Whither the future: Thorn's derailleur vs Rohloff bikes

[jags]

there frames are good but the groupsets are usually the lowest like sora .
if there going to be up there with the big boys then let them kit there bikes out with quality groupsets  ban rohloff  the devils own hub .

[jags]

i'll be back later to wind u up a bit more don't go to far away.

[il padrone]

there frames are good but the groupsets are usually the lowest like sora .
if there going to be up there with the big boys then let them kit there bikes out with quality groupsets  ban rohloff  the devils own hub .

Check the Thorn brochures again - suggested groupsets from Tiagra, Deore MTB and similar but you can specify whatever kit you want.

[Bill C]

all that gubbins and techno wizardery just to turn a back wheel at a different ratio, seems the exact opposite of making a failsafe touring bike, K.I.S.S springs to mind

Now you're really just playing the Luddite 

now that is a lie, i'm not playing!

i got as far as xt 770 9 speed before i gave up on new gear
i see carbon, electric shifting, the hoff  10/11cassettes all as stupid modern fangled crap that is over priced over designed and just for the trend followers,  it's here to stay but only because the makers of technocrap are making 9 speed obsolete in their never ending battle to  part fools from their cash,
same reason for the push on plastic sorry carbon frames

disk brakes (avid bb7), ti and stainless frames i can get my head round as they offer a real benefit ie no rust or with the bb7 better braking than rim brakes and less wear to rims
i'm not a luddite i just use my head about my purchases, is it value for money , will it last, will it have a resale value when i'm done with it, 
carbon frames would you buy a well used one? i wouldn't

[lewis noble]

Picture of my old RT on it's way to Far East - no trouble with the Rohloff in these conditions . . . .

[Bill C]

An EBB has a known inevitable failure mode built in. That makes it an inferior system.

Failure mode ??  What is this failure that will ensue?

dunno what Andre meant
 but i assume that it's you only get to adjust your chain a few times before you have divots in the bb and further fine adjustments are out the window unless it's replaced, the sliding dropouts Andre posted pics of allow adjustment without damaging itself in the process, surely thats a superior design? and as a bonus you can use a rear mech so not only better for the Hoff's but better for us luddites 
also you said about adjusting brakes and mudguards with sliding drop outs, fair enough
but with an EBB you are shifting your bb so your pedals and riding position must be affected no? i know my bad knee noticed it on my old ebb scott when i tightend the chain

[lewis noble]

I put a very short post with a photo up a little while ago; I had written a longer reply / comment to this thread, but then got timed out, so rather frustrating!!

But putting my head (a little) above the parapet . . . .

Rohloff / derailleur debate – I reckon this has been well aired over the time I have been on the Forum.  If I was commuting regularly, or riding in mucky conditions like the photo above or as shown in the earlier picture here (where is that??), I would go for a Rohloff.  The guy who bought my RT rode it to the Far East, with as far as I know few bike problems other than a spate of punctures at one stage.  I now ride a Sherpa, derailleur of course, and that suits the lower mileages and generally better conditions of my present style of riding – despite the real concerns over wear rates etc., derailleur systems function much better than they used to.  But if my needs changed, I would go back to Rohloff – if I could afford it. 

And as far as the Thorn range is concerned, I still reckon the range is pretty much the best.  Whenever I buy kit, or browse in local or chain bike shops, I am often asked what I ride  . . . .

“ A Thorn?? Gosh, really heavy then.”

I insist they have a look at the bike, and they are invariably surprised – they point me towards the Dawes / Ridgeback or similar range, and I point out that those bikes are in fact mostly heavier than my Sherpa as I have it kitted out, sometimes much heavier.  I am planning a long tour next spring, the longest I have ever done in my 69 years, and I reckon the Sherpa will look after me.

And as for bling, my idea of bling is a decent, well-sorted and well maintained bike.  I have a Lion brass bell mounted between the steerer tube spacers, and that’s about it.

