What's your Rohloff combo (chainring, cog)?

[Andre Jute]

Andre!

I dont' want to keep you up any later, but (for morning) I can tell you the Hebie Chainglider -- and your account of it on this forum, and comparison to other chain cases including the Utopia -- looks ideal for my needs. It would be especially nice, it would seem, in the desert playa, where it would greatly protect the chain from the talc-like dust wheb dry, and the clay-ike goo when wet.

However, I hestitate due to several impediments that worry me --

1) The potential for noise in use. I like my bikes as quiet as possible, and I am concerned a chain case that effectively glides over the chain might also be noisy. It'd be kinda neat of it sort of "hovered" over the chain instead.

2) The difficulty in getting a good fit for the gearing combos I might find best.

3) This link, right here... http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=43859.0 ...where allusion is made to the Hebie Chainglider damaging Rohloff hubs. Apparently, their construction (perhaps glass-filled and therefore somewhat abrasive?) can ride directly on the side flange of a Rohloff and, with time, cut through it like a lathe.

That would not be good.

Andre, what are your thoughts on these concerns, and what suggestions do you have for overcoming them? I'd like to see a Hebie Chainglider in my future, but I am a bit worried. I'd hate to slice the end off the Rohloff like so much dry salami.

Best,

Dan.

First of all, forget the Utopia Country chain case. It won't see out a day of cross-country service. It is made stupid-light, including in some of the permanent parts. Also, you might have difficulty getting the necessary consumable service parts; those four bellows are not supposed to last longer than a year, and they won't last a day in contact with any desert flora.

Secondly, forget the Dutch plastic chain cases. Those are big, and noisy, and vulnerable to stones. I wrecked two against lampposts. They're also heavy. Metal in that design might survive a few years but the weight and the noise... Forget it.

Really, the only chain case you should even consider is the Hebie Chainglider. It's flexible, small, relatively light, and tougher than old boots. It is also a superior design, intrinsically, theoretically, and in practice, as well as in execution, to any of the others, including the traditional Dutch styles. By a mile.

To answer your specific questions, there is no additional noise from the Chainglider. The article quoted in this thread was written by someone who most likely has never used a Chainglider;' it reads like street corner gossip. Noise from a CG is an indication that it requires to be adjusted, and even this noise is a faint whirring. You adjust the Chaingilder until there is no noise, by adjusting the length, pushing the arms in differentially to the sprocket cover. (No, those ridges are not saw guides, they're locks.) I don't know quite how it does it, but it appears that the rear fitting holds the main run of the Chainglider clear of the chain.

My experiment with running a chain in only the factory lube without extra oil takes on additional importance here.



That Chainglider isn't new, it's done 2700km. It was last cleaned 700km earlier when the zero extra lube chain experiment started.  I think we must conclude that, if the CG were to rub against a chain, without lubrication, there would be markings after a 700km. There aren't. Refer to the photo. It now stands at over 1100km without extra lube, but I had it open a couple of weeks ago and there was no point in taking photographs as it looks the same.

I don't see your problem with a good gearing solution. You can, from memory, have any of the 15, 16 or 17 tooth cogs. You can choose among chain rings with 38, 42 and 44 teeth. You have to decide whether huge diameters of toothed rings for the same gearing will give you greater longevity or lower cost per mile than covering smaller diameter gears. I think you will find it no contest, and the Chainglider's tendency to eliminate maintenance will be a very strong additional benefit.

The Hebie Chainglider may once have scratched some Rohloff hubs. But the sprocket cover has been redesigned since then so that there is now a specific Rohloff rear end to the Chainglider, and that problem is long solved. I just now also made a visual inspection of my Rohloff hub, on which the Hebie Chainglider has run over 3000km, and there's not a scratch on it.

