Hi,
A colleague is interested in a commuter with a Alfine 11 hub.

http://www.velotive.com/17982/products/marin-fairfax-sc6-dlx-commuter.aspx

however he thinks the chainring and Cassette gearing is on the high side, 50 by 22, he doesn’t want to struggle on climbs when his fully loaded.

Anyone have a view if he’s correct?

I’ll get the abacus out tonight if not.
Thanks.

Have you checked Sheldon Brown’s gear calculator? There’s options there for the Alfine. I’ve a 49T chainring but I dropped the sprocket to 18T as I was rarely using the top end.

cheers WS, that was my plan tonight.
what sprocket did you have and was it not low enough?

Remember that the Nexus sprockets fit too – that will give you more options

My original was the standard 22T, it wasn’t that the range wasn’t low enough, I basically never used the top three ratios. Putting the 18T there gives me the full range of the hub. As scotroutes says, the Nexus sprockets fit too, the 18T is Nexus from what I recall.

Although the Nexus sprockets are not flat so will involve drive realignment (in my case this was a bonus and got me a much better chainline!)…

I run 32/22 on the MTB and am considering dropping further to avoid 1st – If you look at the gear inches of each ratio and try to use 2nd as your usual lowest gear, as once you drop into bottom gear it’s a big push to try and get back up to 2nd!

50:22 may well be a bit ambitious for Joe Bloggs hauling luggage up a Mountain
He will likely need to consider a different crank. I’ve run my Alfine with a 34t and with a 34/22 double, using one of the Alfine tensioners. That’s on a fatbike where low gearing is a good idea for making the most of the available traction

Cheers for the help chaps. I’ll show my working’s once I’ve had dinner