Our first customer wanted a black bike with silver parts and the only bike left in her size was green, so we got it powder coated. This meant that we could make a few changes to the frame, getting the bike ready for a Rohloff without having to worry about the paint.
First of all we removed the downtube shifter bosses since she would not be needing them.
Next we modified some old school MTB cable stops to allow the outer cable to pass through them and added them to the top tube to neaten up the cable run.
While we were there we added a kickstand plate for good measure.
The other Rolhoff LHT was the right colour to begin with, so it didn’t get the frame mods, but it did get a Gilles Berthoud shifter, designed to work with drop bars.
For some of us the biggest downside to Rohloff hubs was that they forced you to either use some variant on a flat bar, or else required the addition of a handlebar stub to mount the shifter on. This Berthoud shifter is an incredibly elegant solution to the problem. It comes in parts and slides into the middle of the bars. Far neater than any of the other solutions on the market.
While on the topic of Rolhoffs, we have also started stocking a Rohloff equipped bike – the Tout Terrain. To read about this, look here.
We have also started stocking replacement cogs and seals for Rolhoffs as well as the oil change kits.