The German-made Rohloff Speedhub was designed for the kind of off-road conditions that destroy a derailleur-bike’s drivetrain. Yet you’ll more often see this 14-speed hub gear on high-end city bikes. Over the last year it’s made inroads into the UK touring bike market; St John Street Cycles have been pushing it hard. There are now four bikes in Thorn’s Rohloff-equipped Raven range: two hardtail mountain bikes and two 26- inch wheel tourers. The Tour is designed for ‘adventure touring, cycle camping, rough-stuff, bombproof commuting’. The lighter Sport Tour is for fast touring. Both come with backcurved riser bars, but drop bars are one of the many ‘a la carte’ options.

FRAME

The Tour’s frame and fork are TIG welded in Taiwan from three types of heavier-than-aluminium-but-moredependable steel. The fork is a traditionalist’s favourite: Reynolds 531ST, here with a twin-plate crown designed to improve lateral stiffness. The stays are Reynolds 725, which has a better strength to weight ratio than 531. The main frame triangle is ‘969’, which is Thorn’s name for their custom, butted 4130 chrome-moly tubeset. The numbers refer to the wall thickness, which changes from 0.9mm to 0.6 and 0.9 again along the tube. The down tube is ‘conical’: it’s oversized and wider at the bottom bracket than at the head tube, and so stiffer where the twisting forces from pedalling are greater. Useful frame features include a deep vertical left-hand dropout, which allows the use of a mini torque arm for the hub. This is neater than a chainstay mount and means the rear wheel comes off without tools – the gear cables are separable, thanks to bayonet-style couplings. An eccentric bottom bracket deals with chain tensioning. There are braze-ons for a bottle dynamo, a pump, and some tidy head tube guides for the gear cables.

GEARS

The Speedhub’s 14 gears are evenly spread across a 526% range. It’s comparable to a triple chainset derailleur set-up, in terms of usable gears and overall range. The ratios in full are: 0.28, 0.32, 0.36, 0.41, 0.46, 0.53, 0.60, 0.68, 0.77, 0.88, 1, 1.14, 1.29, and 1.47. On the test bike, fitted with 26x1.75" tyres (not the nominal 26x2" tyres used for SJSC’s catalogue figures), the gear range is 19.5- 102". Direct drive, which you’ll need to multiply by the ratios shown to get the other gears, is about 70" (69.6"). How come 11th gear is direct drive? What you’ve got is a 7-speed hub for gears 8-14, with a reduction gear that kicks in for gears 1-7. You need to back off pedalling between 7th and 8th (and vice versa) because the reduction gear is disengaging and the 7-speed hub is simultaneously shifting from top to bottom. Apart from that shift, though, all others are quick and easy, whether pedalling or stationary. The gear indexing is done inside the hub, so gear cable tension isn’t critical. Gears 8-14 feel slick and efficient, albeit with loud freewheeling in some gears. Gears 1-7 are noisier and feel rougher and less efficient, a problem emphasised by the fact that 7th is the noisiest of the lot. Imagine you’ve got a really nice 7-speed hub with seven notquite- so-good bailout gears, which you can hear churning as you winch up climbs. That, in essence, is the Speedhub. The hub does get quieter and smoother with use: I’ve ridden two Raven Tours, one brand new and this one, which had about 1,000 miles on the hub. Nevertheless, it’s worth specifying chainring and sprocket sizes that will keep you in gears 8-14 for as much of your riding as possible. I’d recommend 38x16 – losing the 44x16T’s top gear for better low-middle gears. Of course the Speedhub brings benefits too. Mine never missed a shift. It’s protected from weather and dirt – although it’s a pity that a lightweight chaincase isn’t one of the many options, eccentric bottom bracket notwithstanding. There’s no rear mech to damage (a fact I appreciated when I crashed the test bike…). Maintenance is minimal, and durability should be much better.