Rohloff
Some companies make gear hubs. Rohloff makes the gear hub. The Speedhub 500/14 is the kind of product that inspires people to plan multi-year bicycle tours across continents — not because they want adventure, but because they finally have a hub that won’t quit before they do. Hand-assembled in a small German town near Kassel since 1996, every single unit gets the kind of attention most bikes don’t get in their entire lifetime. At €1,000+, it costs more than many complete bicycles. Nobody who owns one thinks they overpaid.
Their company motto? “No slogans, just facts.” Which is, ironically, the best slogan in the bike industry.
📋 Company Profile
🔧 The Speedhub 500/14
There’s really only one product to talk about, but what a product it is. The Speedhub 500/14 packs 14 evenly-spaced gears into a sealed, oil-bath-lubricated hub that weighs under 2kg. The 526% gear range means you can climb mountain passes and cruise downhills without ever running out of gears. Each shift step is exactly 13.6% — no weird jumps, no dead zones.
The internals are three planetary gear stages that combine into 14 ratios. It’s sealed for life (well, 25ml of oil every 5,000km — Rohloff’s idea of “maintenance”). People have ridden these hubs 100,000+ kilometers across every continent. The hub doesn’t care. It was engineered not to.
- 14 gears — 526% total range, 13.6% even steps
- 1,980g — lighter than you’d expect for what’s inside
- 130 Nm max input torque — e-bike compatible
- Oil bath lubrication — sealed, 5000km oil change interval
- Twist shifter with pull-pull cable system
⚡ E-14: The Electronic Version
Because even Rohloff eventually had to admit that electronic shifting is pretty nice. The E-14 adds push-button or automatic shifting to the Speedhub. The E-14 2.0 integrates with Bosch Smart System — so your e-bike can automatically shift gears based on speed and cadence. It’s like having a tiny German engineer riding on your rear axle, constantly optimizing your gear ratio. Which, in a sense, you do.
💡 Why Rohloff + Belt?
If you’re spending €1,000+ on a hub that’s built to outlast your frame, your marriage, and possibly your will to live, you probably don’t want to pair it with a chain that needs replacing every few thousand kilometers. A Gates CDX belt lasts 30,000+ km — which is closer to what a Rohloff considers a warm-up. Together they create the ultimate zero-maintenance drivetrain: no oil on your pants, no chain stretch, no derailleur to catch on things. Just silent, perfect power transfer.
Every serious touring bike builder (Tout Terrain, idworx, Velotraum, Santos) offers Rohloff + belt as their top-tier drivetrain option. It’s the cycling equivalent of “buy once, cry once.”
🌍 Who Uses Rohloff?
World tourers, expedition cyclists, commuters who’ve done the math on lifetime drivetrain costs, and a surprising number of e-bike riders who want a hub that can handle 85Nm motors without breaking a sweat. You’ll find Rohloff hubs on bikes from Nicolai, Tout Terrain, idworx, Santos, Velotraum, Schindelhauer (Heinrich XIV), and custom builders worldwide. If a bike has a Rohloff, it was built by someone who knows what they’re doing.
🛒 Where to Buy
Rohloff sells through authorized dealers — no Amazon, no shortcuts.
Visit rohloff.de →