Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Efficiency of a Rohloff Hub


This article by Rohloff talks about the efficiency of their hub, some issues involved when measuring efficiency and provides some test data that might be of interest to Rohloff owners or potential customers.

Some things to consider:
  • This article was written by Rohloff and could be biased, but keep in mind the test results of the independent researchers that Rohloff quotes at the start of the article only vary by 1-2% from a derailleur system. So the differences are small and the discussion on how to setup efficiency tests seems worth considering.
  • The Rohloff hub used in the previous tests referenced was new and not broken in whereas Rohloff used a hub that had seen some use for their tests.
  • I thought the point about efficiency of the human body was interesting. So that having an optimal gear available was an important and unmeasured variable.
  • Both the Rohloff and derailleur drive train tested were clean.

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