dom,

the bike was just over 2k but considering the bits and quality of finish it's a decent price.

both shimano and sram do 7 or 8 speed hub gears and i believe the shimano is being used by gt in one of thier mtb's so may be tough enough for your use - they are a lot cheaper too.

having ridden the rohloff in anger today for the first time it takes a bit of getting used to - especially as it was also my first time ever riding with clippy pedals. the novelty of just being able to belt down the ratios from say 12 to 4th when confronted with a steep slope and then back up to 13 on the downhill bit after is great - you do have to be a bit careful with loading the pedals when changing though but then this is also true of a conventional setup ime. don;t really notice the weight when riding and overall the thing is lighter than my old bike anyway so it's a moot point. yes it's noisy in some gears sounds alarmingly like a slow motion coffee grinder but aparently this is normal and will 'wear in' after the first 1000 km or so. the grip-shift is also different to what i'm used to and taking time to get used to as well.

the forks are a bit bouncy so i need to play with the adjustments and it's too easy to lift the front end when going up a slope in a low gear. guess i'll either have to stand up or hope playing with the settings sorts that out.

the clipply pedals i got (crank bros mallet c's) are great but there was a great comedy moment outside the pub where i was distracted by chris talking to me and forgot to unclip - timberrrrrrr.... comedy wrenching of the foot and slow motion topple. ahh well got to break my duck.... think i've got the idea now but i'm sure there'll be more falls to come.

cheers

julian.