Bernhard Rohloff
Bernhard Rohoff is the founder of Rohloff AG and the inventor of several innovative products, amongst other the 14 speed Rohloff Speedhub 500/14 planetary gear hub.
Rohloff studied machine-engineering at Olympia while working part-time at Henschel und Thyssen, a German locomotive manufacturer. After graduation he worked at Mercedes-Benz with development of automobile driveshafts.
Rohloff AG
Later he struck out on his own and founded Rohloff AG, where he first invented an advanced narrow chain that soon became the industry standard for road-bikes and was used by several Tour de France winners, and the manufacturing methods therefore. He personally designed "the green beast", a proprietary machine for manufacturing SLT-99 chains. Rohloff AG became an OEM chain manufacturer for Campagnolo.
Rohloff Speedhub 500/14
In the early 90s Rohloff began development of the Rohloff Speedhub 500/14, which was subsequently patented and released into the marked in 1998. It is the only gearhub on the market with more than 11 speeds. The gearhub is manufactured and assembled by hand in the company's premises in Hessen, Germany.
Rohloff
Rohloff AG is a German company from Fuldatal near Kassel that manufactures hub gears, bicycle chains and tools that are known for their durability and high performance. The company’s logo is a black silhouette of a raven on a yellow background.
History
Rohloff AG was founded in 1986 and began by producing a high-tech and very expensive bicycle chain, the SLT 99. Sales of this chain generated revenues of €1m in 1991, and approximately €0,5m annually from 1992-1998.
Development of the Rohloff Speedhub 500/14
While at the Tour de France road race in France in 1994, the Rohloffs went bicycling on the beach in France. The bikes got stuck in the sand, and the primitive derailleur gear systems would not work. This triggered Bernhard Rohloff to develop a new internally geared hub.
On the 1996 IFMA in Cologne, Rohloff announced a 14-speed gear hub with a weight of 1700 grams. At the time, the gear hub with the greatest number of speeds was the fragile 3700 gram 12 speed Sachs Elan (discontinued by 2000), made by the hub-gear manufacturer Sachs (later acquired by SRAM). A year later Rohloff presented a workable prototype at the 1997 IFMA and won a crate of champagne from the employees at Sachs, who had bet against them the year before. The managing director of the dominant cycling component manufacturer Shimano approached Rohloff and asked: "Shimano could release a 14 speed gear hub onto the market tomorrow, but it would weigh double as much as yours" - "How do you manage this?"
Podcasts:
