Im interested in the Taniwha, but going through the spec sheet and adding X2 and Fox36 forks pushes things up to £6400. This is abviously steep but a unique bike.

When I check out the wheelset pro 4 on wtb i25 rims. These are heavy narrow rims for such a high spec bike.
I notice in NZ the Taniwha wheels are only 3/4 of the weight.

Seems a shame to reduce unsprung weight then bulk it up with heavier wheels.

What are other peoples thoughts on the bike and the spec?

The spec is going to be a compromise because the frame and gearbox come at a high price. Those wouldn’t be my choice of rims, I’d probably go for something 30mm from DT or Stans

As for the bike, I’d certainly like a go and to compare it to the Nicolai ion GPI

The hub is just as worrying. Im being presumptious and thinking its the single speed pro 4 thats 465g for the hub!
Stif offer an upgrade which are good but thats £1800 extra (£8200)

The trials/singlespeed hub is listed as 465g, it’s not clear from the spec which hub Stif are using. Have you been in touch with Stif? I’d hope they’d have some flexibility but I would prefer the trials hub and some wider rims. Less weight would be nice I suppose but a 160mm bike with a gearbox isn’t going to be a featherweight

No but it should be a single speed as no cassette. One of the plus points is the weight saving of rear mech and cassette. Not so good if its made back up with heavier hub. ZERODE NZ hub is 265g and carbon rim. Havent spoken to Stif about the hub, but did speak about the price increase.
I will see if there is any thing they can do and maybe see about a demo

The WTB i25 KOM rims are excellent, see if you can ‘upgrade’ to those.

Do you have to go through Stif?

A single speed hub would make sense to take advantage of less dish but the options with a 142×12 (is it 142×12?) axle are limited so a standard hub with spacers could be used. Hope’s standard hub is lighter than the trials hub, I don’t know why. The pickup is quicker on Hope’s trials hub which some may think is important with the gearbox but it’s not something that bothers me.

KOM rims are very good lightweight rims but not intended for something like the taniwha. Maybe OK if you are going to treat them gently but are you really?

Get a demo if you can, have you ever used a pinion gearbox? I assume the gearbox is the big draw for this bike?

KOM rims are very good lightweight rims but not intended for something like the taniwha. Maybe OK if you are going to treat them gently but are you really?

I treat mine anything other than gently, on a hardtail and a full sus.

Then I suspect you are either very lucky or very skilled 🙂

Yes its the gearbox that intrigue’s me, coupled with an all mountain esque enduro that I don’t have in my bike armoury. Not my weekly trail beast (ive got one of those) but a useable weapon when im going to more epic days or just because I fancy it.

Why I think the wheel is so important is the statement from Rob saying about “If you add a Pinion gearbox, take away a cassette (unsprung weight), derailleur( unspring weight), chain guide and build a lighter stronger rear wheel and the disadvantage is[u] ~800g. Given that you have to power yourself and the bike up hills and overcome rolling and air resistance the extra effort required when climbing is almost not measureable. Even if it was I would happily breathe a little harder while cruising up the hills with my mates if my reward was a significant improvement in suspension performance, 600% gear range, stronger rear wheel, almost no maintenance, chains that last years, shifting without pedalling, instantaneous shifting, no chain slap, optimised pedalling etc etc I’d be very surprised if Taniwha owners go back to a derailleur”

The rear is 142×12 and pinnion and Zerode both have a lightweight single speed hub to offer. I think this would be required to get close to the 800g difference, In theory having the single speed alows the zerode sprocket to be inline and a stronger hub that isnt off centered. Its the benefits that im after not the wheel, but a light wheel only really justifies some of the benefits.

The complete build actually looks quite good!
I think the only thing I’d change is the wheelset, as discussed above.
It’s an odd choice to spec some run of the mill MTB hubs, when there’s the Zerode specific one. I assume Stif get the frame only and don’t want to be building up a rear wheel around the Zerode hub.

At that price, I’d hope there’s some flexibility from Stif.
I’d probably go for the full build minus the wheelset, then buy the Zerode hub and get a custom set built up.

Did you see this feature the other week?

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/1-question-whats-keeping-the-gearbox-down-2017.html

If not, it’s definitely worth a read.

