I have a Gazelle Medeo T10, which I love. But I live in an apartment in San Francisco, and I would love a Gates belt and an internal hub. Rohloff has an amazing gear spread, which is great if you're using your own legs on a heavy-duty tour. But for an Ebike, I just think 14 gears seems like overkill. Fitted with a Bosch drive with 4 power levels, you have a a theoretical 56 gears Why wouldn't Rohloff make a 10 speed hub for ebikes? Presumably it would be smaller, cheaper and lighter, which are everyone's biggest complaints about Rohloff.
Rohloff E-14 0 do we need that many gears?
- Thread starter Ash Nazg
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Stefan Mikes
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- Europe
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- Mazovia, Poland
Assist Modes are not gears. The proper way of using an e-bike is to stick at a single assist mode, and only manipulating the assist whenever the riding conditions have dramatically changed (riding upwind or uphill). The general idea of bike gears is:
- Giving the rider possibility to maintain constant pedalling cadence
- Make cold start easy, even uphill -- low gears -- and make it possible to still pedal when riding downhill -- the top gear
- Big number of gears makes "jumps" on shifting small and equal, which makes it easy to maintain cadence.
AHicks
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- USA
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- Snow Bird - Summer S.E. Michigan, Winter Gulf Coast North Central Fl.
On the bold, I agree 100% as do others.
Personally, because I prefer larger drive motors (preferring 1000w+ to 250w) I'd be fine with a 6 or 7 speed IGH that could match the Rohloff for dependability. In a perfect world it would be less expensive as well as stronger....
If I were limited to something like a 250w drive motor, the 14 speed may suit me just fine.....
ruffruff
Well-Known Member
Gazelle Ultimate 380+ has this
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fooferdoggie
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I like small steps ij my gears to I can keep my cadence the same. my 10 on my bike sometimes is not a good fit. its worse on our tandem sometimes.
PedalUma
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- Petaluma, CA
I am in the hilly N Bay. I was just riding my three speed Nexus. What a perfect day! With adequate power you do not need minor increments between gears. If you are using only your own legs, true, smaller jumps might be noticed. I agree14 is overkill. Would you drive a car with a 14 speed manual transmission and use all of the gears? I jump gears on a five speed bike. It would be 56 combinations of power levels x gears on the Rohloff. With my three speed, which is a blast to ride, I have 12 combinations. That is plenty.
14 is way too much. This is designed for a regular bike so that the rider stays with in the optimum power band at a given cadence as much as possible. With the addition of motor power that band significantly widens.
7-9 gears with a similar range would be much much better for ebikes.
7-9 gears with a similar range would be much much better for ebikes.
fooferdoggie
Well-Known Member
I don't agree.I ride my ebike like a regular bike. I only use the assist levels to keep my speed and effort where I want. I am constantly shifting as the road changes to keep my effort and cadence the same. I try to keep my effort level level so I can do long distances.
Don't agree with what ? Assuming that what you mean by riding it like a regular bike means with little or no assist then that is pretty much a regular bike and rohloff is built for that.
Also do you own a Rohloff? Didn't you have a 10 speed derailleur on your bike ?
PedalUma
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- USA
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- Petaluma, CA
I have recently made a few 10 and 11 speed bikes for folks and that is just not needed. My own distance bike is a 9-sp down from an 11 so I can have a wider chain and stronger yet less expensive gears. The three speed IGH I rode today has a super beefy chain. It would be like having 14 different sizes of screw drivers for working on bikes when three or four sizes will do with less clutter.
fooferdoggie
Well-Known Member
I ride like I have no
I am always shifting as the terrane changes to keep my cadence even. I use assistance to get the speed I want. the only time I am not shifting is when I am on a flat surface for a bit once up to speed. after riding a recumbent I have the shifting thing built in. my mid drive just removes the need for a front shifter.
Mr. Coffee
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- USA
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- A Demented Corner of the North Cascades
If you ride somewhere pancake flat (e.g. Florida, the Netherlands, Minneapolis) 14 speeds is possibly too much. If you have actual hills then you'll appreciate 14 speeds.
This.
The funny thing is, if we had the distribution of time on each gear, I am certain that even for most of regular cyclists the distribution would be heavily falling on <8 gears let alone the ebike crowd here.
The mathematics is also simple. The reason why you need an additional gear is, if you can not produce enough power to keep the speed up for your comfortable cadence then you don't lose much speed when going to a lower gear. When an ebike motor adds even 50-100W that makes a big jump which will let the rider to keep the cadence by going a bit faster.
For example cyclist at its preferred cadence may produce enough power for 5mph but the gears let's it go 3.5mph or 6 mph. While an additional gear "may" give 4.5mph, if this person have the additional assist from the motor then it can easily keep 6mph and not need the additional gear or it can simply ride comfortably at 3.5mph.
Also people seem to be confused about range and number of gears. Less gears does not mean that you have to have a lower range. If you want to climb stiff hills what you need is a larger gear not "more " gears.
And finally let's assume that for some irrational reason they want to keep the exact same candence for every possible speed. In that case the only thing that will satisfy that itch is continuous gearing hence a CVT but those offerings are limited in range and inefficient!
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Deleted member 18083
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I haven’t needed “that many gears", but there’s never been a downside to having them.
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Just to clarify: On my own bike I stay in ECO mode 98% of the time. If I've just eaten or am feeling sick or tired, I will permit myself to dip into tour mode. On my bike I find 10 gears to be enough. Given that Rohloff was originally designed for non-electric bikes as a bullet-proof solution for long distance touring, its design makes sense. But I think if Rohloff were to make a 10 speed hub that was lighter and less expensive they could expand their market share.
Shimano design alfine 5 speed specifically for commuter ebikes. 263% combined 65nm motor and there would be many hills a urban commuter couldn't climb with. I've seen it paired with 85nm CX motor so rating maybe higher than original 65nm.
In case of E14 if it aint broke don't fix it especially if its selling well.
In case of E14 if it aint broke don't fix it especially if its selling well.
ava1ar
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- USA
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- North NJ
If you have actual hills what you really appreciate is gears range (with proper cog setup) - number of gears between min and max doesn't matter that much.
I personally agree that for ebikes 14 gears might not be that necessary. I.e. Kindernay released simpler and cheaper 7-gears version of their 14-gear hub, so customers can choose.
fooferdoggie
Well-Known Member
on our tandem we need something between the last two smallest cogs I think they are 11 and 12. if we want to g a bit faster then the 18.5 cruise speed the next cog 11 is a bit too much we cant keep our cadence ups bit frustrating. but to much would help that.
Mr. Coffee
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- USA
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- A Demented Corner of the North Cascades
Typical 1x7 cog setups have about a 350% gear range
Typical 1x11 cog setups have about a 450% gear range
A Rohloff has a 550% gear range
Yes, you can get a hub pizza like a SRAM Eagle but then you are spending quite a bit of money too. For something that is large and vulnerable and exposed to the environment.
Another big unspoken advantage of a Rohloff is that they do much better in very dusty or muddy environments and in snow -- once snow packs in on your cog (and it will) you can't shift. Also, at least for me there has been much less to break and I've managed with a Rohloff for years without anything but replacing the hub oil once a year. I personally have a low opinion of the e-14 system but the hub itself is awesome.
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