Water...and the Rohloff Speedhub.

[Walkdontrun]

Scanning the Rohloff owners manual after recently collecting a new Mercury, I read at the top of p.5 that ..' Cycling through deep water is not permitted'...etc and also that water penetration through unprotected (!) transportation (heavy rain etc) should be avoided. Further, ..'an oil change should be completed immediately if you believe water may have penetrated the gear unit...!

OK, I thought, fair enough...    I suppose... 

What confused me however (and lead to this post) are the photos on pp 6 & 9 of the 'Living with a Rohloff hub Summer Update 2013'. One shot shows the hub almost certainly completely submerged, whilst the other shows that it must at least have got a soaking.

As it happens I'm not actually planning to cycle through or across any rivers at present and probably never will, but I will be carrying the bike on newly acquired set of car roof bars ..
and know how it can rain!

[il padrone]

Yes, hub-deep crossings are never going to be a good thing for most hubs, more-so the Rohloff which has more mechanicals to get corroded. That first photo would demand action to replace the oil; the second is more routine - no action required.

The Rohloff has an oil-seal I believe, not a water-tight seal. The oil is able to penetrate out of the seal to carry any dirt away from the hub, but water might be able to get in if handled incorrectly.

I don't believe that normal rain is any sort of issue. My bike has sat in the rain many times with no ill effects. Carriage on a car rack will be unlikely to cause harm, certainly not an in-line roof-rack. My bike travels on a transverse tow-bar rack and the hub is sheltered by the vehicle. If it was on a transverse rack, out in the elements, say on the front of a car/bus, in heavy rain, this could be a concern. Similarly, do not leave the Rohloff laying down on its side overnight in rain (also not recommended as the oil may run out of the hub seal.... on one side I think). I us a kickstand to keep my bike upright.

I have the SON28 front hub, which also does not like any water submersion as it has a breather hole in the middle of the hollow axle to give air pressure equalisation and avoid moisture being sucked through the cartridge bearing seals with sudden temperature changes, into the hub dynamo internals. So overall, deep river crossings are a no-no for me.

[JimK]

I am surely living in dangerous territory! I have had both the Rohloff and the SON dynamo fully submerged. One or two seconds I would guess. That puddle sure was deeper than I anticipated! It was in the spring time, as I recall. Ooops! No strange crunching noises that I have noticed... puddles!

[Kuba]

I think when they refer to "water penetration through unprotected transportation", they don't mean a bike being transported upright in a proper car rack, than can't do much more harm than just riding it in rain...? What they most likely mean is that carrying the bike on the roof of a taxi/bus laid on a side should not be done without protecting the hub (I transported by Raven like that in India, but it didn't rain - in rain I would protect the hub for sure).

That said yeah, shots of Andy B crossing streams and rivers show that the hub can probably withstand more rough treatment than the manufacturer wishes to endorse!

[Andre Jute]

Yeah. I think you want to think in terms of

EXPOSURE * TIME

with the quality and force of the exposure (a fast-flowing river? a sluggish stream? powerfully driven rain angled just wrong?) having a heavy weighting and the whole thing subject to a fractional constant of say .0001, with a couple zeroes this way or that not of particular importance. There is zero evidence that the everyday incidents of a life in civilization has wrecked even a single Rohloff gearbox, or we would have heard of it.

My Rohloff generally leads an easy life, but perhaps once every couple of years in the harvest season, when I jump off the lane before a convoy of speeding tractors to stand with my bike in a ditch, often thigh deep, the hub may be immersed for as much as a minute. I've never seen the slightest ill effect, and I wait until I reach home to wipe the wheel and hub, mainly so as not to carry the smell of slurry (liquid field manure) with me.

The only one who seems to think the Rohloff Speed 14 is fragile is Herr Rohloff -- and that may be his liability lawyer speaking through his mouth rather than what he really believes. There are other examples in the Rohloff manual of a CYA attitude that bears no relationship to the tough reality of the gearbox in the metal and in service, for instance the ludicrous 500km EXT klickbox service interval.

I should think an imaginative wrecker could break a Rohloff if he really tried, but there are plenty of stories of travellers abusing their Rohloffs quite abominably and the boxes surviving. Mind you, it may be that the generous way Rohloff disregards the fact that the warranty has expired hides a few breakages by abuse in routine repairs, but I mention it only for the sake of completeness; I don't actually believe it.

[il padrone]

Ahh, yeah! The 500 km service for the Clickbox. 

I reckon I've changed the grease in mine twice.... in 20,000kms. Wwooooops!

Still shifting extremely well.

[Big_Jimbo]

My hub is built into a hard tail mountain bike. It has been through five pretty foul winters (through streams and peat bogs etc) in the Peak District without any sign of deterioration. I don't clean it with a pressure washer, just one of those brushes that fits on the end of a hosepipe that everyone used to clean their car with back in the day. I change the oil every spring, just in case something has got in over the winter, but that's it. 

As for lubing the clickbox? My hub must lose a tiny amount of oil from somewhere, because the clickbox pulley always seems to be very oily every year and I don't put anything in there. The amount of lost oil isn't enough to significantly reduce the quantity I get back out at oil change time.

Jim