Rohloff Drag

[John Saxby]

I find I have *more* pedal-turning since switching to the Phil Wood external BB, as it has little friction of its own and so poorly resists any seal friction against the drive sprocket

Dan, this surely takes the award for The Most Counter-Intuitive "Who Knew??" Moment Ever Recorded On A Sunday Morning.

Have been reading this thread for the past several days, wondering if/when in the next few weeks I will have to deal with this condition, and if so, how to prepare myself.  Two mantras seem promising: "Adjust your expectations -- don't bother oiling the sprocket seal."  And, <shrug> "Whatever turns your crank."

BTW, tucked away in the corner of an office on one of dusty streets of Nampula, a provincial capital in north-central Mozambique, I saw an equally dusty Brompton. The owner was a young Portuguese guy working with the municipality.  I complimented him on his bike, but didn't ask how his chain was holding up. 

[il padrone]

Thank you for the help and advice.  The one foot per mile adds to the seven feet per mile of having the dynamo on.  I was thinking that I was struggling up hills because I'm a fat old bloke!

The Rohloff hub is a wonderous thing, and I now ride derailleur geared bikes only if I have to.

Don't worry about it so much. 9 feet per mile (~2m per kilometre) is what a surveying friend of mine was working with on the roads of the Shire of Serpentine, where the wheat grows tall and the roads look like this:





Seven feet per mile sounds a bit high for a dynohub. I thought the SON28 was about five feet per mile ??