The real problem with the Hebie Chainglider for you, in particular, is not noise, gearing, or casing damage. For 11 months in the year, I can just about guarantee, from experience, that a Chainglider will be a superior solution for you, whatever you do, to a bare chain. (Ditto for virtually all the other posters here. I'm absolutely amazed at the resistance.) But in the other month, when you go into the desert, a problem may arise. It is whether the Chainglider will fully exclude the fine dust in which you ride on your desert tour. It seems to me at least possible that the fine dust will enter through the opening at the sprocket end, and form a grinding paste with any wet lube you use inside the Chainglider, which from there will spread through out the tube it forms, which elsewhere is pretty well sealed against itself. I have no way of telling whether this is a real possibility; the Chainglider shrugs off my lightly dusted roads, and rain too, as you can see in the photograph where the outside of the Chainglider and the bike has a fine film of dust, and the mudguard shows splashes of wet, yet the inside is pristine; not exactly a tough test!

Andre Jute

[martinf]

Really, the only chain case you should even consider is the Hebie. It's flexible, small, relatively light, and tougher than old boots. It is also a superior design, intrinsically, theoretically, and in practice, as well as in execution, to any of the others, including the traditional Dutch styles. By a mile.

Interesting. I considered a chaincase for my 5-speed hub geared commuter more than 10 years ago, but ended up rejecting the idea as too much hassle to fit a Dutch-style chaincase to my existing bike.

More recently, when first considering a new Rohloff-equipped Thorn in 2006, I asked SJS Cycles about chaincases and they basically said they didn't advise them, partly because they thought there might be problems using the eccentric bottom bracket.

Even more recently, I found the Utopia (too expensive for the claimed service life) and Hebie. I was put off the Hebie when I found the information about the non-specific Rohloff design damaging the hub, this has obviously since been sorted with the Rohloff-specific version.

Any idea what the service life of a Hebie Chainglider might be?

[Danneaux]

Hi All!

I'm terribly pressed for time today, so I can't participate or reply as I'd like till tomorrow, but Martin raises a very good point I'm hoping you may be able to amplify and address, Andre. Namely...

I asked SJS Cycles about chaincases and they basically said they didn't advise them, partly because they thought there might be problems using the eccentric bottom bracket.

Andre, does having an eccentric BB with a range of motion affect the Hebie Chainglider's fit?

Thanks, everyone!

Best,

Dan.

[Andre Jute]

Any idea what the service life of a Hebie Chainglider might be?

No idea. Mine's getting on for two years, and if I scrubbed it up, I could probably sell it as hardly used. Certainly it will be much longer than the service of the Utopia Country, and even a well made Dutch plastic chain case. The Chainglider seems to me well conceived, designed and made.

Andre Jute

[Andre Jute]

Andre, does having an eccentric BB with a range of motion affect the Hebie Chainglider's fit?

I don't see how. It sounds like one of those street myths in the general resistance to the whole idea of a chain case.

The Hebie Chainglider fits to any wheelbase length by inserting more or less of the tubes carrying the chain into the sprocket cover, which also locks the assembly.

The Hebie Chainglider is therefore specifically designed to adapt to several lengths. It doesn't matter whether the variable depth is wheelbase length or EBB adjustment.

What's the range of movement of the eccentric bottom bracket, 15mm? Even for twice that, you just move the Chainglider arms in and out. Original setup should be about the middle of the range of adjustment. In the slotted axle hanger Rohloff designed and advises manufacturers to use, the Rohloff box can move near enough an inch backwards and forwards, and it makes no difference to the Chainglider.

As for the vertical movement that the EBB imposes in part of its adjustment, it's irrelevant because Hebie's Chainglider, uniquely, is nowhere attached to the bike. The entire assembly will just rotate fractionally around the sprocket.

Andre Jute

[Danneaux]

A tremendous help, Andre; thank you!

