Woodrup Chimera

[MacB]

Oh and that colour is seriously cool

 

[GrumpyGregry]

looks lovely.

 

[vernon]

Looks nice Vern. The bloke who broke the RTW record after Mark Beaumont used a Santos belt-drive which is a pretty good test ride.
The only worry with 'maintenancee-free' drives like this and Rolhoff is that they may be very reliable but when they do go wrong you're f*cked in trouble. Non?

As a matter of interest Vern, did you break the Decathlon bike you extol or just realise you needed a treat?

I was a sceptic whenever the advantages of Rohloff hubs were mentioned after all Thorn have a vested interest in shouting out the advantages and whispering the weaknesses. My conversion to Rohloff has been a long journey.

About five years ago I had a brief pedal of a Thorn expedition tourer with a Rohloff hub and I was vaguely interested but ruled it out on cost grounds.

Nothing happened on the Rohloff front until last MArch/April when Steve Woodrup invited me upstairs in his bike shop where he he claimed that he'd have something that would interest me - I was expecting a conventional touring bike but it was the prototype Chimera in naked metal and still unfinished but it was drop dead gorgeous and instantly became an object of desire with two items that I had doubts about - Rohloff and belt drive. I was promised a test ride after the York show.

I then did my summer tour where I met a couple of English cycle tourers with Rohloff hubbed Thorn bikes in a campsite in Basle. I asked them endless questions about the Rohloff hubs and although the wife was enthusiastic without reservations the husband was a bit more circumspect. They were in agreement though that the bikes were worth every penny.

In Germany I met a Dutch naval architect with a belt driven Santos tourer and he'd done 5,000km of touring on it and could not identify any shortcomings. He was about to buy a similarly specced bike for his partner. I asked him about the possibility of a snapped belt and he said he'd just have one shipped out with the expectation of having a replacement within 24 hours. As I tour with a very flexible timetable I found this response to be reassuring.

Last October I finally got to do a test ride. I was loaned the prototype for the weekend and did a seventy mile ride up to Darlington on it. The ride was great, it was a smooth ride, good spread of gears and silent in the upper half of the gears. I immediately began plotting the financing of the ownership of one.

I placed my order in December and picked up the bike last weekend.


It's been well received at chateau Levy. My engineering son likes the technology and craftmanship. My musician son likes the ride and handling. My artistic daughter likes the colour scheme. My wife likes the idea of me disappearing every now and then for cycle tours.

As for the Decathlon. It's still a very capable bike. It proved to be very reliable and I still recommend Decathlon tourers to anyone on a tight budget. It is shortly to be the -1 in n-1, an interim measure to appease my wife before I indulge in my next dose of steel framed exotica. I've sold it to a colleague who will become its owner next payday.

 

[vernon]

Like PH it's quality but wouldn't have been my fine detail choices, but then PH and I would both make different fine detail selections anyway.

The belt drive is neither here nor there, as nothing to stop a switch to a chain drive at a future point. Whereas the reverse isn't true, if you don't have the split in the rear triangle, the correct clearances and stiffness in the right places, retrofitting a belt drive would be expensive and risky.

Our choices on core funtionality are similar, rohloff - check, moveable droputs - check, facility for full racks and guards front and rear - check, geometry to work with flat bars - check, big clearances - check. Differences - I've gone chaindrive only, 700c, disc brake only and thrown in the ability to run derailleurs as well as hub gears. But you may have that last bit I can't quite see in the pics.

I look forward to your ride reports - be as geeky as you like about the technical bits, some of us like that stuff

It's not worth contemplating retrofitting belt drive as frame builders have to submit frames for testing before the Gates Corporation will sanction them as being fit for purpose.

I have no intention of fitting derailleurs to the bike and the fitting will not accommodate them. I'm not too concerned about alternative fittings as the bike is specced to meet my needs and tastes and so far it is matching and exceeding my expectations

 

[vernon]

Oh and that colour is seriously cool

The colour gets very positive responses from all who have commented upon it. I was going to have the frame all green but when I played around with an art package and a line drawing of a bike frame and put white panels into the down tube and seat tube, the appearance seemed to be enhanced. Woodrups then added the pierced seat tube sleeve with my initial cut out and added the polished stainless steel Maurice Woodrup head tube badge whereas the standard finish would be a Woodrup crest transfer.

 

[MacB]

It's not worth contemplating retrofitting belt drive as frame builders have to submit frames for testing before the Gates Corporation will sanction them as being fit for purpose.

I have no intention of fitting derailleurs to the bike and the fitting will not accommodate them. I'm not too concerned about alternative fittings as the bike is specced to meet my needs and tastes and so far it is matching and exceeding my expectations

Quite agree, I've followed a few retrofit belt drive projects online and they all seem to run into issues with flex and alignment.

Specwise, I wasn't having a dig at your choices, at the core they are the same as mine and pretty much any well thought out touring frame. I was just highlighting the minor differences, or slightly different routes, to the same ends. In the same way that PH would also arrive at the same overall performance but he would be slightly different again.

It's funny really because I have no intention of fitting derailluers to my bike either. But my personal OCD wanted me to allow for rim brakes and alternate gearing just in case. I managed to beat it into submission on the rim brakes but not the derailleur fittings.

 

[betty swollocks]

It's beautiful! I wish you many many happy miles.
I've had a chain-driven Rohloff on my Thorn touring bike for the last nine years. The Rohloff has been entirely reliable - not a moment's problem and I'm a complete convert.
Belt tensioning: how is this taken care of on your bike..... don't those belt drives stretch?
How easy is it to get the rear wheel out? Thorn bikes make this very easy.
What rims did you go for?

 

[vernon]

It's beautiful! I wish you many many happy miles.
I've had a chain-driven Rohloff on my Thorn touring bike for the last nine years. The Rohloff has been entirely reliable - not a moment's problem and I'm a complete convert.
Belt tensioning: how is this taken care of on your bike..... don't those belt drives stretch?
How easy is it to get the rear wheel out? Thorn bikes make this very easy.
What rims did you go for?

The belts do stretch but not by much so adjustment is infrequent. The rear drop outs slide back and forth. Tension is maintained by suspending a special weight from the upper belt section and observing how big the deflection is against a straight edge with a deflection measuring sticker on it and moving the wheel accordingly..

The rear wheel has a quick release axle and is released by detaching the external mech from the hub, releasing the quick release and the v-brakes.

It's got 36h Mavic 719 rims front and rear.

 

[betty swollocks]

Thanks for that.
Happy Cycling

 

[vernon]

Thanks for that.
Happy Cycling

Last weekend's 100km DIY audax was so enjoyable that I'm doing another one this weekend on it.

 

[P.H]

It's got 36h Mavic 719 rims front and rear.

It was news to me that Rohloffs are now available 36h, a worthwhile improvment for those of us using 700c wheels.
I've broken a flange on one*, if it were to happen again I'd be looking at a 36h replacement.

* Replaced at no cost to me, quickly and without question, even though it was six years old.

 

[P.H]

I have no intention of fitting derailleurs to the bike and the fitting will not accommodate them. I'm not too concerned about alternative fittings as the bike is specced to meet my needs and tastes and so far it is matching and exceeding my expectations

One of the advantages of sliding dropouts is even without intending it you've added a whole load of versatility. It's a simple matter of getting a couple of plates cut out to suite any hub and fittings you choose.