So, I visited the bike-days in Solothurn yesterday. A place where you can test-drive tons of bikes. I wanted to test out a couple of bikes with vee-belt and used the opportunity to compare the Shimano Alfine-11, the Rohloff SpeedHub 500/14 and the Pinion P1.18 Gearbox.
Short overview of the competitionAlfine-11: The cheapest of the trio does exactly what you expect of it. It does not shift gears as smoothly as the others and does not nearly have their transmission range. On the other hand, its the gear-box that rattles the least when coasting.
Rohloff 500/14: Some say, its the best gearbox ever built (boy are they wrong). However, not all gears are the same, some are barely usable due to lots of rattling and friction (they are also less efficient, noticeably so! There is no standard to measure this, but according to Rohloff there is a difference of 5% in efficiency between gears). It is a very good gearbox, but as the owner of a bike with this gearbox, I'd say unless you get it at a bargaining price, its not worth it.
Pinion P1.18I test-drove the Pinion with a
MTB Cycletech ToolDescription:The P1.18 is a German Masterpiece. Unlike other gearboxes it is not located in the wheel-axis but at the pedal axis, admittedly, this gives it a bit of an odd look.
For more detail look at the
Official Website.
Cons -
Lets kick off with the cons- Heavily rattles when coasting
- Expensive, the price for the gearbox alone is in the 2000€ range
ProsSmooth... You thought an androids-face was smooth, think again. Gear shifting is extremely soft and fast and you can do it while pedaling as hard as you want (according to the manufacturer there is a limit, where you can't shift into a lower gear anymore, but I never had that much force on the gearbox).
Range It has beat the Rohloff hands down in Range and certainly all the MTB's I have ever tried out. It has a transmission range of 636% (I have to admit though I have no idea what that means). But point is, the lightest gear is incredibly light, the hardest is so hard I can only use it downhill.
All gears are equal Unlike the Rohloff, I could not detect any difference between the gears in terms of efficiency, none of them rattle while pedaling.
ConclusionIt really is a pleasure to ride a bike with the Pinion gearbox. Thanks to the constant difference of 11.5% between gears, you always know what to expect of the next gear making it very intuitive. This gearbox is in a league of its own, far superior to the Rohloff. I absolutely loved it and now that more manufacturer start incorporating it maybe it gets cheaper too. There are also "smaller" versions in the P1.12 and the P1.9XR/CR, so maybe we get an economy model one day
.
If you ever get a chance to try one out, go for it!
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