Interesting read, its not really put me off though. I have priced the Zerode direct bike that comes with the fox 36 and added the X2 (comes with the dedicated hub and 35mm carbon rims) for £5938.

They offer 15% off but would have to pay tax and freight. I will speak to stif and see what the options are

Let us know how you get on if you get one, they’re top of my bike drool list.

+1 interested to hear of any real life riding experience on the taniwha

£ is significantly weaker against the NZ$ Than it was 6 months ago. Making bikes like this very overpriced. Not good for a company making such a promising bike

Just revisiting this thread because of this

its the single speed pro 4 thats 465g for the hub!

I couldn’t work out why the hub would be so heavy. Nor could the guy on the Hope stand at the bike show. The freehub body is steel so may be slightly heavier but the only way to get that weight of 465g must be to include a hefty set of steel bolts, the 142 X12 version will be close to the standard Pro4

Tick.

I’m test riding it soon.

Let me know how you get on. It seemed cheaper to get the bike from NZ with X2 fox forks, lighter hubs and carbon rims.
20% off plus import and freight.
The rear hub needs to be a single speed, light and quick engagement.

The rear hub needs to be a single speed, light and quick engagement

That’s the ideal but not essential. You can use a regular rear hub and it will be just as good as the wheels on any other bike. I get the engagement thing but don’t personally find it a real issue

Very interested to hear how the test ride goes Onzadog. Not the Zerode but this may make interesting reading

http://m.pinkbike.com/news/nicolai-shootout-derailleur-vs-gearbox-2017.html

I know that you can fit any rear wheel. But reading the designers brief on the rear wheel he specifically metions the benifits of the lightweight stiff hub

There’s very little resistance and feedback, far less than expected, and certainly no different than a traditional set-up. There’s a freewheel in the gearbox itself as well as in Pinion’s own rear single speed hub used in all of Zerode’s build options, offering almost instant pick-up with minimal fuss. What this also means is due to not needing space for a 10, 11 or 12 speed cassette, the hub flanges can be evenly spaced apart resulting in no dish to the rear wheel and consequentially a far superior rear wheel build – stiffer, cheaper to repair, lighter and ultimately stronger

The bolts add 100g to the weight of the Hope Pro4T hub…

http://www.tartybikes.co.uk/product.php?product_id=13104&keywords=Hope+Pro+4+Trials+%2F+SS

As it’s got a freewheel in the gear box, live life on the edge and fit a fixed rear hub.

But is there actually a problem with dished wheels? A lot of bikes are using them without a problem?

The weight advantage is from losing the cassette, a freehub is already very light

Pickup varies amongst hubs and for me doesn’t make much difference for a trials rider it would be more important

As it’s got a freewheel in the gear box, live life on the edge and fit a fixed rear hub

Not sure why this is discouraged, maybe just the safety issue of a chain that doesn’t stop unless the wheel stops. Laces/trousers/body part stuck? Too bad!

Humm, there does seem to be limited scope for tuning the drive train.
1. If the gearbox input and output are different, it will never work with an elliptical chain ring.
2. Seems chain rings are limited to pinion only. Their site offers two sizes or a 104mm 4 bolt spider (not to bad, just hope your suspension Busby optimised around anything smaller than a 30t).
3. Rear seems limited to a couple of large sizes from pinion or a similar spider so you can go 30t or over.
4. I’m not up to speed on single speed kit but a quick look around it seems like anything between 22 – 30 doesn’t exist, which by my quick number crunching, is probably where I’d like to play with it.

You sure about point 1? the ellipse is for pedalling not for driving isn’t it?

Someone does an aftermarket pinion to standard chainring adaptor, I forget who but I’ve seen a link.

Ooh podge, think for a moment about the orientation of the ring

Pinion do a standard 104bcd adaptor as said, hence the 30t minimum as I don’t think smaller fits on 104

You need a coffee this morning 🙂

I’m preoccupied with trying to design GRP steps, checking here while I wait for models to open up.

And yes, I’m an idiot now I think about it, you’d need an elliptical gearbox and round rings.

I think the link I saw wasn’t a 104, it was a direct drive or whatever the tech term for it is these days. The ones where you replace the whole ring and spider as one.