I agree, the Hebie Chainglider sounds the stuff of my dreams except for touring on dry desert playa. Last trip through in the car, I came home and found it had even sifted in to fill the interior of the taillights. The lenses are glued solidly in place, and the bulbs are gasketed with dense foam, under trim panels accessible only via the car interior. The stuff silts and sifts everywhere and even seems to condense in quantity from whatever is floating in the air. This corrosive alkali is the stuff that makes my lips and nose bleed after a couple days' exposure. It is an order of magnitude worse than the ashfall we received from Mt. St. Helens' eruption in 1980. You're absolutely spot-on as to what would happen if it entered the chain case, and -- yes -- mine is not the usual situation, where I am sure it would work fine.

I can easily see myself with a Hebie Chainglider for all ordinary use (yes!), to be removed for my tours (replaced with a crank-mounted bash guard/chain protector), then reinstalled upon my return. That would give the best of all worlds while avoiding problems in one unique environment.

Wonderful responses, more than I could have hoped for.

All the best,

Dan. (oh-so-pressed today, but checking on things here when I can)

[Danneaux]

Another question or two, Andre, since the Hebie Chainglider (which I am more and more tempted to purchase) determines gearing and vice versa...

How difficult/quick is removal and replacement in the event of a flat tire?

I realize you've set your bikes up so flats simply.do.not occur, but for those of us more likely to incur flats (via goathead thorns, if nothing else), is a wheel-change still an easy process? At least compared to a flat on the rear of a derailleur bike? Thinking about the process (but not having done it) on a bike with the Rohloff EX box, you'd have to...
1) Open the brakes if your tires are wide.
2) Disconnect the EX box via the thumbscrew.
3) Unsnap the (maybe entire) Hebie Chainglider.
4) Throw the q/r and drop the wheel.
Installation would be the reverse.

Andre, I have to ask again, given my mania over having a quiet bike...is the Hebie CG objectively quiet? Can you somehow quantify for me the extra noise it produces, if any? I just don't want to have to hear the boggita-boggita-boggita* of the chain links clattering on some sort of internal plastic knob, though I can't imagine how they possibly could, given your case shows no wear.

[*When I had my own car-repair shop years ago, I would encourage customers to imitate the noise that caused them to seek service; made it far easier to find the problem. A number were quite good at it, and often supplemented the noises with gestures. I am but an amateur.]

Andre, your wonderful writing skills combined with your great enthusiasm and a keen, analytical mind make me reach reflexively to draw out my wallet. I realize you've tested the Hebie Chainglider extensively and carefully looked for and noted any possible shortcomings, and you surely gave me a good steer on the SKS pump, for which I am very grateful. I ask the above not in doubt but because getting one of these things is Real Money to me, and I have to be um, "careful" (thanks, Ian).  As for the desert, I figure I can either swap before the trip for a pie-plate bash guard, or possibly even remove the Hebie CG and carry it under my my load straps in the dustier portions. Remember, I ride from and back to my front door, so often there is as much as 300 road miles/480km before I hit the really silty stuff, and I use generous mudflaps to extend the mudguards.

Thanks for your patience with me.

All the best,

Dan.

[Andre Jute]

Let's deal first with the noise, since that would be a deal breaker for me too; I'm sensitive to noise and to vibrations in my hands. (A writer is a sort of manual worker; he operates a keyboard.) Any noise in a Hebie Chainglider setup is indicative of a maladjusted Chainglider. The noise, when the Chainglider is maladjusted is exactly what you would expect, a sort of whirring sound between chain and Chainglider, but at a much lower level than you would expect. The Chainglider material is thicker than it looks in my photograph, which doesn't make the bevelled edges quite clear, and it isn't resoundingly hard like the Dutch plastic cases (nor soft like rubber) but resilient, probably loaded with fiberglass so that it dampens sound. But, most of all, it fits very tightly together over the run of the chain and even over the chainring, though less so over the sprocket, but it matters less there because the central hole is pretty small and behind tubes and rack legs and other transmission fittings, so that very little sound escapes.

A well adjusted Chainglider is silent, period.

