Test ride Rohloff Vendetta

[fthills]

Took the V with its new Rohloff to the local bicycle track for a 2 hr test ride covering a distance of about 30 km.

The great features are :

The range of gears available is very useful . I had a 39 front chainring and a 16 tooth cog at the back ..With this i get 2 or three more gears at the bottom end which will be useful for those really steep hills or when I start to tire at the end of a long ride. I haven't checked the gear development tables recently but from memory with this setup its like having a 22 chainring at the front and 32 at the back . I'll confirm this.

Moving from gear to gear is sheer delight. It's quick ,its precise ,its quiet , its just beautiful.

Depending on how much wrist rotation you can generate. You can change from one gear to one much higher or lower in the range with complete ease and its fast and its reliable.

The bullhorn bars with the bar ends arrangement feels great.Even if I don't keep the Rohloff on the V the handlebars and bar ends are going to stay.

Maybe I should have put this at the top of the list. There is much less pedal steer effect. At first I thought I was imagining this so I did a few laps just concentrating on this aspect. Is it hard to post videos on youtube ? Because I have an old video camera and this aspect alone deserves a viewing so others can judge for themselves. The only time I'm conscious of pedal steer with the normal derailleur setup is climbing up steep hills and a major effort is required to climb them. I didn't climb any steep hills today but could it be that the Rohloff is acting like a heavy Gyroscope at the lowest point of the front triangle and it wants to maintain direction?

The dual brake system works well.

The not so good features:

I didn't have my. Garmin but I think the V is slower with the Rohloff. Not by much , but I'm estimating its slower. More on this in a few days time.

Its NOISY below gear 7 . Gear 7 is great , its smooth and its near silent . Above 7 is good too.

The freewheel is noisy too, where my ultegra hub is Whisper quiet. This thing will stir hibernating bears.

I'd like to take the chain tensioner off if I could , I'll experiment a bit and see what solutions there might be. Its noisy too.

Its way too soon to say whether the Rohloff will stay on the V or not. I can deal with the noise , but if my average times on the long rides seem to be less ,( maybe this will take time to figure out )it'll be back to clunky derailleur arrangement. If my times are similar then it'll be the gear system of choice for me.

 

[John Tolhurst]

You have reduced the

You have reduced the rotational inertia by moving mass closer to the steering axis. This might change how it feels to balance, make it feel more manageable. Noisy below gear 7 confirms you do have a genuine Rohloff.

 

[Charles.Plager]

Hi,
Nice write-up.  As far as

Hi,

Nice write-up. As far as pedal steer, is it possible that you are in a lower gear on the same hill? I notice pedal steer much less when I'm spinning compared to mashing.

I'm assuming it takes a bit of time to switch back and forth. Hmmm...

O.k. Here's what you do. Buy a second Vendetta that is setup with the usual drive train. Ride the hill with the Rolhoff Vendetta and then the regular and keep switching back and forth to see what's different.

Cheers,
Charles

 

[Charles.Plager]

Moment of Inertia

Hi John,

I agree that by putting a larger mass at the center of the wheel, you have created a wheel where the ratio of the moment of inertia to the mass is smaller (moment of inertia is to mass what rotational momentum is to momentum). But I think the moment of inertia will still be bigger than the standard drive wheel. And as far as gyroscopic effects go, they'll be proportional to moment of inertia, not the ratio. In other words, it works in the direction that fthills suggested. I'm still guessing that it has to do more with gearing, but we won't know for sure until he buys that second Vendetta...

Cheers,
Charles

p.s. I'm assuming that the rim and the spokes have the same mass in both cases and that the Rolhoff hub is much heavier than the standard hub/cassette.

 

[fthills]

Re the second vendetta. Its

Re the second vendetta. Its not such a bad idea.

As I was riding the V around the track it occurred to me that in a perfect imaginary world I would be able to make an instant switch between a Rohloff V on the climbs and a derailleur V on the level ground and a Rohloff again on the descents , because you can push the gears hard going downhill with the Rohloff. And the way the Rohloff switches between gears is just so good.

The other advantage is that the cables once connected needed no adjustment at all. No fiddling with cable tension , fine tuning of B stops. etc.

Oh and did I mention another advantage , the fixed difference between each gear of 14% is just right? The track has a hill that at the bottom is about 6% and about 3 % at the top. Not a long rise , about 600metres but for every part of that rise I could find the ideal gear . So refreshing from having to swap between chainrings and cogs and uneven ratios .

I can see why cyclists who do loaded touring sing the Rohloff's praises . Its a great piece of kit. Whether its place is on a high performance platform like the V remains to be determined.. ....

Without having a second V, my local steep training hill should provide more insight into the pedal steer differences.

 

[Eric Winn]

You two cut it out dang it.

You two cut it out dang it. I'm still waiting for my first Vendetta and you guys are making it harder to wait...

 

[fthills]

Brief update : The dual brake

Brief update : The dual brake system , i.e , One lever operates two brakes does not provide sufficient braking power to bring the V to a stop going down a hill at more than 30km/hr if like you me you have modest strength in your hands. I'll reconfigure to a two lever system.
Not a modification I would recommend at all. In fact the steepness of some of the hills we were descending this past weekend made me wish for disc brakes.

