Friday, May 30, 2014

Customer Interviews: Adventure Racer Shane Hagerman


From time to time our customers tell us about impressive rides they’ve done, but few live up to Shane Hagerman’s tales. Shane is a member of Team Odyssey Adventure racing, a race team that competes in multi-day endurance races throughout the world. The four members of Team Odyssey work together to cover hundreds of miles over the course of a few days, sleeping just a few hours a time to give them an advantage over other teams. 

The backcountry routes that the courses follow are often rough and obstacle strewn, meaning their bikes must be as durable yet as light as possible. A few Team Odyssey members ride Rohloff SPEEDHUBs for this reason, including a teammate of Shane’s that we recently built this lightweight titanium Vassago Optimus Ti for. 

Read on to learn more about Shane, adventure racing, and why the SPEEDHUB is his drivetrain of choice.



What type of bike are you using your Rohloff hub on and why did you choose it?
I’ve had the SPEEDHUB on quite a few bikes over the years. Right now I’m on an carbon fiber On-One Lurcher, and I have a titanium Vassago Optimus Ti on order that I’ll be riding soon. In the past, I’ve ridden a Vassago Bandersnach, Salsa Dos Niner, Salsa Selma, Salsa Ti Mariachi. All of these bikes I’ve set up as lightweight race bikes, but I’ve had the same SPEEDHUB the whole time that I’ve swapped around on all of them.

What type of riding do you do mostly?
I’ve used all my bikes for endurance adventure racing, but I’ve had all sorts of different configurations on them. For example on a multi-day race with a lot of pavement, I tried something different than I normally ride. I put drop bars on my Vassago Bandersnatch since it was a longer race on a mostly smooth route. That thing just hammered on the pavement.


How do you plan to use the bike in the future? Do you have any major rides or trips planned?
Right now, we’re working toward the Adventure Racing World Series, which is an eight and a half day race in Ecuador. For race support all you get is a 20 gallon Rubbermaid bin that you have to stock with food, and you have it moved around the course. We’ll have a ton of food, including PB&J sandwiches, frozen Twinkies, frozen burritos, Pringles, and plenty of other processed food that won't go bad. We also have about three other multi day races coming up, including an intense four day race in Wales.


What attracted you to the Rohloff hub for the type of riding you do?
When I first heard of the SPEEDHUB, I thought it was too heavy and had too much drag for racing. I finally did a six hour mountain bike race and switched bikes partway through the race. Although I rode both a SPEEDHUB and a regular drivetrain in a particularly tough race, I couldn’t tell the difference. That was enough to convince me there were no drawbacks to the SPEEDHUB drivetrain.

When you’re dealing with multi day races, the durability of your drivetrain is huge. A lightweight front derailleur, for example, can be very flimsy. When you have to start shifting by kicking your front derailleur - which I’ve seen racers do - you’re really losing time.


What is your favorite feature of the Rohloff hub?
It’s awesome to have a drivetrain that’s forgiving. You can go into a hill that you don’t anticipate and quickly jump all your gears to get into the low gear you need. It’s very forgiving of badly timed shifts. That same feature is also great for the hike-a-bike sections. You can get off the bike in eighth gear, then hop back on and put it back in second gear to get going. On a derailleur bike, you’d have to shift then lift up your back wheel and pedal to start off in a low gear.

The internal drivetrain is also great for muddy conditions. When some freak storm comes through on a racecourse, a lot of racers simply can’t use their derailleurs.

- Shane Hagerman

Thanks to Shane for taking the time to answer our interview questions and good luck in your upcoming adventure races!

We'd love to hear stories and see pictures of your Rohloff and Schlumpf equipped bikes in action! Send them to adventures@cyclemonkey.com

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