Another multi-Rohloff owner chiming in here. First, regarding shifting effort, it definitely requires more effort than a derailer or a Shimano IGH, but the reason is that you are feeling the effort required to change the gears in the hub itself, as opposed to just advancing the indexing in the shifter. That is to say, if you disconnect the shift box from the hub, the shifter will simply freewheel back and forth through its range. If you feel a shift, you got a shift, unlike the Shimano IGHs, which have a nice snappy click that only means that the shift cable moved; sometimes you are left waiting for he shift to take place. If, however, the shifting effort is as you describe, something is wrong with the cable or the shifter. I recently replaced my cable and housing for the first time after four years of touring and daily commuting, in addition to replacing my original twist shifter with the 2nd generation shifter (I kept the original as a backup), and the shift effort is reduced dramatically. It was perfectly fine before, even though the cable was starting to fray - now it's easier and has less free play.
As for momentary freewheeling, this should never happen and the hub is covered by a lifetime warranty regardless of whether or not you are the original buyer. Contact Cycle Monkey; they will either fix it or swap in a new (maybe refurbished) gear mechanism into your existing hub/wheel. Of course, pausing while shifting cures most problems, but the hub is designed to never freewheel. And that's precicely why I'm so in love with my Rohloffs - the failure mode is still a workable condition that would allow me to finish any trip. Very low temperatures can cause the gear oil to gel which can result in freewheeling. In those conditions, you are advised to run a 50/50 mixture of the normal oil and the light cleaning oil. In extreme cold applications, you can run 100% cleaning oil, but if the bike is brought into room temperature, some of the thin oil can leak past the seals. My first Rohloff was a Craigslist find, new in box with all the documentation but between 5 and 10 years old. When I brought it to Cycle Monkey, they commented that my serial number was in the 10,000s, whereas production was past 100,000 at that point. I originally had a wheel built and had the system retrofitted on to my old Gary Fisher Hoo Koo e Koo for touring with a Bob trailer. This required both the long torque arm and the chain tensioner. Both are so extremely well thought-out and executed that they never caused any hassle whatsoever. I did have a bit of freewheeling and Cycle Monkey made a small adjustment which fixed the problem. Eventually, I realized that I wanted a fully rigid touring bike so I could run front panniers, so I went with a Thorn Raven Tour. Without any insult intended to Riv, it is a lot like a TIGed, Rohloff-specific Bombadil. It has a massive twin-plate fork crown, a big, simple, eccentric bottom bracket so no tensioner is needed, and an OEM 2 rear dropout which makes the torque arm unnecessary. I have done everything on this bike. Thousands of miles of fully loaded and self-supported tours including many miles of rough dirt roads and trails, plus everyday commuting and grocery getting, and the occasional cargo extravagance, like strapping a gas grill to the rear rack and riding it to a park for a picnic, or a case of beer in bottles on the rear and a full load of groceries in the panniers. In all that time, zero dropped chains, ever. Zero missed shifts, ever. Total maintenance in four years is two oil changes and one replacement of cables and housing. The bike is a tank, however; around 39lbs without anything on the racks. So I became obsessed with Surly's Troll, found a frame on Craigslist, and then found the ultimate Craigslist miracle: a Rohloff-equipped mountain bike for $1100. I bought it, removed the wheelset and drivetrain, converted it to single-speed, and sold it for about $600. My Troll is now up and running with Rohloff wheelset, 26"x60mm Schwalbe Big Apples, and Salsa Woodchipper bars. It's my first self-built, self spec'd bike, and it is so fantastically versatile it blows my mind. Slick tires and drop bars means long days on pavement are no problem. The huge air volume means fire roads and singletrack are completely in the realm of possibility with a little drop in air pressure. And the reliability of the Rohloff means I just jump on and ride with no thought to shifting, ever. Daniel M Berkeley, CA -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