 

[Charles.Plager]

Hi,
I'm not terribly

Hi,

I'm not terribly surprised, but I am glad that you tried without any incident. When I become emperor of the universe, I'll mandate disc brakes on all bicycles. (Well, maybe not all bicycles, but I agree that I'd like to see them as options on all Cruzbikes and see if we can figure out how to get them on Cruzbike conversions).

Cheers,
Charles

 

[Romagjack]

Wise choice with the brakes.

Wise choice with the brakes. Individual feathering of the rear brake (especailly a disk brake) is very important for those fast downhill runs for safety and confidence. The disc brakes on the Quest bring a whole new level of enjoyment to riding a recumbent - so smooth and never grab. While you probably don't have room to engineer a disk on the Rolhoff wheel, you might be able install a disk onto the rear wheel with your talents.

 

[John Tolhurst]

I'm very much of the view you

I'm very much of the view you need to different things with different brakes. I guess since I recognised I was bouncing the rear wheel of my 1982 model Suzuki GSX400F. Then I knew why I needed to keep the change downs relevant to the speed, use the engine to keep the rear wheel turning and retain control. Not on a bicycle of course.

Why the US puts the brake levers the 'wrong' way around baffles me. Motorcycles have the front brake on the right hand as a standard. Bicycles should be the same to my mind, as they are in Australia and UK. Don't know which way European bicycles are.

One hand one brake, they are not the same, not at all.

 

[Andrew 1973]

To Charles:

"I'm not terribly surprised, but I am glad that you tried without any incident. When I become emperor of the universe, I'll mandate disc brakes on all bicycles."

You're probably aware of Volagi and now Colnago offering a disc-brake road bike. It's only a matter of time until discs become the standard.

 

[Andrew 1973]

Front Brake on Right

I followed this practice when I was riding fixed-gear bikes with only a front caliper. It was helpful to have a useful to have the left hand free for signaling while being able to brake.

I'm not sure why in the US front and rear control is reversed.

 

[John Tolhurst]

The pending Vendetta has

The pending Vendetta has provision for disk brakes on 130 OLD front drive hub and on the rear 100 OLD wheel.

 

[fthills]

Re the disc brakes on the new

Re the disc brakes on the new vendetta. Absolutely brilliant news.

The V picks up speed mighty quick even on modest descents . It'll be very reassuring to have the stopping power available especially when the bike is loaded and the descents are long .

This past weekend a couple of descents were monster 15% descents . The dual brake system was on frequently to avoid overspeeding above 50 to 60 km /hr especially going into turns. The rim on which the Rohloff was mounted at the bottom of these hills was almost untouchable where the spokes enter. Strangely the tyre felt cool.

 

[Eric Winn]

Hmmm, so should I modify my

Hmmm, so should I modify my groupset order with Jim to switch to disk brakes?

-Eric

 

[Charles.Plager]

@fthills: I can imagine.  I

@fthills: I can imagine. I went down a hill (~15%) on my Sofrider that was too narrow, too busy, and too close to a stop sign. I was braking most the way down the hill and still hit 40 mph (~64 kph).

I'm fat enough that the difference in weight just doesn't bother me. I'd prefer disc brakes on bikes if possible.

Cheers,
Charles

 

[Eric Winn]

Will Cruzbike offer disc

Will Cruzbike offer disc wheelsets?

Also, fthills do you have any experience with the SP PD-7 dyno hub? I'm toying with the idea of a disc hub on the front wheel and a disc dyno on the rear wheel for lights and perhaps accessory power (iPhone, etc). The SP PD-7 is a switchable dyno, e.g. no drag when switched off and according to one review I read has extremely low vibration when switched on.

http://www.sp-dynamo.com/7seriesdynamo%20hub.html

http://swhs.home.xs4all.nl/fiets/tests/verlichting/dynamos/SP_6/index_en.html

-Eric

 

[MrSteve]

Proper Brakes

The problem with all brakes is that they tend to slow you down....

Seriously, as a long-time motorcyclist, the very first thing I do
to any bicycle I ride is to make very sure that the right lever
(on the right side of the handlebar) actuates the front brake.

The second thing I do is to learn the limits of the front brake.
You know, stoppies... downhill braking... braking in turns
and so on.

But that's just me.



Here's the point I wanted to make:

We all have a very useful braking option, available at all times,
that never overheats and rarely wears out!

On long downhills, to limit my top speed, I simply sit up.
This has the added benefit of increasing my line of sight;
sitting up also makes carving turns much more intuitive, for me.

Think of this as the Stone Age equivalent of the aero-braking
action of the automatic rear spoiler mounted on the Bugatti Veyron!

-Steve

 

[Eric Winn]

I thought for a minute there

I thought for a minute there you were going to talk about using Flintstones brakes.

Come to think of it that could actually work on a recumbent...


-Eric

 

[fthills]

Eric, no experience with

Eric, no experience with dynohubs at all, but some long distance randonneurs fit them to their bikes in preference to battery operated systems, this in spite of the fact that most I've spoken to, report being able to feel the slight increase in drag when the lights are turned on.

The frustrating thing with a lot of bicycle equipment nowadays is that it generally works well and is reliable . Few things stand out as being clearly superior to another . This means , to find the best things for my riding , I end up trying stuff out for myself , which is time consuming and quite expensive.. . Ideally I need a pool of equipment I can hire or borrow to see if suits my purposes, but it'll never happen ,and in my neck of the woods recumbents are thin on the ground.