I am building up a 29+ bike which will have a Rohloff, and I need to choose a chainset, threaded bottom bracket, and suitable chainring size.

As I understand it, many people with a Rohloff use a Shimano triple chainset with just an outer ring, since the outer ring has the required 54mm chainline for the Rohloff. Rohloff actually supply the hub with the narrower chainring bolts needed to convert a Shimano triple to a single ring.

Although I imagine there are some boutique brand chainsets which would work well with a Rohloff, such as Middleburn who made a Rohloff specific spider for their cranks, I suspect that they do not offer a worthwhile advantage over using a converted Shimano triple.

The obvious choice therefore would seem to be a Deore, SLX or XT triple, but I do prefer the square taper bottom bracket design, and so I wondered about getting a cheap Acera triple chainset and using it with a high quality square taper bottom bracket such as SKF, Phil Wood or Royce. However, I suspect that a Hollowtech chainset – possibly with a better quality bottom bracket, e.g. Hope – would still be the most sensible option for performance, reliability and value.

I would be interested to know if others would agree with this or have any alternative recommendations.

Mines on octalink bbs using the outer position of a triple crankset. It just works

I recently bought an Acera so I could use a square taper- very happy with it! I use shimano UN54 or UN26 bbs, they last forever 🙂

I’m running Race Face Chester, using the outer ring position which gives a perfect chainline.

Problem with square taper is there’s no precise position for the cranks – unlike the newer systems where they butt up against a shoulder in one way or another.

If longevity and reduced running costs is a concern (for me one of the biggest appeals of a Rohloff) Thorn do a reversible chainring, so you’ll get double the life…

I’ve no experience of rohloff, but I can heartily recommend an octalink bb/ chainset.

Octalink is super secure and has coped brilliantly with my 18 stone of pedal mashing.

Not worth bothering with square taper cranks, unless you want something that falls off your bike mid-ride!

unless you want something that falls off your bike mid-ride!

This is not something that has ever happened to me, and as far as I know square taper bbs do not have a reputation for this.

I have used middleburn, Shimano XTR 970 both with the Thorn chainring which is excellent. More recently i have tried the Race face direct mount turbines with a narrow wide ring, this was fine to even though i’m using a cheap 3/32″ 8 speed KMC chain

Middleburn here

Middleburn here using the outer ring posistion and a 113mm BB.

Spot on chain line for me.

Square taper for the win

Hope narrow wide on XTR M970 cranks.

Get a Surly stainless steel single speed chainring while you’re at it.

May be the last one you need to buy, and you don’t want ramps, pins, and cutaway teeth on a hubgear chainring anyway.

I keep a rohloff wheel for emergencies but generally ride SS.

So both my bikes have SQT BBs and middleburn cranks with the chain ring set at outer which matches the 54mm chainline on the rohloff and all my SS sprockets are spaced to the outside of the freehub body to reach the same chainline. It means i I need to swap from SS to gears, I just change the wheel and hang the shifter off the bars.

Always use Race Face (atlas presently ) on mine as they have the 1 mm spacers for fine chain alignment, about 3 mm each way in total from memory.

Many thanks for all the replies and comments. To a large extent it seems to come down to personal preference: you pays your money and you takes your choice.

The comment about reversible sprockets prompted me to double check what is fitted to the hub, and I realise now that the hub is supplied as standard with a splined reversible 16 tooth sprocket and carrier, which has a 57mm chainline (unlike the screw on version previously supplied as standard, which has a 54mm chainline).

I suspect that the 3mm difference would be OK if I used a Hollowtech triple, but I could get a closer chainline with square taper, e.g. the Acera uses a 122.5mm bottom bracket as standard, and SKF, Phil Wood and Royce all make 125mm/126mm bottom brackets, which should move the chainset out the extra ~3mm or so.

Get a Surly stainless steel single speed chainring while you’re at it.

That’s my plan. Ideally I would like to use a 21 tooth sprocket and a correspondingly larger chainring, e.g. 44t, but Surly only make chainrings larger than 36t with a 110 BCD, whereas the Shimano MTB triples are 104 BCD, so it looks like I may have to go with 36/16 or 34/16. However, I will take a closer look at the Middleburn and Race Face offerings and options in the light of the comments and recommendations above.