Outside northern Europe I go with a dérailleur, which can be fixed or replaced by any reasonable roadside bike shop, or if you have the skills and tools by yourself or other touring cyclists, and that includes the possible need to replace a rear wheel, spokes or a rim or a normal hub
A hub gear, needs an expert, so a breakage of either the hub gear, or the rear wheel is going to mean at least major inconvenience, or possibly termination of the trip.
When touring outside Northern Europe, K.I.S.S.!
Absolute rubbish!
If it's good enough for Mark Beaumont's 18,000 mile trip...
Since taking on the world, Mark has been sponsored by Koga Miyata and he made his global journey on a custom-built Signature. “It was a big, 63cm aluminium frame and I rode 700cc
wheels on a Rohloff 14-speed hub with a Smitz front hub dynamo,” he says. “Out front, I rode butterfly bars on a 110mm stem for a more stretched position for the big flats. It was an incredibly comfortable and reliable setup. I also rode a SMP Pro saddle, which looks very alternative with its eagle beak and big split, but proved amazing for the big miles.”
Mark was unsupported en route, so he carried all his own kit, fitting it into a standard five-pannier setup that included GPS Iridium tracking, film kit, laptop,
clothes, camping gear and food.
“I changed a back
tyre every 2,000 miles and a front tyre every 3,500 miles,” he explains. “The Rohloff was superb throughout and took less than 1,000 miles to run in smoothly, so I only used three chains throughout and had one oil change. It was incredibly low maintenance – I wouldn’t go back to a derailleur setup for long tours. The only big challenge I had was with broken wheels and that was caused by a mistake with the initial set up where the spokes were over-tensioned.”
In the extremely unlikely event of my Rohloff hub catastrophically failing my rear drop out will accommodate a single speed wheel or a derailleur set up. Any failure of the rear wheel could be a major inconvenience in remote areas but on the two occasions that it's happened to me with derailleured rear wheels I simply bought a replacement wheel, once in Dumfries and once in Dijon.
While cycling in Washington State this summer, I met a couple of Scots whose Rohloff hub on their tandem was leaking far more oil than it should. The hub will run perfectly fine without the full complement of oil but someone following the couple on CGOAB found a Rohloff agent on their route and had the failure diagnosed and replacement seals shipped ahead of their arrival at the agent's.
The 'problems' with Rohloff hubs are mostly illusory.
I've been happy with the problem free service that my Rohoff hubbed bike has delivered in Austria, Germany, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, North America and Canada. The only concession that I made was to take a spare drive belt with me to the USA as bike shops were not very common on the route that I rode. Much to my surprise, when I did call into bike shops in the quiet backwaters for bits and pieces, they all enthused about the reliability of the Rohloff and how the numbers of Rohloff bikes are growing in the hand made trade.
My Rohloff bike has required only the replacement of brake blocks, tyres and hub oil plus one re-tension of the belt drive in the three and a half years that I've owned it. Theres still several years worth of wear left in the belt.
My derailleur geared bikes have needed regular cleaning and oiling of chains with regular tweaks to the derailleur gear cable adjusters and the replacement of the chains when they reach their wear limits.
I was sceptical about Rohloff hubs and spent two or three years thinking about buying a Thorn but they were too evangelical in their literature for my liking. Talking to other cycle tourers with Rohloff hubbed bikes softened my anti Rohloff stance and was very curious about the belt drive Rohloff touring bike ridden by a dutch cyclist. He answered all of the obvious questions e.g.
Q. "What if the belt snaps?"
A. "It doesn't and if it did I'd have one couriered in."
Q. "What of stones get stuck between the belt and the sprockets."
A. "They don't"
Q. "What if the belt wears out?"
A. "This belt has done 15,000km and it's still going strong. I'm putting a new one on this winter."
Q. "Won't it slip or degrade if oil gets on it?"
A. "Nope."
Q. "There has to be a downside?"
A "Yes. The top gear is pretty low and I often 'pedal out' on descents but hey! I'm touring not racing!"
When Woodrup Cycles lent me their prototype Chimera for a weekend I was blown away by the cycling experience and I immediately started to rearrange my finances to facilitate a purchase. I have absolutely no regrets about acquiring a Rohloff hubbed bike and I've yet to meet a dissatisfied owner.
I know that even with the modest 5 speed Sturmey hub on my street bike, the setup makes the bike rather 'front light / back heavy'.
