Moultonbuzz

Rohloff Moulton

The Rohloff Speedhub is an internal hub gear, with 14 evenly spaced gear ratios and an overall range of 526%.

Neither Pashley, nor Alex Moulton bicycles provide a Rohloff equipped model, but options do exist if you want your ultimate bicycle to have the ultimate hub gear.

Avon Valley Cyclery, a Moulton dealer in Bath, produces the Moulton New Series Rohloff, and the Pashley Moulton Rohloff TSR.

The New Series Rohloff features Rohloff rear dropouts instead of the standard dropouts. The Rohloff dropouts allow sufficient fore and aft adjustment to achieve the correct chain tension, without the need for a chain tensioner. This is quite an elegant solution, though it will make it more difficult to retrofit a standard derailleur drivetrain in the future.

Photo: Avon Valley Cyclery

The Avon Valley Cyclery Rohloff TSR uses the standard TSR dropouts, and so a chain tensioner is used. This is not as aesthetically pleasing, but has the practical benefit that any standard drivetrain can be retrofitted, without any modifications to the frame.

Photo: Avon Valley Cyclery

You can, of course, purchase a Rohloff Speedhub, and fit it to your existing Moulton bicycle.

Rohloff have a useful wizard for choosing the correct version of the Speedhub for your particular situation.

There are a couple of downsides to equipping your Moulton with a Rohloff Speedhub. Firstly the high cost can be prohibitive. However, this is a very high quality piece of equipment, and failures have been few and far between. In the rare cases where problem have occurred, the service from the Rohloff factory is reported to be amazing. It is also worth noting that the cost seems more reasonable when compared with the cost of high quality drivetrains such as XTR or Dura Ace from Shimano.

Secondly, the issue of weight. While, again, the weight is not that high compared to a 27 speed drivetrain, but in the case of the Rohloff, all of the weight is unsuspended.

Moulton Bicycle Launch at Earls Court 1962

Alex Moulton chose the Cycle & Motor Cycle Show, at Earls Court in November 1962 to launch the Moulton Bicycle. Here is some footage from the event.

Moulton Double Pylon Racing Success

At the Suzuka Circuit Endurance Race held on 4th November, Moulton Double Pylon took 6th place in 4hours Solo class in which some 320 riders entered.
The top group was really fast, mostly pro or semi-pro riders. Time of 1st was 4h 02m 26s, while our Moulton timed 4h 02m 27s at average of 40.33km/h. Just 1 second behind.

This is quite a achievement. Usually, Moultons enter "Small Wheel Class" and have had reasonable result. This time however, Double Pylon joined most competitive class with real road racers.

Source : Alex Moulton Bicycles
For more info, see Moku 2+4 and Yamamoto Kazuhiro's Blog

Useful Rohloff Videos

A couple of useful Rohloff videos, from Thorn Cycles / St John Street Cycles.

The first video is an animation of the Rohloff Speedhub 14 speed internally geared hub being assembled while operating.

The second video contains instructions on how to perform an oil change. An oil change should be done on the Speedhub every 5000km, or once per year, which ever is sooner.

Too Many Moultons?

Friction pervades the life of a cyclist.

Photo from Julian Kowalewski's collection on Flickr

Ivan Illich wrote in Toward a History of Needs:

A century ago, the ball-bearing was invented. It reduced the coefficient of friction by a factor of a thousand. By applying a well-calibrated ball-bearing between two Neolithic millstones, a man could now grind in a day what took his ancestors a week. The ball-bearing also made possible the bicycle, allowing the wheel -- probably the last of the great Neolithic inventions -- finally to become useful for self-powered mobility.

But friction is also the primary force which makes cycling possible. Without it, acceleration would be impossible. If somehow, motion was achieved, braking would be impossible, turning the wheel would have no effect and leaning to turn would bring us crashing down. To visualise the role of friction in bicycling, imagine trying to cycle on a lake of polished ice.

Matt Seaton in yesterday's Guardian talks about another type of friction - that between a cyclist and his significant other.

A common one is: "What was in that large box I had to sign for this morning?" Which is a mini-version of the dialogue that runs: "And why do you need a new bike?" This is actually a conversation that can be circumvented, but only at risk of the uncomfortable interrogation that begins: "So, how long have you had this new bike, and when were you proposing to tell me about it?" This naturally segues into a "And how are you paying for this?" inquisition.

My wife frequently declares "you can only cycle on one bike at a time".

One Moultoneer helpfully suggested the best tactic for decieving one's significant other is to purchase bikes that are the same colour as an existing bike. Then, when quizzed, you can declare "but that's the same red bike I have had for ages".

An eBay seller seems to have made some compromises in this department. The listing contains the following nugget:

It is only being sold now because my wife has stamped her little foot, and declared that 17 Moultons is 16 too many.

Though, perhaps the price being requested indicates that he's not really trying to sell at all!