Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Freewheeling => Tandems => Topic started by: thing1 on 04 February, 2014, 07:57:16 pm
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I was just about to make my biannual rant to someone about Rohloff being a bunch of lazy <redacted> for sitting on their design for 15 years with zero innovation, but thought I'd recheck the legitimacy of my claims, and buried deep in their godawful Flash based speedhub finder what should I see but a "Tandem" version of the speedhub. Great! But no, that just has longer shifter cables.
But a bit more hunting about I saw this page: http://www.rohloff.de/en/products/speedhub/spokes/index.html "36 hole hubs | SAPIM Race". Interesting...
Looking through their press-releases, it was launched in 2011:
36 Loch und Drehgriff für Linkshändler
12.05.2011 | ADFC Radwelt 5.11
Von der SPEEDHUB 500/14 gibt es ab Oktober auch eine Variante mit 36- Speichenlöchern.
Maybe I was living under a rock, but this doesn't seem very widely advertised. SJS don't seem to deal in them. Couple other shops list them though:
bikeonlineshop (http://www.bikeonlineshop.net/rohloff/speedhub-t-cc-oem-silver)
hibike (http://www.hibike.com/shop/product/p642fa02b5f4f208ff3c87c08ca2ca674/s/Rohloff-Speedhub-500-14-tandem-hub-CC-OEM.html)
While I'd love 40+ spokes for tandem use, 36h is certainly more of interest than 32h for a expedition tourer.
Anyone got one / have experience with it?
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I have no experience with Rohloffs, but what I can say is that we used to ride with 48 spokes per wheel on our tandem, until I realized that
with modern high-profile rims, the stiffness of the rim makes huge number of spokes unnecessary. We now have 36 spokes wheels with
still zero spoke failures after around 8000 km, and I'm a heavy chap.
I'm quite confident that a lightweight tandem crew could do as well with 32 spokes, as long as the rim is sufficiently stiff.
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yeah we're reasonably lightweight when riding brevets, but touring is a different matter. add a tent and clothes and cooking gear and enough water to survive a week in a desert, then put us on some roughly made gravel roads.... at that point we want all the robustness we can get.
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Not sure why they went for a 32h standard in the first place. It's not like a Rohloff was ever going to appeal to weight weenies. 36h would have made much more sense from the start for a utility/touring product.
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Not sure why they went for a 32h standard in the first place.
They forgot to consider the weight of traditions ;)
Most people, including myself, tend to consider that more spokes make a sturdier wheel. This is only a part of the problem.
Sturdiness is the result of the combination of the right rim, spokes and hub. We have experienced, on the rear wheel of
tandems, a 48 spokes wheel with a thin rim that went out of true after a few 100s of km, and 36 spokes with a rim solid as a rock
that never went out of true.
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Not sure why they went for a 32h standard in the first place.
They forgot to consider the weight of traditions ;)
;D Chapeau! A very stylish pun. :thumbsup:
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32 spokes is a silly number. It makes the balancing the spoke reflectors really difficult.
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The majority of decent MTB wheels are 32 spoked.
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Not sure why they went for a 32h standard in the first place. It's not like a Rohloff was ever going to appeal to weight weenies. 36h would have made much more sense from the start for a utility/touring product.
32 spokes make it easier to get fat finger access to the oil port grub screw for the annual oil change !
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Phil Wood designed a 36-hole hub for Rohloff gears.
(http://www.pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-001/philwoodco.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/rohloff-hub1-1.jpg)
I don't know how much they cost or how many have been made. That looks to me to have a considerably larger diameter than the Rohloff-built shell and would therefore bring with it some issues for lacing a 26" wheel.
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I can't see the point in taking all the internals out of a Rohloff hub, and putting them back in a bigger shell.
Do Phil claims any benefit?
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At the time, it was the only way to get anything other than 32 holes on a Rohloff. It also looks very pretty and was originally done as a special order for a bike collector wanting exclusive his-and-her bikes.
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[bump]
I'm back on the expedition tandem browse again. Things are getting that itchy feet feeling.
Still can't find any reports of anyone having 36H Rohloff on a tandem, and the thorn tandem brochure (apparently updated May 2016) doesn't even mention it as an option.
So I'm like ???
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I can get a Rohloff in a 36 drilling. Just not before Christmas!
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We've got one on a tandem. It came as part of a complete new build from Roberts in summer 2014. Unfortunately due to slightly delayed completion we missed a trip that year but did six weeks from Burgundy through Switzerland, Italian Lakes, Tuscany, Corsica and back to France in 2015. We are probably traveling fairly light, both being reasonably small and our days of camping with the tandem are over, so perhaps not testing it to its limits. First time having a Rohloff and very pleased with it for the tandem. Now arranging another 6 weeks in Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and back to France starting in April, so no reservations at the moment.
The new tandem replaced one we had had for about 25-30 years which had the standard for a touring tandem of the time of 700C 48 spoke wheels. I was satisfied that going from 700C to 26", no dishing and with better modern rims we would have a wheel at least as strong as before, if not stronger. I suppose the question is whether the 36 spoke Rohloff gives much advantage over the 32 spoke or even whether the additional spokes actually make it weaker due to the additional drillings. Unfortunately I can't answer that but I specified the 36 spoke hub and am confident of its strength. The only real problem we have had with a wheel was on the previous tandem in New Zealand, a broken flange on a Hope tandem hub after less than 1000 miles, and again relatively lightweight, so I suppose problems can happen to any wheel regardless of number of spokes.
Happy tandeming.
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:thumbsup: Thanks IanA for confirming their existence! Still surprised it's not pushed more in tandem builds.
Like you say, maybe just not necessary in many cases, but for a heavy tourer I'd still feel more confident in having 36h instead of 32.
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whether the additional spokes actually make it weaker due to the additional drillings
I think this is the reason it's not widely promoted and used.
I asked Thorn about a 36 spoke rear wheel on a new Raven they were building for me and was told the extra drillings make the flange weaker.
In Patagonia I met a German chap who had a Rohloff and one spoke had pulled through the flange. Rohloff had offered, he said, to send him a replacement but he thought it would be impossible to find a good-quality wheel builder in Chile so he'd done a bodge with a kevlar spoke and had ridden 5,000k on it. (I bought a kevlar spoke after that conversation.)
I have 36 spokes on the front, where there is a Shimano dynohub, but only 32 spokes on the back. But I've done lots of heavy touring on bad roads and the rear wheel is still true.
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I can't see the point in taking all the internals out of a Rohloff hub, and putting them back in a bigger shell.
Do Phil claims any benefit?
I'd ask Wowbagger his opinion on this.
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Interesting.
I keep going in circles on this. Maybe we just stick with our 9sp derailure thorn tandem. But it needs a bunch of frame patchup work, not to mention the whole drive train is rather tired. And we'd like couplers. And internal gear *should* be so much better choice.
Hmmmm