Hi my mate needs a new drivetrain for his winter road tour bike and is thinking of a internal geared hub is the alfine 8 good enough and does it have a decent spread of low for fully loaded and high for a bit of speed. Also can you run one with a double set of rings up front. Cheers

Don’t see why not, double ring fine with a tensioner. The jumps might be too big for a roadie IMO.

I wish they’d release a close ratio alfine for roadies 🙁 I’d get one and belt-drive it.

If you do go down the dual ring route, you’ll have a mish mash of shifters for either flat or drop bars as there isn’t a ‘front’ shifter for Alfine…… that might not be the only problem though – are there issues with chain-line etc?

I use one for commutting. Range is spot on. It can get me up as good a hill as you can throw at me (Brecon Beacons, Newcastle, Wylam) without spinning out too much on a good down hill. So that’s a range of ~6 mph stood up in bottom gear to spinning out at 35-40 mph.

The chunky range is annoying though. Comfortable psnning speeds on ym gearing are 16 mph or 19 mph, where my average/happy cruising speed is somewhere in between.

The shimano alfine/nexus chain tensioner has a large spring and throw on it for exactly that purpose. You shouldn’t need it though.

Hi my mate needs a new drivetrain for his winter road tour bike and is thinking of a internal geared hub is the alfine 8 good enough and does it have a decent spread of low for fully loaded and high for a bit of speed. Also can you run one with a double set of rings up front. Cheers

you can have double rings – you need to use the alfine tensioner to take the slack up.

as for ratios you can use this to look at ratios etc

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gears/

I have one on a Singular Peregrine setup pretty much the same as Jon Taylor’s (except mine’s shinier).
I’ve ridden home from the Lakes over Hartside Pass on it and its great.

DSC_0871 by ir_bandito, on Flickr

Cheers chaps what size cogs and rings are you using btw

I’m using a 45t front and 18t (IIRC?) rear. It originally had 16t on the rear but I put the 18t on for a trip from Kendal to Swansea via the Brecon Beacons. I’ll check once home.

p.s. His is shinier.

I rode my fully loaded tourer up nearly everything apart from a 25% climb at the end of a 100Km day of ridding as I thought my head was about to pop. I also managed 40Km in an hour with a monster tailwind on another day of the ride. I was spinning pretty hard but not spinning out.
I’m running 18 39 I think (will check). Think I might drop it a bit if I tour again but unladen it’s fine. The only thing I found a bit annoying was having to back off almost to the point of stopping pedaling when changing down under load. If it was really steep it did feel like I was going to grind to a halt, but I got used to it.

I’ve said this before and at the danger of sounding like a broken record, the alfine needs thick spokes, otherwise the vibrate in the flange hole (fnar fnar) and snap at the elbow after x thousand miles of use!

I’ve used one for commuting/light touring for a year and a half now. Perfect for theses uses. Haven’t done any maintenance in ages! I use the JTek bar end shifter.

However, I’ve taken it on the sunday club run a few times and the gear jumps are annoying when riding in a bunch as 1 gear is too easy and the next is too hard at a specific constant speed.

Heh nice D, you’re turning into a roadie 😎

Oh damitamit I didn’t know bar end shifters worked with them 😉

Cheers chaps what size cogs and rings are you using btw

45 front and 20 rear on my Roadrat. Perfect for commuting but I’d want to go a tad lower if touring, and maybe a tad higher (45:18 perhaps) if it was a drop-bar road bike.

I’ve got one of the Alfine tensioners so was thinking about using a double up front but haven’t got around to trying it.

firestater, only this special one works with it: http://jtekengineering.com/jtek_bar-end_shifter.htm

I got mine from PlanetX. Not sure they still sell them.

Ah not as good as hoped re the shifter , thanks all

On-one’s doing an amazing deal on the Alfine right now…
This…

…and this if you can’t be arsed to build a wheel!! 🙂 (costs 215 including all the gubbins)

Hey ir_bandito, what kind of shifter are you using there?

The alfine hub and bits is even cheaper at Rosebikes.co.uk (and it’s definitely the better 501 model)

http://www.rosebikes.co.uk/

shermer – it’s a Versa shifter. Like these

http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/BLVEVRS8/versa-vrs-8-brake-levers-pair-for-alfine-8sp-

Thanks Jon! 🙂

Hey Mackem- that is phenomenally cheap!!! It does say that it’s only suitable for vertical drop outs though. Maybe there is a way around that?

Yep, you can buy the horizontal locking washers for about £4. Nice…

Nearly just bought a built wheel from rosebikes then realised it a 24 spoke one not for my fat ass lol