If you have a flat, first disassemble the Hebie Chainglider as far as you need to. This is not a big deal as long as you remember to put the smallest part, the external clip at the front of the chainring, in a deep pocket. The parts pull apart easily with your fingers. If you have a magic link, maybe you can get away with taking off only the sprocket cover; I consider it rather unlikely. But you don't take the whole Chainglider off. I normally leave the pieces hanging, and it has done no harm. You won't damage the thing unless you try very hard. The reason for the further disassembly is to get the chain off the sprocket; the Chainglider is such a close fit, even with the sprocket covers off, it works against you here. But we're talking about twenty seconds, once you've worked out how far you need to go. Same for reassembly. Everything just clicks together with the German precision innocents expect to find in the Rohloff gearbox controller...javascript:void(0);

That done, disconnect the EX box which is fast (putting it back can be a pain until you learn to use one hand to wriggle the rotary gear change control ever so slightly so you can get the EX box onto its two pins and the correctly aligned on the searching shaft), squeeze the flat tyre past the brakes, and drop the wheel out. Even with 32mm wide rims, I've never had to adjust the brakes to get the wheel out; in general, tyres are so much wider than the rims that having to fiddle with the brakes smacks to me of poor design.

None of this adds appreciably to the time it takes to fix a flat, unless you're racing, in which case you might begrudge the 30 seconds (twice, disassembling and fitting up again) taken by the Chainglider and the EX box thumbscrew, at least until you've had some practice.

The insidious dust you describe will definitely combine with the oil, and inside the tight confines of the Chainglider grind your chain, and probably your chainring and sprocket too, into submission. Every other chain case known to me will let in more dust, but it's an irrelevant observation, as any chain case would be more dangerous to your transmission than its absence.

I see no problem carrying a Hebie Chainglider under straps, but it's a pretty big, awkward, even obstructive thing. You won't manage to fold it. I think for that month in the year you will have to do without.

Andre Jute

[Danneaux]

Andre,

This is an outstanding response, and -- I am sure -- appreciated by far more people than just myself.

Thinking back to my thread on long-lived parts, if this thing works for me anywhere near as well as it does for you, it will quickly become an "essential" in my cycling. And, I agree -- best to leave it off for the hardcore desert touring. For those trips, I will simply fit a "pie-plate" or bash-guard style chainring protector, then swap back to the Hebie upon my return. I have watched the movie at http://www.hebie.de/Chainglider-350-38-42-44.hebie350chainglider.0.html so many times, now, I think I could put one on or take it off in my sleep.

I know you know noise and sound -- you've got the audiophile background to more than qualify -- and if you say it's quiet (provided it is properly assembled), it's going to be quiet.

As for the tire repair/wheel change angle, you've completely satisfied me on that score as well. Keying off your description, I recently read of a clever additional theft-prevention technique for Rohloff-equipped bikes: 1) Shift into 14th. 2) Remove EX box. 3) Shift back to 1st gear. This leaves the bike stuck in 12th, making it difficult for a thief (who presumably would have spent time already disabling the locks) to ride away quickly. Sounds promising as an additional layer of defense. In my case, I'll have the ring-lock and its cable as well as the Pitlocks (yes, I will go for some; it seems unlikely people in the small towns I pass through will be familiar with them) and motion-sensing alarm to deter theft.

Thank you again, Andre; you're doing a real service for those of us who have so often wondered about chain-cases and wished for the near-'nuff perfect solution.

All the best,

Dan.

[il padrone]

Reading your review and extra comments Andre, I'm glad I ordered the Hebie Chainglider for Rohloff yesterday   Should be really good for chain wear,and it will get comments from my cycle club mates  

"What next.... clogs?"  





Re. dust. I don't see that the chain in a Hebie will get any worse than a chain out in the open with all that dust. My chain on the Oodnadatta Track got pretty dusty. I just had to wipe and lube it every couple of days.

