We're big fans of the Rohloff Speed Hub here at Practical Cycles, for many different reasons. There's certainly no reason to doubt the reputation of Rohloff and its incredible hub - the former, hailing from Fuldatal near Kassel in Germany, has been around since the late 1980s, and has since gained renown for its high-performing and durable hub gears and bicycle chains. As for the Speed Hub, this has been in production since 1998 and has quite a back-story of its own.The history of the Rohloff Speed Hub can be traced back to the 1994 Tour de France, which the Rohloffs were attending while bicycling on a French beach. When their bikes got stuck in the sand, their primitive derailleur gear systems failing to work, Bernhard Rohloff decided to develop a new internally geared hub. Fast-forward to the 1996 IFMA in Cologne, and a 14-speed, 1700 gram gear hub was announced.Various difficulties with funding the hub's development and production ensued, but by Christmas 1998, Rohloff Speed Hub units had started to reach customers, and from a mere 300 hubs produced that year and 2,114 in 1999, production had expanded to around 20,000 units by 2008 - as remains the case today. Nor is it difficult to see why the Rohloff Speed Hub has become so profoundly popular, given its combination of exceptional reliability, easy operation, low maintenance and perfect single gear ratios.It's possible to determine the Rohloff Speed Hub that is best-suited to your own bike by going through the various steps of the company's own online Speed Hub Finder. As for where you should buy your next Rohloff Speed Hub from, we suggest that you look no further than Practical Cycles. You certainly have a lot of choice of Speed Hubs with us - you may opt for a disk, disk brake or non-disk brake hub, for example, while you can also select between a q/r axle and solid axle, and there's also the option of an internal cable route or external cable route. Available colours, too, include black, red and silver.That level of choice extends to the rims - does a Mavic Open Pro (700c) 32h silver rim take your fancy, for example, or perhaps you're more interested in a Rigida Sputnik 26" 32h black rim?Spoke choices for a Rohloff Speed Hub, meanwhile, include x 32 Sapim Race and Sapim Leader options, and you can also plump for a one, two or three cross spoke pattern, alongside such extras as a rim tape, chain tensioner, oil change kit and chain guide.Here at Practical Cycles we ride the Rohloff hub on our touring and mountian bikes so we're confident that we're the place to come for a Rohloff Speed Hub for your bicycle, so why look to any other online store?
