Move over R-M, there is a new sheriff in town !

To circle back top the first post, this was the Nicolai version of the R&M Superdelite below
20_f00379_sudlt_moun_roh_51_wrmsilvmtt_1956.jpg__930x620_q100_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg

www.r-m.de

Superdelite mountain – Peak climber | Riese & Müller

No destination too high, no ride too far, no descent too steep. With Control Technology.
www.r-m.de www.r-m.de

If only they would put a Bafang Ultra with an Innotrace controller on them :)
 
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Alaskan said:
If I am that one case then this is not an accurate summary of the situation.

I had a local bike shop who had an experienced Rohloff guy in the shop who did the first routine oil change. Several months later I was swapping tires and pulled the rear skewer to remove the rear wheel. The skewer was dripping oil and upon inspection the E14 mech was covered with oil as well. There is an interior seal that failed and the breather is apparantly inside the core of the hub where the skewer passes through.

Most importantly the center half of my rear brake rotor was starting to get oil on it. Fortunately the oil had not spun outward yet to get on the actual braking surface of the rotor. It was about an inch away from causing the rear brakes to fail. This was far beyond the normal "misting'' oil due to normal respiration of the hub seal to equalize for atmospheric pressure.

The bike was still on warranty, so the Riese & Muller dealer was bound to have the wheel shipped to what was, at that time, Rohloff's sole authorized service center in Richmond California.

I have had Aaron's work on my other Rohloff equipped bike for service. However, in this case, If I had taken the bike to Aaron's I would have voided my warranty. He well may have been able to fix the bike for me but the loss of warranty on a bike that was less than one year old was not a good option.

I was not ill advised by anyone. This was an unusual failure in a Rohloff hub. The repair was done by the book due to warranty procedure and resulted in a ridiculous wait due to an unresponsive and sluggish service center. Also this hub went into the shop a full six week before covid hit.
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Your experience was where I got a lot of my info from. Apparently I remembered correctly that there are certified technicians for the rohloff and if you would have taken it somewhere that wasn't certified you would have voided your warranty, correct? That would never be the case for a traditional derailleur drivetrain. Being tethered to Bosch (granted i think their motors are the best) LBS only software updates and motor repairs is enough of a limit on choice, anything more is too much I'd be willing to accept for ease of access to maintenance and repairs

That fact alone drastically reduces the ease of maintenance of the rohloff as I have said earlier in this thread. Obviously there will be more shops willing or possessing the technical know-how to service and or repair the rohloff hub but not all of them will be certified by rohloff. I guess they operate like Bosch.

6000 miles isn't alot considering Ravi said the speedhub is supposed to last 100,000 miles. Time will tell I guess.
 
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Stefan Mikes said:
Why should Nikolai downgrade his SUV-bike?
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:)
Now that, is a matter of opinion...

I am curious, have you had a chance to evaluate the Ultra with the Innotrace controller, either on an Exess bike or one of Wattwagons's, and compare it to a Bosch?
 
Alaskan said:
Rohloff hubs were designed to be rugged, durable, trouble free and suitable for long range trekking bikes that would be loaded with gear and ridden over a wide range of surfaces and topography. As such more gears give the rider the ability to dial in more narrow and comfortable cadence. They work great on an ebike but they were not designed for them.
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This was what I was saying. It is designed for normal bikes where rider is trying to be as close to their comfortable cadence as possible.

It is not designed for ebikes and imo 14 speed is not necessary.
 
Johnny said:
This was what I was saying. It is designed for normal bikes where rider is trying to be as close to their comfortable cadence as possible.

It is not designed for ebikes and imo 14 speed is not necessary.
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Agreed,
One can only hope that if the ebike market becomes large enough, people like Rohloff or Kindernay will see the value in creating a 7 speed version of their IGH.
Pinion did, offering 6 and 9 gears versions.
 
scrambler said:
:)
Now that, is a matter of opinion...

