I've heard of hydraulic and electronic shifters for derailleurs. Does anyone make them for Rohloff ?
I have a hub gear bike with electronic shifting. See it here:
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20%26%20CYCLING.html by checking out the Trek Cyber Nexus Smover.
That's a special adaptation of the Shimano Nexus 8 speed box, with a stepper motor wrapping around the end of the axle.
I thought of electrifying the Rohloff gearbox but the obvious way would be with a reversible stepper motor, or two stepper motors, which could be positioned"
1) on the handlebars to operate the standard cables
2) on the seatstay to operate the internal cables of the Rohloff box from, say, the standard break near the cantis
3) on the lefthand chainstay to operate the Rohloff external klickbox via short cables
4) on the nut over which the external klickbox otherwise fits, replacing the cabled mechanical klickbox, in short a version of what Shimano already has in the hub gear version of the Cyber Nexus
Seems to me that solution 1 while easy to implement would just give you the same old problems, solutions 2 and 3 might be more difficult to implement without soldering on brackets but would solve your problems handily, and solution 4 is optimum but might require a spot of engineering to make the reversible stepper motor fit over the actual gearchanging nut.
Stepper motors are dirt cheap and no touring bike should be without a hub dynamo, which can power the stepper motor.
HTH.
Hobbes
