Tag: Gears

AM Esprit Specification

The website of Alex Moulton Bicycles is now showing the Esprit, complete with specification.

The specification is as follows:

Frame: Manufactured to Moulton specifications, as used on Moulton Double Pylon, for the lightest stiffest frame.
 
Components: Front Rim: Velocity 17" silver 24h Central spoking
  Rear Rim: Velocity 17" silver 24h offset spoking
  Rim Tape: Bridgestone IRC
  Tube: Schwalbe 17" presta valve
  Tyre: Schwalbe 17" Stelvio l00psi high pressure
  Handle Bar Grips: "Grab-On" foam grips
  Mudguards: Alloy polished silver or black
  Saddle: Fiz'ik Aliante Gamma
  Bottom Bracket: Shimano 105
  Crankset: Shimano 105 52/39 t
  Headset: Shimano 105
  Rear Derailleur Shimano 105 Short cage
  Front Derailleur Shimano 105, double changer only
  Chain Shimano 105
  Brakes Shimano BRA 550 long reach
  Rear Hub Capreo 24/32 hole
  Front Hub Capreo 24/32 hole
  Cassette Capreo Cassette. 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 20, 23, 26/28 teeth
  Handle Bar Stem Kalloy adjustable quill
  Pedals MKS Detachable, flat
  Seat pillar Nitto, diameter 31.6mm, with integral 5mm Allen key for seat pillar and frame separation
  Handle Bars Nitto Drop Bars 380/400mm width or Nitto Mosquito bars.
  Gear Shifters Drop bar Shimano STI 105 or Rapidfire gearshifter with Crane Creek levers.
 
Suspension: Front: AM Stainless Steel leading link with Adjustable damping and preload. Choice of soft, medium or hard coil spring.
  Rear: AM Rubber cone spring. Choice of Standard or hard. High tensile cold drawn seamless 9.5mm tube.

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.

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.

New Rohloff Speedhub in 2008

Via Hubstripping, The German magazine Aktiv Radfahren is reporting on the new Rohloff prototype.

The new version of the widely acclaimed 14 speed internally geared hub will have a number of changes over the current version:

  • It still has 14 gears with even steps all the way, but the overall ratio increases from 526% to 580%
  • The hub shell will be about 20% smaller. Useful for building into small wheels
  • The weight will be about 1400g, compared with 1700g of the current version
  • It will not be suitable for use in tandems or other "hard core" uses.
  • A new shifter will be available, though it's not clear whether this will be an STI/Ergo style shifter for use with drop bars.

The first prototype will be shown at Eurobike 2008.

New Rohloff Speedhub in 2008 « Hub Stripping