Fahrrad - to Rohloff or not ?

karl j

Anyone have any thoughts on the Fahrrad Manufaktur T400 ? I'm looking for a bike that'll do most things in life, ie. commuting, shopping, longer weekend rides of up to c.40 miles etc without wanting anything that's remotely sporty, and recall this company having a good write-up in C+ a while back, maybe last year sometime( ?).

One question that concerns me is the price of a standard T400 model (£695) compared to the T400 with Rohloff hub gears (£1350) - is a Rohloff hub really worth an extra £655 ?

(prices from Bikefix website, as thats the only place i know of selling them)

fossyant

Think they are very expensive those hubs, although Shimano do them as well. Rohloff do some seriously priced chains...like £100, so don't imagine their hub gears to be cheap - the thing will probably outlast your bike, rims and you though....... :shock:

Random Vince

Rohloff continue the german practice of being over precise when engineering things

the tanks they built towards the end of WW2 had precision perfect needle bearings in

the russians however are banging tanks out as fast as possible since the life expectancy is less than 5 weeks.

as a result Rohloff are the hub gear option, something like 20 odd gears in the hub compared to the shimano nexus one, which like every other shimano part, will wear out in a few years

star_rover

As nice a piece of engineering as it is, for what you want I don't think the rohloff is worth the extra 600 quid. Have you seen the T400 in the flesh? It's built like a tank - I'd say it was more of a heavy duty tourer (and it has 26" wheels).
I quite like the look of the FMs but would be tempted more by the T900 or the randonneur (or would you rather not have drops?).

AidanR

I've got a Rohloff at home waiting to be built up into a wheel for my new bike - can't wait!

They're about £650 - £750 depending on your options, though I got mine off eBay from the States for £500 including a King front hub.

They (are supposed to!) last for *ages*, and provide precise shifting and 14 evenly spaced gears.

Whether it's worth the extra money depends on how rich you are, and how much you need the advantages it brings. £655 extra is not unreasonable, though of course the Rohloff is replacing a whole bunch of gears, shifters etc. so maybe the extra is a bit steep.

chthonic

I've got a Thorn Raven touring bike I bought second hand with a Rohloff hub.

Since I paid only a few quid more than what you've quoted for the hub alone, I can't say I'd go for one new, but, and it's a big but, for commuting/heavy touring it's fabulous.

Upsides:

It's utterly dependable and shifts regardless of whether you are pedalling or not.

Since every shift is exactly the same change in gear ratio, you soon forget which gear you are in and just start shifting up or down depending on the conditions. For stop start traffic, this can be great if, like me, your knees really won't take pushing the wrong gear.

The shift is indexed in the hub, so it never goes out of alignment - all the twist shifter does is pull a cable back and forth.

It's a clean, sealed unit. I seem to have far less oil all over the chainstays than I did with a derailleur.

Downsides:

It's heavy. This may or may not count against it in your eyes. I see it as resistance training (along with wind and red lights).

The gear changes are a bigger jump than some are used to.

Shifting between 7th and 8th can cause a momentary shift to 14th gear because of the way the mechanism works. You have to back off a tiny bit to get a clean shift.

Some gears (7th esp) are much noisier than others. Similarly the freewheel sounds different in different gears. Once you stop worrying about this, it's OK.

You need to change the oil every n kilometers. I'm about to do this on mine and it looks fiddly.

You need a special tool to change the sprocket which most bike shops won't have. That said, the sprocket is reversible to double the km it will do.

karl j

Cheers one and all. Still not much the wiser, though i'm starting to feel there are (perhaps) better things to spend an extra £650 on

Yes Star there's one i often see parked up, up the hospital when i go for my chemo. Which brings me neatly onto the situation with drops - without writing out a full medical report basically i can't have drops because of a lack of balance, uprights are fine though.

PHcp

What gearing is on the standard T400? The difference between XT/Deore and a Rohloff is around £350. That difference is reflected in Thorns prices. I like my Rohloff, but I wouldn't have spent an extra £650 on it! Whether it's worth an extra £350 depends on how much use you'll get from it and how much you like/dislike maintenance. Once bought it is very cheap to run, I calculate around 30,000 miles to pay for the difference. If that sounds like a couple of years riding it'll be a bargain, if that's going to take a couple of decades to repay I probably wouldn't bother.