2. Seems chain rings are limited to pinion only. Their site offers two sizes or a 104mm 4 bolt spider (not to bad, just hope your suspension Busby optimised around anything smaller than a 30t).
3. Rear seems limited to a couple of large sizes from pinion or a similar spider so you can go 30t or over.
4. I’m not up to speed on single speed kit but a quick look around it seems like anything between 22 – 30 doesn’t exist, which by my quick number crunching, is probably where I’d like to play with it.

Why the need to mess around –

2) The bike is going to be built around a Pinion so the suspension *should* be optimised for Pinion sized chainrings. (I know that this was one of the issues Nicolai had originally but now that most bikes are optimised for 1x gearing the Pinion ring is right on the money).

3/4) I’ve not looked at current spec, but my 26″ P18 has a gearrange that’s wider than a 3×9 with a 34cassette – lower at the bottom end, higher at the top. The spread on the p12 was only slightly narrower from memory – what do you lose?

The P12 is 600%. The Taniwha is 30/30 which puts all that extra range at the bottom. Replacing the rear with 24, 26 or 28 moves some of that extra to the top while matching my current 1×11 bottom gear.

It looks like the suspension is optimized for the 30t chain ring of the linkage design blog is to be believed.

The opportunity for this bike to be great is there, only to be totally let down by the rubbish gearbox.

There has been talk for years about making a paddle shifter to make it more ‘use friendly’. My old X-Ray grip shift 20 years ago was better than the shifter they currently use. It looks like something that is knocked up in a shed. I won’t talk about the shifting feature of having to noticeably back off when changing gear is a total pain in the arse.

Hob Nob – I won’t talk about the shifting feature of having to noticeably back off when changing gear is a total pain in the arse.

Have you used a system where you have to do this? I rode Alfine off road for about 2 years and it became second nature very quickly. Do you not already back off with standard gears?

Hob Nob never backs off 🙂

My old X-Ray grip shift 20 years ago was better than the shifter they currently use

By chance I have both in the shed, I think the X-Ray is stiffer and more clunky to use. I can’t pretend the pinion shifting isn’t noticeable though. For me my only complaint is the extra resistance to shifting between 5 and 4, no bother anywhere else.

The opportunity for this bike to be great is there, only to be totally let down by the rubbish gearbox.
There has been talk for years about making a paddle shifter to make it more ‘use friendly’. ..

Blah blah blah. Always comes up. Just don’t find it an issue in use. The advantage of pull-pull shifting is that the indexing is at the hub and not affected by cable stretch or contamination. The force needed means that it’s not easy to make paddle shifters. Theres an aftermarket Mtb solution for Rohloff – though I’ve been told the action is far too heavy. I saw a road bike conversion using SRAM dual control levers on a Shand at the bike show which looked light to use.

…I won’t talk about the shifting feature of having to noticeably back off when changing gear is a total pain in the arse

In 10+ years of using Rohloff and Pinion i just haven’t found this an issue. I’m riding 1×11 on a couple of bikes now and you have to ease off on them to shift at times as well, especially if trying to shift multiple gears.

The P12 is 600%. The Taniwha is 30/30 which puts all that extra range at the bottom. Replacing the rear with 24, 26 or 28 moves some of that extra to the top while matching my current 1×11 bottom gear.

Do you really want to do that? The lower gearing on the Pinion is one of the things I really miss riding my 1×11 bikes. I’d always rather have additional lower gears on a mtb. Top end only ever gets used on tarmac on the way to the trails.

The opportunity for this bike to be great is there, only to be totally let down by the rubbish gearbox.

As much as I like it, without the gearbox its just like any other high end, carbon full suspension frame.

simons_nicolai-uk – Member
The P12 is 600%. The Taniwha is 30/30 which puts all that extra range at the bottom. Replacing the rear with 24, 26 or 28 moves some of that extra to the top while matching my current 1×11 bottom gear.
Do you really want to do that? The lower gearing on the Pinion is one of the things I really miss riding my 1×11 bikes. I’d always rather have additional lower gears on a mtb. Top end only ever gets used on tarmac on the way to the trails.

Truth is, I don’t know. I’m just making sure I’ve got as much info as I can before I make a £6000 commitment to a gearbox bike.