Rohloff owners

I’ve had a Rohloff hub for sometime and I like it, yep its not perfect but its close.

My biggest bugbear is the gear shift cables, but I might be unlucky – what do you use?

I’ve ditched the original Rohloff cables after reading up from users on the ‘net.

Tried XTR inner cables with SP41 gear outer – now this works well – but the outer cable becomes brittle over a relatively short period of time and falls to bits exposing the inner wire.

Also tried Shimano outer brake cable with the XTR inner gear cables – but found that the cables become quite sluggish after a while also.

What do others use – anyone tried Nokon cables?

Now then, Denis.

I got on fine with the SP41s for th winter I had the Rohloff. I did use Nokons on my old Turner and can say that they are the work of the devil. If you want cables that creak, go for it. Otherwise, avoid like the plague.

Ta for the advice.

The SP41 outer casing breaks up around the bottom bracket area – the Nicolai Helius has the cable routing down the downtube and underneath the bottom bracket and along the chain stay to the rear wheel / gearbox.

I think its the constant flexing of the cable outer in the b/b area that creates the splitting.

Better shifting with the SP41 gear outer – but becomes brittle and breaks up.
The brake outer is more flexible and withstands the flexing better – but has poorer shifting performance.

Lots of useful info on the Thorn website – http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=search2

I’ve had no problems with the Rohloff cables in over 3000 miles but I do spray GT85 down them nearly every ride.

how do you find them, in, erm, wet conditions?

The hub or the cables?

Can you not run the cable a bit longer to help with the movement around the pivot? If it’s got a little slack in it, may not crack as readily?

snaps
do you use the rohloff cables with the liner? I’ve read that the liner drags itself up into the twist grip and stops working (well it needs alot of untangling etc).

but I do spray GT85 down them nearly every ride

note that the Rohloff instructions tell you NOT to lube the cable 🙂

nickc

yep, tried that – the SP41 outer just gets harder over time – I’m sure its the repeated flexing.

Cable outer lasts not much more than 2 , maybe 3 months – not a terrible task to replace, but a bit more intensive on the Rohloff than replacing conventional gear cable. Plus the inner gear cable is somewhat goosed (due to the grub screw mangling the end of the cable).

Goodridge gear cable outers are MUCH softer / more flexy than SP41. Might be worth a try?

Yes they are what you get when you order the cables from a Rohloff dealer but as I said, spraying plenty of GT85 down them seems to work for me.

has it ever got soaking wet?

Yes but not immersed a la SFB style!

SJS recommend BRAKE outer cables! I’ve always used gear inner with brake outer. I find XTR inners and std Shimano brake outer works best. In 3 1/2 years I think I replaced the cables three times maybe four. The muck gets in via the barrel locator for the cable outer on the shifter. I get around a year out of a set of cables, used twice a week off road.

I still find it a faff to do a cable change – not the nicest of jobs.

The Rohloff originals are brake type outers (coil wound), which should be more flexible, whereas gear outer has more longitudinal, lightly spiralled wires to avoid compression – which is less of an issue for the Rohloff where the indexing is in the hub.

Might try some brake outer again with the XTR inner gear cable – could even give the Middleburn cable oilers a go to try and keep the worst of the gunk out.

could even give the Middleburn cable oilers a go to try

yes, I fitted those too!

Middleburn cable oilers
The best £10ish you will spend

My cables are the originals fitted by Thorn and are now 2 1/2 years old and still work perfectly. The bike is an all year round commuter which has mostly been off road for the last 6 months. I’ve done no maintenance or lubrication. My Rohloff is the internal changer version which may explain why I’ve had no problems but as others have said look at the SJS site and the Thorn forums, it’s probably the best source of information.

avdave2, yeah had a look on the Thorn forum – recommends fitting brake outer with XTR cable inners.

Bike is used exclusively off road – mainly at Afan / Glyncorrwg / Brechfa – the grit seems to get in everywhere and cause havoc with most components. This was the main reason for going with the Rohloff hub in the first place, couldn’t keep up with the relentless wear and tear of (primarily) the drive-chain components.

Will be fitting the brake outer with XTR gear inners, plus the addition of three Middleburn cable oilers on each cable. One at the radius near the handlebars, one on the downtube length and the last one just after the radius under the b/b pivot area.

Hopefully this will provide a solution to the (relatively) frequent cable maintenance issues. Very pleased with the Rohloff overall, just need to get this sorted.

I’d be inclined to use just one oiler near the top of each cable and let gravity take the oil down. The others will let water in 🙁

The one i had used brake outer cable, it worked well as i had some quite tight bends due to the XL frame and not XL previous owner LOL!