Thanks Hamish - your comments when added to the others on this thread add up to a reassuring picture of the Rohloff geared bikes' abilities on the hills.
I'm 65. I've always been a mountainbiker rather than a roadie, and took up cycling late, twenty years ago, so I don't have that out of the saddle, spinning, get the right gear before the hill paradigm. I have always done exactly what you say you want to do, stayed in the seat, sitting up, looked at the beautiful countryside, talked to the pedalpals. The key to not being distracted by the wretched mechanics is very definitely a hub gearbox, and of those the Rohloff is the best of all, and after a thousand miles or so when it settles in, you won't even notice it's there. (And that's coming from a guy who has an automatic gearbox on another bike, see my netsite, URL under my signature.)
I've gone for British Racing Green and a honey Brooks leather saddle.
My current fave bike is British racing green (the Dutch Van Raam firm who painted it calls it 'non-RAL nostalgia green' but it's that old Bentley green). I also had a honey Brooks, the B73 because I see no reason not to be comfortably sprung (and SJS had a fab deal on some new old stock). If you want to keep it honey, at least until perspiration turns it browner, *don't* put neatsfoot oil or even Brooks's own Proofide on it. Leave it bare and cover it when it rains -- order the Brooks cover delivered with the bike. If you insist on protecting it, get colourless shoe polish and apply that sparingly. I soaked mine in neatsfoot and that instantly turned it a mid-brown, lighter than Brook's standard brown, but definitely no longer honey.
I've never had the Ergo grips, though I hear them well-spoken off; I always found Hermann's Finnish gummies good and cheap. But a couple of years ago I switched on one bike to the Brooks leather grips, just as an experiment to match the honey saddle; I ordered the grips in honey and stained them with neatsfoot to match the saddle. These are not fashion items, looking a bit rough, being made from many rings of leather sitting edge on to the bars and your hands. I thought at first that the idea was that the leather would shape to my fingers, but the rings are too tightly held together (by little bicycle spokes, I kid you not) for that. But these are the most comfortable grips I've ever had. Smart be damned, it's my hands. They suit the style of the bike I have them on now (a Utopia Kranich, a copy of a prewar Locomotief Crossframe Mixte de Luxe updated with lightweight butted Columbus tubes to take 60mm balloon tyres -- may as well be comfortable when you're old enough to be slow!) and I think these Brooks grips would suit the rustic style of the Raven (beautiful pic on the forum the other day of a blue raven standing against a field gate in autumn) especially if the Raven is green. I got the grips too from SJS; I presume they carry them for this class of bike. So, if you don't need built-in bar-ends of the Ergos, have a look at the Brooks grips.
Good luck on those Welsh hills!
Andre Jute
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20%26%20CYCLING.html