[Andre Jute]

Lots of chat about the possibility of Rohloff hub failing. Does anyone factually know of any individual who has been stuck because of a 'catastrophic' failure? My hub developed an issue on a tour, slipping in a number of gears, (ironically in Germany and I was able to take it to an official service centre.) They couldn't sort the issue but contacted head office who offered to fix it and to courier it back to me within 3 days. Unfortunately I was short on time to catch a plane so took their advice which was "Ride it anyway, your hub will not completely fail.""No one has ever been stuck through a catastrophic failure."I rode the 800 miles to Budapest and sent the hub off for repair when I got home to Scotland. No warranty - no questions - no charge - great service.

Interestingly enough, when discussing the pros and cons the the Rohloff, loads of talk goes into "what if it fails?" or, "it's expensive but cost less over the life of the hub compared to replacing a derailleur system." No one seems to talk about how good it is to ride with. I'm not knocking derailleurs (having just ordered a shiny new Thorn one - one week and counting). Sure it's not infallible,but I don't agree that the Rohloff is simply 'hype.'

Lots of chat about the possibility of Rohloff hub failing. Does anyone factually know of any individual who has been stuck because of a 'catastrophic' failure? [snip for bandwidth]

Interestingly enough, when discussing the pros and cons the the Rohloff, loads of talk goes into "what if it fails?" or, "it's expensive but cost less over the life of the hub compared to replacing a derailleur system." No one seems to talk about how good it is to ride with. I'm not knocking derailleurs (having just ordered a shiny new Thorn one - one week and counting). Sure it's not infallible,but I don't agree that the Rohloff is simply 'hype.'

I've never heard of a Rohloff suffering a catastrophic failure; in fact, I've never heard of a Rohloff which failed to get someone to his destination or at least home again before going in for service. Rohloff's amazing service stories like yours are recounted because there is nothing else to talk about, and even those stories are few and far between when you grasp how many Rohloff boxes there are now (well north of a 100,000). If there is ever a catastrophic failure, you can be absolutely sure the naysayers will wake us up within five minutes to say, "I told you so!" Almost always the people who want to talk about a Rohloff failing are the ones who don't have one. The guys who have one, or are actually planning to buy one and have done their homework towards the purchase, never feel the need to talk about the box failing.

As for your perception that "No one seems to talk about how good it is to ride with", I honestly don't think that is true.  I talk about how good the Rohloff is to ride with all the time, and so do many others here. It's just that people notice bad news (or in the absence of bad news the gossip of schadenfreude, like much of the ignorant nonsense we can see even here sometimes when people get stir crazy in the winter) much more than good news.

Also, every now and again a knowledgeable derailleurist of long standing considers converting to a Rohloff and then asks a whole row of sensible questions, and he gets to hear a lot about how a Rohloff box enhances one's pleasure on the bike. The last time we gave the non-mechanical factors of the Rohloff experience a thorough outing was when Dan Wood converted, with a couple of smaller outings since, though of course those recently-converted fellows could read the standing posts. Seven years ago I read every word on the Rohloff on this and several other boards in several languages before I splashed out the price of a good preloved BMW on a bike with Rohloff box; there was already quite a bit of user-generated literature, both mechanical and psycho-ergonomic, and there's a lot more now, here and elsewhere.

[Andre Jute]

An EBB has a known inevitable failure mode built in. That makes it an inferior system.

Failure mode ??  What is this failure that will ensue?

A day will arrive when the dimples made in the soft ali of the EBB by the fixing screws will run together and the thing will turn in the BB shell without your assistance. If it happens in Outer Dirtyanddesolate, and you can't get the chain tight enough to pedal, you'll be pushing a long way through the desert. That counts as a catastrophic failure in anyone's book.

