Bernhard Rohloff is the founder of

Rohloff AG 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 ...

and the inventor of several innovative products, amongst other the 14 speed Rohloff Speedhub 500/14 planetary gear hub.Excerpt from Financial Times Deutschland
/ref> Rohloff studied machine-engineering at Olympia while working part-time at

Henschel und Thyssen Henschel & Son (german: Henschel und Sohn) was a German company, located in Kassel, best known during the 20th century as a maker of transportation equipment, including locomotives, trucks, buses and trolleybuses, and armoured fighting vehicle ...

, a German locomotive manufacturer. After graduation, he worked at

Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to as Mercedes and sometimes as Benz, is a German luxury and commercial vehicle automotive brand established in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a Mercedes-Benz Group subsidiary established in 2019) is headquarter ...

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 The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consist ...

winners, and the manufacturing methods therefore. He personally designed "the green beast", a proprietary machine for manufacturing SLT-99 chains.Video from the Rohloff production line and interview of Bernhard Rohloff
/ref> Rohloff AG became an OEM chain manufacturer for

Campagnolo Campagnolo is an Italian manufacturer of high-end bicycle components with headquarters in Vicenza, Italy. The components are organised as groupsets (gruppi), and are a near-complete collection of a bicycle's mechanical parts. Campagnolo's flag ...

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 (with the new Kindernay XIV) on the market with more than 11 speeds. The gearhub is manufactured and assembled by hand in the company's premises in

Hessen, Germany Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major historic cities are Darms ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rohloff, Bernhard Mountain bike innovators Living people Engineers from Hesse 20th-century German inventors Businesspeople from Hesse Year of birth missing (living people)