Simplicity from Complexity

“I would not give a nickel for simplicity this side of complexity, but I’d give a year’s wages for simplicity the other side of complexity.”

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

I hate mountain bikes. But I’m in love with a mountain bike.

An advance in shifting technology, the Rohloff planetary gear hub has completely changed my attitude and I’m back in the all terrain business.

In the early eighties when I became a cyclist, I was a road cyclist first because at that time there were no mountain bikes. The first bikes I ever loved, 80s road-racing bicycles, were the picture of simplicity. And while there have been several huge technological advances in road bike technology (clip-less pedals, index shifting, STI/Ergo, carbon fiber frames, etc.) the overall feeling that these are very simple, elegant machines has never left. They are, of course, more complicated now than they were in the 80s. It’s no longer the case that an average person can completely disassemble every component with a few wrenches for example. The number of moving parts has skyrocketed. But the complexity has been added in ways that make the overall experience of the road bicycle less complicated. For example, before index shifters, shifting quickly and effectively was extremely difficult and almost an art to pull off consistently. Index shifters were more complex internally, but greatly simplified the task of finding the correct gear, and even helped decrease wear since the chain was now always in perfect alignment, minimizing friction.

The story with the evolution of mountain bike technology has been different in some important ways, however.

The early mountain bikes were pretty simple. They were pretty much just beefier road bikes, with straight handlebars, stronger brakes, and knobby tires. They were sleek, clean, svelte-looking beasts. I liked them. But between the advent of full (front and rear) suspension systems, and the race to add the most ‘speeds’ (cogs) to the bikes, they have evolved into something I find disgusting and contrary to everything I enjoy about bicycles, aesthetically and otherwise. Rear suspension in particular I find to be an abomination but alternatives...”hard tail” bikes have continued to be available.

Unfortunately there has been no solution to the other, critical problem with modern mountain bikes: The 9-speed derailleur-based drivetrain is simply ill-suited to off-road use in my opinion. To permit such a large number of cogs, several sacrifices were made. The chain had to become impossibly thin, making it vulnerable to quick wear (amplified even more by the hypgerlide cog design to allow shifting under load). And the cogs themselves wear rapidly due to the very nature of the fact that shifting involves forcing the derailleur to wrest the chain from one cog and force it up to another especially under force. It’s really a violent act.

The Rohloff hub is a fascinating alternative to the derailleur+cogs shifting system that in my opinion corrects almost every single problem and makes the mountain biking experience infinitely simpler, but it does it through introducing a far-more complex shifting system.

In short:

— Only one chainring and one cog. Like a single-speed. That means the chain is never at any angle other than optimal, wear is minimized.

— Permits a dishless and therefore much stronger rear wheel, which means fewer broken spokes.

— 14 evenly distributed speeds, covering exactly the same range as a standard derailleur mountain bike.

— The planetary gears are sealed inside an oil bath and require no maintenance. Ever.

— Heavier hub, but this is offset somewhat by the components which are no longer needed (derailleurs, multiple chainrings/cogs, etc).

— Far simpler shifter, immune to damage during a crash. It doesn’t even have springs since all the “indexing” is done inside the hub.

— Almost silent operation offroad given the total lack of “chain slap” and clattery derailleurs.

— Able to change gears while stationary (this sounds trivial but off-road it’s pretty great since sometimes you come to a complete stop on a climb and need a lower gear fast)

— Dirt, mud, ice & snow can’t affect the ability to shift with this hub.

The thing is an absolute pleasure to ride. I got mine from Grand Performance bike shop in St. Paul and it came inside with a Moots frame which was specifically designed to accommodate it.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating of course, so I reserve the right to change my mind about this thing, which at present seems like the greatest thing to ever happens to mountain bikes. I’ll be riding the shit out of my new rohloff equipped 29”er mootox over the next year, and if it fails, I’ll let you know. But so far it’s fucking awesome and if it does live up to it’s promise, it’s more proof that sometimes to find simplicity you have to look for a certain kind of thoughtful complexity.