I have much less experience with the Rohloff than a great many others on this forum, just a year-plus on my New Raven, maybe 3500 kms in all. I have more experience with derailleur bikes, but again, probably much less than many others. I bought the Raven + Rohloff because I wanted a capable and versatile touring bike which I could also use on day rides. I no longer use a bike for commuting, as I did 15-20 years ago. Although I do loaded touring, I travel mainly on tarmac roads, on tours which are on the shorter side, from a few days to a few weeks.
Here's my take on the question, then:
A decade-plus back, I bought an Eclipse, a good quality ti-framed touring bike with carbon forks, well equipped with a T105 grupo. The Eclipse is the brand of a well-known bike shop in Ottawa/Gatineau. If I'd known then what I know now, I think I'd have opted for a quality all-steel touring bike, but I didn't so I didn't. The Eclipse fits me well, but is better suited to credit-card touring and day rides than to loaded touring. When I began to adapt it to carry heavier loads, I began to run into problems--not with the frame or forks, interestingly enough, as the bikes's handling has been good, even with loaded panniers. The problems have been with the drive train, particularly the chainset and cogset, and the rear derailleurs. Without getting into the mind-numbing details: (i) I still have the T105 brifters and front derailleur. The brifters in particular aren't perfect, because they interfere with mountain a handlebar bag, but they're OK, as are the Avid canti brakes. (ii) I'm now on my 4th cogset, two 105s, a Shim LX and now a 12 - 36 Shim Deore, and the fourth RD. (iii) I'm now on my third set of chainrings, a Deore 24-36-48.
After a lot of experimenting and changing, I've found gear-inch ratios which are are reasonably OK, though I'd want a lower gear or two if I planned to continue using the Eclipse for loaded touring. The big hassles have been rear derailleurs (the LX and the Deore) forever getting out of adjustment. These problems were never catastrophic, and sometimes they happened in places like Vermont or the Rhine Valley, good places to have a bike problem. They were common enough, however, that eventually I lost any confidence of finding the low gear I wanted going up a steep hill.
I retrospect, I think these problems were a combination of my initial lack of knowledge about touring bikes, my changing requirements & tastes, the limits of the bike's versatility, maybe the specs/capabilities of the different drivetrains, and not-so-good advice from at least one LBS.
A couple of years ago, I reached the end of my patience, and started researching options for a dedicated but versatile steel touring bike. I also learned about the Rohloff. The best options seemed to be a Surly LHT and a Thorn Sherpa or Raven, with the latter built for the Rohloff. I swallowed hard at the cost of a Rohloff--you can buy a well-equipped LHT here for the price of a Rohloff! When I thought about getting the right Shimano or SRAM combination on the Surly, however, my enthusiasm for that option disappeared, especially because, on the Eclipse, I was beginning to run into Shimano's road/MTB component incompatibility. (As I looked at the pricetag of a Rohloff, the ghosts of Scottish ancestors wagged their fingers and frowned severely while they intoned, "A penny saved is a penny earned." I told them to pxxx off, and showed them the bills for Eclipse drivetrains. I also countered with "Buy quality or repent at leisure," pointing to Hans, my old-but-still-sound BMW airhead. They retreated, grumbling all the while.)
My experience with the Rohloff, then, is part & parcel of a wholly different bike: different frame & forks, different geometry and saddle-stem-bars positioning, different wheel size, tires & brakes & fenders, different hubs fore & aft. I kept the same pedals, cleats & shoes, and my beloved B17 saddle, ditto the VO rando bars (though the Raven has a wider set). The core issue for me had been the drivetrain, however, both the ratios and the confidence in getting the right gear when I needed it. I never worry about getting the right gear with the Rohloff -- I missed one low-speed shift on a very slight upgrade on my second day of riding the bike -- and on a couple of savage uphills in Sweden last September, the Rohloff rolled all the way down to 1st gear with no problem at all. I am going to try out a 36T chainring later this summer (currently, I run a 38 x 17), to see how a slightly lower overall gear-inch range improves my cadence, especially on hills. I can do that by buying a Surly ring for $30 (in the US, that is) and a new KMC chain for $12 here -- I won't have to buy a new cogset and/or rear derailleur, and perhaps a new front derailleur as well.
My Indicator of Quality in all this is whether I think about a component, other than to say, "Dang! This thing works so well!" I almost never think about my chain now, happily spinning around encased in its 'glider; ditto my garden-variety Deore V-brakes with their Koolstop pads; ditto my spiffy brown Brooks saddle; ditto my SON 28 and ditto the Rohloff--except to remind myself that I'm now liberated from derailleurs. When I ride the Eclipse--which now works better, with wider tires, no loaded panniers and better-placed brifters 'cos there's no nice Arkel bag mounts on the bars--I still finding myself waiting for a missed shift going up a steep hill. I have learned how to adjust my rear derailleur 2 or 3 times a season, and occasionally my front one, but this, it strikes me, is a skill I didn't really want to master. Fussing with my F & R derailleurs in my workshop, I have felt like the poor souls who used to spend their Saturday mornings fiddling with the tappets on their Brit vertical twins, or sending out positive vibes to persuade their Lucas devices to work, while the rest of us were out and about.