[Andre Jute]

but with an EBB you are shifting your bb so your pedals and riding position must be affected no? i know my bad knee noticed it on my old ebb scott when i tightend the chain

When I fitted the n'lock, which is in fact a new stem, I couldn't get an adjustable one in black, and so fitted a fixed version after taking very careful measurements. I got the handlebars to within 2mm of where I had them before. You've think I wouldn't notice, eh? But I did. Later, after I fitted a new seatpost and a rail adapter for my twinrail Brooks saddle that Julian sent me, I was within 1mm, and still I noticed it.  I also noticed that I was coming a bit forward over the pedals and that the power of my stroke suffered.

Okay, so maybe I'm just ultra-finicky about my comfort, or maybe my senses were heightened because for most of this time I was in and out of the hands of the cardiologists and couldn't bend over the bike for long. Or maybe it really matters. I certainly think a 5mm shift in pedal position would be noticed by most people.

[JimK]

the dimples made in the soft ali of the EBB by the fixing screws will run together 

Certainly the EBB can fail that way, but with a bit of care that failure can be avoided. Just make sure the dimples are well spaced. It's not trivial but it's not rocket science either.

Hmm, here is a method I haven't tried yet but I bet it would work.... the nicest method is just to look down the screw hole to see the dimples. But it might be too dark, dirty, etc. One can feel the dimples just using the grub screws themselves. But that is awkward. So another scheme: use something like a nail or a toothpick to run down the grub screw hole to feel where the dimples are. It's not that hard to maintain good dimple spacing!
 

[rualexander]

Another problem with the EBB is that by the time it comes to needing adjusting, the thing has seized in the bb shell, and needs prolonged work with penetrating oil and a large mallet to persuade it to move, even if it has been greased before fitting. I've had to do this a couple of times on my buddy's Raven, once while on a four month tour in New Zealand.
I like the idea of the sliding dropouts more than the EBB, but they maybe have their own issues over time.

[jags]

yip pretty trouble free this rohloff 
ebb - hassle
hub  -hassle when it brakes
 chain- more hassle
brakes- more hassle.
more trouble than it's worth if u ask me.

[Danneaux]

I like the idea of the sliding dropouts more than the EBB, but they maybe have their own issues over time.

They do; no system is perfect.

A friend with the Rohloff sliding dropouts has an issue adjusting them when his Topeak SuperTourist rear rack was mounted -- the lower mounting tangs extended beyond the bolt holes and limited travel.

Similarly, another friend had trouble after commuting for several years in salty conditions He said there was not rust, but a lot of "stickage". I think more frequent/careful maintenance and perhaps the application of some anti-seize between the dropouts and wheel mounts and bolt threads might well have helped.

A third case of difficulties with sliding dropouts came not from the dropouts, but from thoughtless frame design. The rear stays were very short and the chainstay bridge was placed in such a way as to make wheel removal impossible when the dropouts were slid fully forward A puncture repair required loosening and sliding the dropouts.

Like anything, really; proper design followed by good user maintenance help, but no system is perfect. Wedge eccentrics can be a bear to loosen once the wedge has "seasoned" in place. Split-shell designs can become difficult over time as the clamp-bolt threads wear. The better split-shell designs use replaceable nuts keyed to the shell-flange interface. As for eccentrics retained by grub screws, all is not lost if the dimples run together. Thorn left enough takeup in the threads to hold even a corrupted insert securely for a bit before replacement is required. My tandem uses cup-ended grub screws that leave little rings in the aluminum eccentric, rather than dimples. They prevent gouging, but fine adjustment can be a bit difficult/coarse if the embossed rings overlap. Doesn't slip one tight.

In the end, it is six-of-one/half-dozen of the other. If a bike has neither eccentric nor sliding/ramped dropouts , then the alternative is a chain tensioner. If one has to go that route, one with a single tension pulley is probably best as it avoids putting the chain through a tight wear-inducing S-curve.

Best,

Dan.

[Bill C]

yip pretty trouble free this rohloff 
ebb - hassle
hub  -hassle when it brakes
 chain- more hassle
brakes- more hassle.
more trouble than it's worth if u ask me.

wot he said 

plus didnt i read somewhere they should'nt be relaced for fear of scary things happening?