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| Barney? |
Here's the most recent of those - a truly astounding color combo with a couple of curved tubes (toptube for standover, seat tube just 'cause), Rohloff speedhub, and a belt drive for our good friend Spencer to ride around town and get groceries. This is the *polar opposite* of a low-profile townie, of course - better get a darn good lock!
Gates requires frames that will use a Rohloff and a belt to undergo stiffness testing at their testing facility in Golden - I have to admit I was a little nervous sending off the frame (if you fail, you can always run a chain, I guess) as I've never spent a lot of time worrying about making things ultra-stiff. Fortunately she passed with flying colors.
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| The business |
7 comments:
What is the RAL of that frame color? Metalic Purple?
Same here! Frame color? Fork color also? I dig them both! How about a close up of the fork as well?!
you had to send a frame in for fitness testing? seriously? what happens if you don't?
If it fails, Rohloff won't sell you a hub or the Rohloff-compatible belt sprocket, so you gotta run a chain and/or get the hub some other way.
I believe the issue is that if the frame isn't stiff enough, you can have the belt slip and then re-engage, which can destroy the hub because of the super high torque in the lower gears.
FWIW I've been running my Rohloff out of the warrantied range for years with zero issues. All you end up doing if you DO "destroy" the hub is shear off 3 or 4 nylon pins that are easily replaced yourself, which is by design to ensure you don't destroy any of the fancy metal parts.
Can't you skip the testing by getting a cog from Phil and Rohloff through Cyclemonkey?
I guess it's nice to know they go through the process to ensure you won't be disappointed in performance (or damage your hub).
Cyclemonkey won't sell you the parts unless Rohloff and Gates have given the ok. I personally think they're being too paranoid but that's the policy right now.
Oh, and Phil no longer makes the cogs. They said they were busy with other stuff and were not seeing much demand for them. Bummer.
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