I ..... thought the rohloffs were more touring than mtb
Herr Rohloff was brassed off that the geartrain on his mountainbike was destroyed in a single ride on a beach, and designed his hub gearbox specifically as an industrial-strength replacement for MTB competition. That's one reason the Rohloff hub gearbox is halfway to being an agricultural implement. It is ironic that the first manufacturer to embrace the reliable Rohloff HGB was the German firm Utopia, makers of upmarket touring and utility bikes -- and not a single MTB! And we're here on a site paid for by Thorn, who took to the Rohloff for making -- wait for it! -- touring bikes, though Thorn did much later add an off-road MTB. (Maybe someone more glib than me can stretch a point to breaking and argue that the Ravens run on sturdy 26in wheels and are therefore touring mountainbikes.) On the Continent there are a few makers of classy offroad bikes who offer the option of Rohloff hub, and various offroad racing teams use them; it may easily be that most are sold for that kind of use, and that the impression that you have, in common with the rest of us, that most Rohloffs ever made seem to be on touring bikes, arises merely because we're into touring bikes rather than the other kind: we generalize from what we know. -- Andre Jute
