Noisy gear 12 and oil change questions

[Paulson]

I'm pretty new to the rohloff hub, and wanted to know if anybody finds gear 12 to be noisy - I know the sound that 1-7 make, and on my hub, gear 12 is similarly noisy, although 8-11 and 13-14 are silent-ish.

Any thoughts?

ALSO....the hub has been little used in 4 years, (around 500 miles, I believe), but would it be worth doing an oil change, as it will now be ridden a whole lot more regularly?

[expr]

Noisy gear 12 ? yes do the oil change this, this should be done every 12 months. You might find it makes it a little quieter.

[brummie]

Gear 12 is a little noisier than gear 11 ( Direct drive ) on my hub too - Pretty normal. If you descend a long hill & change through the gears slowly ( without pedalling ) You'll notice different 'freewheeling' noises from the different gears too...

[stutho]

Only 3 gears are audible on my hub 5,7,12  and these are pretty quite too!  (All others are as silent as the grave).    My wife's bike has far less mileage on it - but is even less noisy - no idea why!  I have about 18,000 miles on the hub.

As has being said you should do an oil change every year.

[Paulson]

Many thanks.  I have just finished the oil change - the hot weather probably helped to make the oil a bit more free-flowing.

Quick test ride reveals a noticeable improvement; I'd agree that 5,7 and 12 are the 'noisy'

Thanks again.

[rafiki]

Did the annual oil change last week. No noise on mine in gear 12  but 7 down to 1 all noisy, 7 being the loudest.

[Andre Jute]

I guess the Rohloff gearboxes are all different. I too tried to discover if  gear 12 is louder but all seven the top gears are more silent than the rumble of my Big Apple tyres, which are the loudest thing about my bike, so I guess that in my case it doesn't matter. Gear 7 is loudest, falling away towards (numerically lower numbered) gears, so that 3-2-1 are either silent or masked by the tyre noise.

Andre Jute

[geocycle]

They must all be different, I can hear 7 and to a lesser extent 6 but the rest are silent.  I've never noticed any of the top 7 or 1-5.  I think they do get quieter with use and more importantly you just forget about it!

[Big_Jim]

Weirdly I've never had noise in 12th, but only get noises in the odd numbered gears in low range (1 - 7). While 7th can be noisy 6th is quiet. I do occasionally get odd noises when slogging up a steep off-road hill in 1st gear (my bike is a custom built Dave Yates mountain bike) These usually consist of a knocking sound similar to that of a knackered bottom bracket i.e. at maximum effort when the cranks are approaching horizontal.

Anyone else had this? I should add that being over 18 stone I do put a fair amount of umph into each pedal stroke

[Jitensha]

Of the upper gears 12 and 14 are somewhat noisy in my hub. In the lower gears 7 is the loudest of all, with the others being about the same as 12 and 14. Interesting that each hub seems to be a bit different. I wonder why this is?

[gearoidmuar]

In my hub 1-7 were noisy when new. I've never heard any noise from 8-14.
After a couple of thousand miles 1-3 were practically silent, 4, slight noise, 5&6 noisy and 7 noisiest.
That's how it has remained.