quote:
The only real noticeable noise I have is in 7th (I think - it's hard to tell because the numbers don't align exactly with the dot).
From the limited amount of playing I've been doing with my gear cable adjustment, I think you should be able to sort that out by slightly slackening one adjuster screw on the rear brake pivot, and tightening the other to suit.
Our tandem is noticeably noisier than a Thorn Rohloff solo we tried out, but that might be because there is more power being put through it than we could manage on our own. Even so, Gears 8 thru 11 are pretty quiet, 8 and 9 are surprisingly so. 10 gets noisier as the cadence increases and 11 is silent. 12 is the noisiest of the higher range, with 13 and 14 being slightly less so.
Gear 7 is the noisiest of the lot, but even that has got quieter with use (now over 2750 miles). 4, 5 and 6 are quite tolerable. We seldom use gear 3 and just about never use 1 and 2 so wouldn't really want to comment on them.
Luckily 11th gear is the one we use about 50% of the time. If you go for a Rohloff, I don't suppose you'd regret it, but it is worth thinking long and hard about your cruising speed and cadence and getting an input ratio to the hub so that 11 is your most used gear.
We quite often pass solos with derailleurs which are far noisier than our tandem.
We currently have a pedal bearing click which is far more annoying than hub gear noise in any gear. Must get round to doing some maintenance.
The Rohloff website contains information on how many sets of gears are engaged in each gear, and this does correspond reasonably well with noise levels ie. more gears in use=more noise.
http://www.rohloff/de/
