Hello, Holly!
A warm "Welcome Aboard" and I look forward to hearing more from you.
I'm so sorry to hear your Rohloff had problems; I know how frustrating it can be when you're the one who happens to get something with a problem. It has happened to me with a number of top-rated consumer products, and more often than not with laptop computers, it seems (4-6 motherboard replacements for each of four individual examples from the same manufacturer indicates a Problem).
In my other life, I'm an educational consultant in private practice. During the winter months, I do policy analysis, create customized contract training modules and consult on research design and methodologies and made some advancements to the field. In-between and in better weather, I put those same skills to use under contract to a number of outdoors companies as a product field tester and catalog-product photographer. In the latter role, I get to see firsthand a lot of pre-production merchandise (it "looks good" but is not complete and sometimes it is not even non-functional, but I haul it into the back-of-beyond anyway to take pretty pictures of it for the catalog -- this is why the production pieces sometimes look waaaay different than the catalog or website photos). I also get to field-test some stuff that is good and complete and not-so-good and complete and what-were-they-thinking?!? I rarely get to keep these things, but it helps to handle them in their intended environment. There's a lot of stuff I wouldn't want to buy, and some I really lust after but have to save up for, like everyone else. Most of my own stuff is older and proven and I have come to trust it because it has a good track record for
me in my own kind of use.
As a result of all this, I'm really interested in how things work out for the end-consumer, and stories of bad are as useful as good. They're all data that can be used to make a decision, evaluate, or use to triangulate one's own experience.
I am so glad you were able to receive ultimate satisfaction from CycleMonkey (Rohloff's sole North American Service Partner for the Rohloff SPEEDHUB 500/14, providing warranty service and routine maintenance:
http://www.cyclemonkey.com/ ). They're in the San Francisco Bay area, only 13 hours from me by car, so close by mail. Reassuring to know.
I'm encouraged to read that even when problematic, your hub was still relatively quiet while pedaing, and it sounds as if two of your three are acceptable, though "different" from one another. Thanks for this; I'll know to expect some variance and I'll tackle any problems as they come.
The ticking while coasting takes me back to childhood, when I owned a Campus Green Metallic Schwinn Sting-Ray with Rear Slik (sic) that used up a lot of capital letters in its name. It had a Sturmey-Archer three-speed IGH and it used to make a softish, periodic ticking when pedaling in third gear, as I recall, and a more pronounced ticking when coasting. The Rohloff -- in concept, anyway -- sounds a bit like that. Maybe it will trigger more happy memories, but hopefully none of the wheelies that were my stock in trade back then as an 8 year-old.
Thanks for the kind words. I'm eager to see if Thorn can find what is wrong with Sherpa, as the cause completely eluded me -- my first failure-to-diagnose-and-address in over 35 years of cycling. I am grateful for their stellar response and resolution, and look forward to learning about Rohloffs firsthand. I lack all experience with Rohloffs and have never ridden one, so this will be a wonderful opportunity to learn something New.
All the best,
Dan.