[Andre Jute]

Hah, but was the statuette the elegant gentleman won as well-dressed?

Dan's playa dust is special, a sort of sifted concrete.

I've even demounted tires after a trip -- ones that were never underinflated or flat -- and found the dust had entered the rim through the spoke holes, then migrated around the tube to coat the inside of the tire casing.

When the stuff gets damp -- after a rain or near the "shoreline" of a dry lake -- it becomes...well, it turns to a grey, clayey goo that literally paints whatever it comes in contact with, and it doesn't come off.

In the close confines of the Hebie I think it will, with the oil, grind the chain into nothing, or if it runs out of oil set it solid, as if in a tight tube of concrete. Either could be a disaster. I don't imagine Dan carries a spare chain, and anyway, the chainring and sprocket would also be stuck to the chain. The playa may be one case where a big ole Dutch chain case, with extra holes drilled in the bottom to let the dust out again, may be superior to the Chainglider. (Not advising it, eh, Dan; those plastic cases won't take the slightest rough riding.)

Andre Jute

PS The comments from your club mates could be, "Sissy!" and "A real cyclist has oil on his legs."

[il padrone]

How difficult/quick is removal and replacement in the event of a flat tire?

I realize you've set your bikes up so flats simply.do.not occur, but for those of us more likely to incur flats (via goathead thorns, if nothing else), is a wheel-change still an easy process? At least compared to a flat on the rear of a derailleur bike? Thinking about the process (but not having done it) on a bike with the Rohloff EX box, you'd have to...
1) Open the brakes if your tires are wide.
2) Disconnect the EX box via the thumbscrew.
3) Unsnap the (maybe entire) Hebie Chainglider.
4) Throw the q/r and drop the wheel.
Installation would be the reverse.

One thing about the Chainglider is that it may assist with one of the shortcomings of the Nomad. One thing missing from the frame that would be valuable when wheel changing is a chain hook on the seat stay. Without a jockey cage tensioner the chain simply slumps to the ground when you take the wheel off.... into the dust and grit   .

With the Chainglider you may be able to remove the wheel by just removing the rear section. In that case the sections along the upper and lower runs of chain would help to hold the chain up and protect it from any ground contact. Bonus!

[martinf]

Thanks André.

Looks like the Hebie Chainglider does solve most of the problems raised by chaincases with a Thorn Rohloff and other bikes not designed from scratch for chaincases.

No way any of my local French shops will stock one, but they are available mail order from Germany at http://www.roseversand.com

I think I'm going to get one rapidly to try out on my 5-speed - that has 44x21, so ought to be directly compatible without having to change sprocket or chainring.

And not too expensive at 28.5 Euros for the appropriate front and non-Rohloff rear bits. The Rohloff version naturally costs a little more.

For Rohloff, the listed compatible chainrings and sprockets are 38, 42 or 44T  with 15, 16 or 17T.

The 38x16 combination is the lowest "legal" option, and is equivalent to the 50x21 I was thinking of getting. And from the information on the Rose site the rear Chainglider is the same for 15-17 so I could change the gearing to 38x17 later on without having to change the chaincase.

I don't go anywhere near alkali deserts, but here in Brittany and down the west coast of France we have a lot of sandy cycle tracks. Sand plus rain is a good recipe for quickly wearing out an unprotected chain.

[Andre Jute]

I hope Hebie knows where to send the cheque!

I used to be in advertising and my erstwhile associates will turn in their graves to hear that I give such good word of mouth free of charge...

Andre Jute

[sg37409]

40*16 with a 26*1.6 tyre. I chose these with gear 11 in mind, and have found myself in 11 mostly, 10 if its windy or I'm tired. I thought gear 11 would be important due to the draggie-ness of the rohloff, and I think thats a very minor factor even when new. I reckon I was over concerned about it, though this may be due to the fact I'm content to pootle along on the rohloff rather than "training" on the racer.