Got it for two and a half years now, about 12,000km of all kinds of rides, but mainly tours, errands and weekend rides, many of them loaded or carrying child (20kg).
Agree with almost all have been said, but disagree with much of what is said in favour of the whole gearing system on Rohloff site. The hub itself is sturdy, the wheel becomes far, far superior than e.g. shimano ones (even the taller flange disc brake ones), never have to do hub or freewheel maintenance, never have to do tricky and dirty multi-cog cleaning, only one chainring to easily clean, never have to fine tune rear cable tension, no derailer hanger breaking, no spring-dependent working, and so on.
There's some very discrete oil leakage, and the efficiency is definitive less than a good deraileur, not only because of the sealing but also because of the more intricate freewheeling and gears meshing inside. Not too much to make it not worthy, though.
The noise is an irrelevant issue, but you need to get used and it takes some time. It takes some time to shift without thinking about it, too, because it engages at the very moment you do the move, there's no delay, and it is a bit shocking in the beginning.
But the OTHER parts of the gearing system are not saint:
Once I was on first gear, and thought I wasnt, or needed to downshift quickly (crossing a creek). The extra twist mistakenly applied simply ripped off the cable from its bayonette insert. Result: 30 minutes trying to reinsert the cable into the bayonette, and just because some friend had a good quality 2mm allen. At home, I had to drill that damn 2mm bolt apart, because the steel bolt inside an aluminum thread became heavily stuck, and it's not good if you have a 2mm allen to loosen it...
The grip shifter got some road dirt in a 7 hour bike race under rain, offroad. The mud got into the lever, and it worn out considerably. Now I have to periodically open it and put floor wax to lubrify the metal/plastic interface, with good (not great) results.
The fact that you don't have to really look at which gear you are in, because they are sequential, means you do not really KNOW which gear you are in, specially at night, at accelerations, or in traffic or pack rides. That means that any gear change might be the 7 to 8 to 7, and you are never absolutely sure you can shift under load. For myself, the loaded shifting has rarely worked, and I prefer alleviate the torque on the pedals in the exact moment of shifting.
At last, the hand moves necessary to shift are far more wearing and tiring and less ergonomic than with rapid fires, because you have to move your entire arm to do the shift (each gear requires a relatively long twisting, and many times you shift two or three gears at once).
The rapid fires seem much more comfortable to do shifts. Besides, your left hand often gets numb because it isn't used for shifting, and that way gets much less "action" during ride times.
Bottom line: I like very much the rohloff, and also like the derailers (c'mon, there have been decades of practice on them...). The derailers are better for leisure and maybe racing, but the rohloff makes a great everyday bike, and a much more reliable one for touring.
The system deserves some improvements: better cable connection systems at the bayonettes, and better shifter itself. Think it would be possible make two hands shifting: left hand to get higher gears, right hand to get lower, or vice versa, one gear per click, similar to what is made on trigger shifters (rapid fires, sti, etc).
Think is that for the moment, and if you ask: yes, I would buy another one (another ones, perhaps), even at the price they are, for sure! But I think they're not for everyone...
Helton
