

bit of a twig caught in the chain and snapped the rear derailleur in two

I've had that happen once (less than a kilometer from home), but with a bit of wire, which I don't think I would have seen even if I had been looking. But a rare event, at least for road use, might be more frequent off-road.

Other terminal breakdowns have been chain snap (I have now put the necessary tools/spares in my ordinary tool kit), flange breakage on a derailleur bike (not rideable as several spokes were affected) and rear dropout cracking away from the chainstay, this was just rideable. All occurred close to home.

I was lucky with the flange breakage - I was on a long cycle-camping trip when it cracked after a fall on an icy concrete path between Arcachon and Royan, but only failed completely when I was less than a km from home in the UK.

Chain snap was my fault, I was running a very worn chain on my utility bike. This was the least convenient failure to date, I was towing my trailer and had push/scoot for about 6 km to get home.

[Andre Jute]

I started on hub gearboxes because of a derailleur event that was the final straw for me. It must have been one of the last Sachs-Huret oval chainrings that simply folded up under me and took out both ends of the derailleurs with it as I stood up on the pedals to attack a seven-inch high curb because if I didn't I might as well go straight to the physio, that bike had so little compliance. The entire drive chain locked up solidly. I was lucky not to take a faceplant. Fortunately all this happened about thirty yards from my LBS, not out in the bush, or the bike would have been thrown into the ditch. It was the end for me with derailleurs. I carried the bike into the LBS and gave it to him; he fixed it and sold it on, and the new owner waved deliriously at me for years when we passed on the road: he thought he bought a bargain, but I hated the shoddy, careless, incompetent design of that expensive POS. After a couple of Shimano Nexus hub gearboxes, which under me proved superior to derailleurs in operation but not sturdy enough, I got a Rohloff when we moved up a steep hill, and haven't looked back a minute since then.

Thank God for derailleurs: they led me to the Rohloff Speed 14.

[julk]

My first bike had a SA 3 speed hub gear.
It did well for me, at 12 years old I even managed a cycle tour from Merseyside, round the Lake District and back, using the YHA for accommodation.
I still have memories of riding over the Forest of Bowland and the Kirkstone Pass.

The lure of racing bikes took me into the derailleur world in my teens.
Many years later and after much mucking about with replacing chains, rear sprocket clusters etc. I retired.

In the serenity of retirement I gave away my derailleur bikes and got a Rohloff Thorn.
I think that decision has extended my lifespan.
Julian.

[Andre Jute]

I gave away my derailleur bikes and got a Rohloff Thorn.
I think that decision has extended my lifespan.

Hallelujah.

Interesting fact is that both my GP and my cardiologist explicitly agree.

[Mike Ayling]

Agree 100% with all posts.

Mike

[jags]

in all my years of cycling i never once had an issue with derailleur gears that's the truth.
not saying they don't break or give trouble they do but so to does rohloff.
if it's man made it eventually will give up the ghost,so don't be getting to cocky about rohloff the day will come  when your left high and dry.
take a spare rear mech with you Paul on those epic rides far cheaper than a rohloff.

anto.