I am curious, have you had a chance to evaluate the Ultra with the Innotrace controller, either on an Exess bike or one of Wattwagons's, and compare it to a Bosch?
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I think both R&M and Nikolai perfectly know what "Bafang" is. To start with, totally illegal in Europe.
 
Johnny said:
It is not designed for ebikes and imo 14 speed is not necessary.
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Very much depends on where and how you ride.

If you ride in rugged places and typically are going uphill a lot and in muddy or dusty riding conditions the Rohloff is a huge win on an e-bike. Also if you are riding long distances and want to maximize the efficiency of both your batteries and your poor carcass.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
Very much depends on where and how you ride.

If you ride in rugged places and typically are going uphill a lot and in muddy or dusty riding conditions the Rohloff is a huge win on an e-bike. Also if you are riding long distances and want to maximize the efficiency of both your batteries and your poor carcass.
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Nobody argues against that :)
All that is said is that the reason it has 14 gears is because it was designed for non electric bikes.

On an electric bike with enough motor power there is no need for such a high number of gears as the motor has a larger range of power to accommodate a lot less of them.
 
Johnny said:
I don't think a tensioner can create such a force however addition of a mid drive can.

Rohloff feels a bit overengineered. Do you think 2x7 gears is necessary? I always felt like 7-8 gears with a wide range would have been better.
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Like I said in the previous post, it depends on how you ride.

I think what can happen is that the tensioner might create very large transient forces on the hub as the frame flexes. These forces might effectively "shock load" the hub and cause damage to the internal parts.

My observation of the Rohloff is that it is a precision device built to precision tolerances. It is superbly reliable within those tolerances, but if you go outside them all bets are off.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
Very much depends on where and how you ride.

If you ride in rugged places and typically are going uphill a lot and in muddy or dusty riding conditions the Rohloff is a huge win on an e-bike. Also if you are riding long distances and want to maximize the efficiency of both your batteries and your poor carcass.
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Not if the uphill is technical ...no sir.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
think what can happen is that the tensioner might create very large transient forces on the hub as the frame flexes. These forces might effectively "shock load" the hub and cause damage to the internal parts.
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I don't think so, if you look closely the tensioner will actually relax(belt moves away) as the rear wheel moves up. Tensioner itself is not that stiff anyways.
 
scrambler said:
:)
Now that, is a matter of opinion...

I am curious, have you had a chance to evaluate the Ultra with the Innotrace controller, either on an Exess bike or one of Wattwagons's, and compare it to a Bosch?
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Of course he hasn't. He just talks trash about bikes he has never seen, much less ride.
 
TForan said:
Of course he hasn't. He just talks trash about bikes he has never seen, much less ride.
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Vice versa. You can flog the dead horse but the fact is R&M and Nikolai won't put the Chinese crap into their SUVs. Four million e-bikes is ridden in Germany alone.
 
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Alaskan said:
However, in this case, If I had taken the bike to Aaron's I would have voided my warranty. I am sure he would have been able to fix the bike for me but the loss of warranty on a bike that was less than one year old was not a good option.
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For an experienced E-biker such as yourself who has installed Nyon on every bike by voiding the warranty, who has installed BikeSpeed RS Delimiter on bikes ( Delite, CUBE), changed lights, stem, fenders etc. (without R-M approval), I am sure things could have been better for you. R-M voids warranty on bikes if any of the original equipment is changed. Sometime we take risks and sometimes we don't and it is upto the discretion of the individual.
  • In your R-M could have sent you loaner wheel while waiting for the hub but they have no US office or spare parts to ship you.
  • I wish Cycle Monkey was faster in responding to your request...
  • Your dealer could have shipped you a wheel while waiting ...
Everything looks different in hindsight but none of the above happened.

it comes down how well this situation was handled by your dealer and the manufacturer. There are hundreds of cracked frames manufactured by specialized, hundreds of failed hubs of Trek Allant+ 9s, an oil leak in a Rohloff hub that had 6000 miles ... sure...
 
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