The alfine 8 looks good for my mixed commute, but may be a bit overgeared on some of the off road climbs.
Any hints for an Alfine 11 model?

Also, what are they like off road. I'll be doing about 50% of my miles over the Pentlands (real off road).

No plans for 11spd, as it's about twice the price of 8spd so would put the retail price up way high. We might do a limited run once we have availabilty an we've switched to our own wheels builds, but nothing concrete. It'd certainly be north of £1200 once you have discs on board.

Offroad they're fine up to a point, but it's not a 29er/mountain bike, it's a tough road bike. Think cyclocross bike and you're about there. It's not designed for drops, big rocks and big speed. Max front rotor is 160mm and it's good for green lanes, lumpy tracks, that kind of thing.

If you're looking at doing proper mountain biking but with this kind of bike, get a proper 29er IMO.

Ta Cy,

I'm looking at this or a Cross bike for my commute. Sounds like it'll do the job.

I'm 6 foot 6, do you think that the Large/Long would be big enough as I have quite long legs too. any idea when you're getting stock of this frame?

I've been running a drop bar roadat for a couple of years now – like Cy said, I wouldn't take it on anything seriously rocky but with the right tyres (I run Smart Sams) it's fantastic on fire roads, smooth singletrack and jeep type tracks. It'll cope fine with a few roots as well and is pretty easy to float it over any nasty bumps.

(Have I just invalidated the frame warranty, Cy? 😮

Fantastic bike. I'm running mine as a 42:18 singlespeed but there is a chance I'll be moving somewhere quite hilly next year in which case I'll be considering switching to Alfine and flat bars.