Rohloff on a Full Suspension Mountain Bike

[MilitantGraham]

I got talking to a grrrl on a Thorn at the Marin Rough Ride recently as we were both riding Rohloffs.
She said she worked for Thorn, but had never seen a Rohloff on a FS MTB before.
So, in case anyone else is interested, here's how it looks.



I'm running 34x13 which is close to the recommended limit, but I'm a spinner, not a lunger, and I'm riding endurance events, so I like the low gearing.
I've done away with the stop screw and let the tensioner arm swing round til it hits the chainstay. It works just the same and gives me more chain engagement on the small sprocket, hopefully extending chain & sprocket life as the 13t is not reversible.
I'm using a Rohloff chain which I find outlasts SRAM chains many times over, unlike the Rohloff jockey wheels which I have replaced with FSA ceramic bearing wheels.
The Thorn 34t chainwheel is lasting well and shouldn't need reversing for a long time yet.
The Rohloff chain guide works well, and so it should at that price for such a simple item.

[MilitantGraham]

One thing I forgot to mention, which is not shown on that photo, as I had just bought the frame and swapped all the bits over from my previous frame and not got around to refitting it, is the lockwire through the tensioner mountiong bolt.
The bolt is hollow, so that if the tensioner gets tangled up in a stick or something, the cheap & easily replaced bolt will shear before the frame or dropout bends.
I carry a spare bolt, but as the tensioner is spaced away from the dropout by a number of washers, a broken bolt would leave the washers scattered along the trail.
Looping a length of lockwire loosely through the hollow bolt means that everything will stay together even with the bolt sheared. That's the theory, I haven't tried it in practice yet.

I used proper stainless steel lockwire because I'm a mechanic and have got stuff like that eaily available.
A cable tie or a few strands of copper wire would probably do the same job.

[PeteCress]

I got talking to a grrrl on a Thorn at the Marin Rough Ride recently as we were both riding Rohloffs.
She said she worked for Thorn, but had never seen a Rohloff on a FS MTB before.
So, in case anyone else is interested, here's how it looks.

Here's two more:  An Ellsworth "Isis":
http://tinyurl.com/ybvqx7u
and a Seven Cycles "Duo":
http://tinyurl.com/yby225k

Instead of the out-of-the-box Rohloff-supplied torque arm, both use Rohloff's aftermarket "SpeedBone".