Noooooooooooo!!!! Why would Thorn do this to me?

[cake]

Aarrgghhh! 

Browsing through my copy of Arrivee, which was delivered today, i spied an advert for Thorn announcing the soon to be available 700c Rohloff Mercury!

Only this weekend just gone did i ride The Rutland 300km on my RT and really wish that i could combine my RT with my Ti audax bike to have the best of both worlds...

Now my mind is swirling with ideas of selling the Ti, the RT frame and associated components and forming a new relationship with a Mercury.

The only way i could afford this would be to sell both bikes - but i am very attached to my RT and the faithful hub it came with - now with 18500 miles on it.

The other option is to build one myself and have the hub built into a 700c wheel - but is it possible (and economically viable) to convert my hub to the externally shifting hub which the Mercury frame requires...  I don't think it is from what i recall, before investigation.

I'm considering options because my bicycle use has changed.  I originally bought the RT for touring but personal circumstances prevented this straight away (typically!).  For the past year or two i've been enjoying audax events and want to go further.  No steel framed, carbon forked, 700c Rohloff equipped bike was availalble so i had a Ti audax bike built, which is wonderful, but it needs a Rohloff to be perfect!

So now this tortuous dilemma has arrived at a time when money will soon be absent, but not quite yet....

Help!!!!

[rualexander]

Thorn Mercury, looks pretty good, but are they not going back on some of the things they have said in the past with this new model?

[neil_p]

Thorn Mercury, looks pretty good, but are they not going back on some of the things they have said in the past with this new model?

That was my first thought... e.g. with 26" wheels being their previous recommendation. Maybe that is still the case for fully laden touring, and 700c wheels are best for fast touring.

[Cambirder]

They do look nice, I've just ordered a RST and would consider switching to a Mercury but I've already pushed my budget to the limit so will stay with the RST.

[Paulson]

It looks very interesting; I have long thought that a combination of the lightness and gorgeous handling of the audax and the sublime rohloff hub would be a match made in heaven.

I would guess that Thorn are responding to the market - the 'main' European makers of rohloff-equiped bikes, such as Koga and santos, have long offered 700c wheeled bikes as well as 26 inch wheels.  In fact, I would guess that they see the 26 inchers as more 'specialist' and less mainstream than the larger wheeled bikes.  After all, I would have though that relatively few people who buy these bikes in Europe will go and slap four heavy panniers on them and try and ride hundreds of miles on unsurfaced roads.

I would imagine that Thorn have seen that they are losing potential customers who want the bigger wheels, and have done something about it.   If I had the money, I'd definitely consider one!

I also like the BB that Andy has designed - much in the same vein as the Tout Terrain design.

[geocycle]

Looks nice for an audax bike.  I like the new EBB but not the way they have split the BB shell, that could be a weakness on a tourer (but maybe not a problem for the mercury).  Interesting they are pushing disc brakes and carbon forks!  I don't think choosing either 26 or 770c is an issue unless you went on long tours out of europe and given that this is not an expedition bike it won't matter for most people.  A completely different beast to the RT and even the RST.

[dallan]

 cake pretty much summed up what I thought yesterday when spying info on the Mercury. Have had a RT for a while and built up an audax earlier this year. I like both of these bikes but it's been in the back of my mind that the bike I've been wanting is exactly what the Mercury is.  Sensible thing for me would be to sell both the audax and RT before getting one, can't see it happening that way though more likely to get one at some point then sell the bike I use the least out of the three.

I'd better start saving 

[rualexander]

....The other option is to build one myself and have the hub built into a 700c wheel - but is it possible (and economically viable) to convert my hub to the externally shifting hub which the Mercury frame requires...   I don't think it is from what i recall, before investigation.....

About £100 for the parts to convert to ex box if bought from Germany, or £120 from Triton Cycles here.
Might be worth trying to find someone with an external box who would want to convert to internal mech, in fact this is a swap I might well consider myself as I have an external box on my Rohloff equipped Sherpa, it's something I've thought about before now.

Or you could use the internal mech version on the Mercury using the chainstay mounted cable stop system

[Andre Jute]

I've never seen the attraction of the internal mech, all those exposed wires, something else to go wrong. The external mech is a closed cable all the way from the rotary control to the hub, and virtually service-free.

"Virtually." You're supposed to put some grease in the external clickbox every 500km but very few owners appear to know this and fewer to do it. I put in grease at 1000km, 600 miles, thereabouts, but what's in there always seems fresh, so I don't think it matters much. Anyway, it's a ten second operation, thumbscrew off, grease in, thumbscrew on, quick wipe.

[Relayer]

I think the Mercury is Thorn's anticipation of where the market is going.  The UCI has lifted their ban on disc brakes for cyclo-cross racing in the 2010/11 season (wonder how long before road racing follows).  This will no doubt lead to a number of cross racing and/or cross function bikes with drop bars / 700c wheels / disc brakes coming onto the market... and what better to complement that setup than a hub gear?!?

Hopefully rack and mudguard setups with disc brakes will improve.

[Eric]

I’ve actually got an RST on order at present (had a Catalyst off-roader with a Rohloff for 5 years – super bike).
When I just heard about the Mercury, I thought about changing my order. Having thought about it, I won’t. If I wanted a fast Audax bike, I might have – and the 700 wheels are what I’m used to for touring. No doubt the RST is a bit ‘staid’, and the paint jobs on the Mercury look flash, but such things as the shorter chain stays (panniers with size 12s!) and the untried BB shell made me think again. Also, I actually prefer the ‘bare cable’ to the 'box' – never given any problem (just change the cables every 3 years) and seems to give a nicer shift.
No – for hotel touring on tarmac roads for 1-2 weeks, the RST is the right choice…….I hope!