A great number of SPEEDHUB riders, Bike manufacturers and guests gathered together at the Rohloff AG on Saturday for the closing of the WANTED campaign.(Video Eurobike 2008) . With the WANTED campaign (which was started at Eurobike 2008 with  the live completion of the 100,000th SPEEDHUB bicycle transmission), the Rohloff AG have been searching for cyclists who have clocked up more than 60,000km in the last years with their SPEEDHUB 500/14. The mileage had to be made believable with the presentation of a tour report and the participants were then rewarded with the chance to win one of 14 SPEEDHUBs, the main prize being the SPEEDHUB with serial number 111,111 which was 24 carat gold plated.

Video Wanted-Day

From the many stories and reports which were submitted, a total of 55 tour reports/stories were considered believable and therefore eligible for participation. Every one of these cyclists had clocked up the minimum of 60,000km with one and the same SPEEDHUB 500/14. Several of these riders had reached the magic mileage of 100,000km with their personal hub. The SPEEDHUB transmission systems had proved themselves here for daily use and extraordinary high mileage tours in very different areas of application:

By the daily trip to work, through training routines, by repetitive participation on long distance marathon races like the Trans-Alp or the Trans-Germany, by crossing the desert Gobi, through the jungles of Vietnam, by the Trans America on the way to Patagonia, by crossing the frozen Baikal Lake or the Birdsville track in Australia. In the Tibeten highlands or along the Silk Road, straight through the Sahara or on the way through Siberia Kamchatka. The SPEEDHUB 500/14  is at home on all routes of the world. We were also extremely pleased to see that two SPEEDHUBs from the first prototype series (compiling of in total 20 units) had also taken part in the WANTED campaign.

The number 8 which was originally given to a mountain bike magazine in 1997 as a test unit was then sold to its current owner, Holger Poggel; 90.000 kilometres later and it is still being ridden today!

The number 11 was used given to  Andreas von Heßberg (www.mountainbike-expeditions-team.de) for a long term test in 1998. The first trip took this particular SPEEDHUB to Botswana and Namibia, upon which the hub had to cross the Namib und Kalahari deserts. This SPEEDHUB has currently clocked up a mileage of approximately 71,000km.

There were even 4 participants with hubs from the first batch of 100 SPEEDHUBs which were delivered to the company Utopia Velo.

The SPEEDHUB with the highest reported mileage belonged to Thomas Longin. He has repeatedly crossed  North Africa, the Baltic, Scandinavia and South Europe since the year 2000 and in doing so has clocked up an amazing 43.900 kilometres. Bernhard Enders in contrary has been using his SPEEDHUB daily since 1999 mostly to travel to and from work as well as tours of his home area. To date, these distances have added up to a massive 132,000 kilometres. Heinz Lickenbrock also uses his SPEEDHUB for daily transportation by rain and shine. He has been cycling approximately 80km each day since 2002 whereby he has become accustomed to all the cycle route in his home county. This distance currently adds up to 126.000 kilometres. Heinz Mathäy is also a proud owner of a SPEEDHUB since 1999 and used this daily to travel to work. Since becoming a pensioner he has enjoyed having the free time to spend on his beloved bicycle, getting up as early as 3:00am sometimes to go cycling. Through this combined usage he has currently clocked up 110500 kilometres with his SPEEDHUB.

If the total distances ridden were to be added together, then the total mileage of all eligible participants would have added up to a colossal 4.143.292 kilometres. This works out at an average of 75.332 kilometres for every eligible participant or 1,9 x Earths circumference.

The oldest participant in the WANTED campaign was Rohmann Rosteck at 72 years old who had clocked up 61.000 Kilometres closely followed by Gerhard Kaiser, 71 years old with 68.000 kilometres and Monika Pauls, 70 years young with a total of 87,000 kilometres.

The youngest participant was Nadine Puschkasch. She is 28 years old and unfortunately for us could not take part in the festivities, she was to this time still on the return trip from Canada as the presentation was taking place. She had crossed a total of 40 countries and in doing so had ridden a total 80.000 kilometres.

The main prize, SPEEDHUB number 111,111 which was 24 carat gold plated went to Peter Smolka who has decided that he would like to auction off the unique hub and then donate all the proceeds to charity. Further information over the auction will be presented soon on his website (www.lemlem.de) and shortly here on our homepage.


Direct to tour report

Here is information over all other winners!

Even our sports athletes should not be forgotten on this day. There were also trophies presented for special achievements. These selected athletes all received trophies as recognition for their achievements.

Tanja Ruppert,one of the  most successful German Downhill and Cross-Country cyclists has been competing regualar in XC and XC Marathon races with the SPEEDHUB over the last 8 years. She has regularly won such races as the Hessen-Cup, NRW-Cup, the Hessen womens Master Title and secured podium places at Marathon Races such as the Transalp. She has decided that this year will be the last time that she competes in such large races as the Trans-Alp.

In Downhill sport, Christiane Rumpf has been competing for a good 10 years with the same SPEEDHUB Serial Number 451. In this time she has become one of the most successful woman winning the Hessen Master Title, German Master and great placings by the World Cup. She has also won the extreme race “Megavalanche” in the French Alps, the second woman ever to achieve this!

Cross Country races are fast. Downhill races even faster. But Ellen from Holland goes really fast. She competes in High speed sprint races where speeds of over 100km an hour are by no means un-commen! She has started the Opel race course successfully with Titles such as „Fastest Woman on Earth“ and many speed records. Together with her husband Hans, she also competes in world class races such as the high speed race courses like Battle-Mountain in the USA. Furthermore, she can often be found at many various races in Holland with either her HPV or her recumbent.

We were pleased to present Matthias Mende who for us has become an asset in the disciplines of XC and XC Marathon. Following his Professional MTB career he decided to concentrate on his medicine degree and therefore has been competing for the last 6 years as a licenced Hobby athlete. Since this date, he has been utilising a SPEEDHUB and with this has won many races such as the Bike Marathon at Gardasee, Bike-Marathon in Willingen and many XC Marathons in Germany and abroad. In the last few years he has found a new passion for tandem cycling. The greatest success with his hobby career being together with the Biathlete Katja Beer winning the greatest German Marathon Race. the Trans-Germany last year – this being the simultaneous conclusion of his mountain bike career.