hi there,
i ride singlespeed in the summer but would like an alfine hub to ride in the winter (now and mud, when i cant stand up and get traction) and when riding with my geared mates from work.
i see that there are different models :
SG-S500 and SG-S501 and more, which one to choose?
The SG-S500 is about £100 on ebay.de without shift lever (cheap i think)
cheers

Not sure what the difference is between the model numbers so can’t help there. Alfine is great it’s only downside is it’s weight. Very smooth gearshifts even in mud and minimal maintenance then it’s for you.

I love my alfine 8

I think the difference between the two is one has a roller clutch the other doesn’t

I have the 01 and I’ve never had an issue with it

Probably one of those things where you only notice a difference if you’ve been told about it beforehand

They’re great-have had one for 3 winters now and I’ve not had any issues with it. The rare Mis-shift but thus normally due to cable adjustment.

We’ve had a few in, ****ed from water ingress.

They need SOME maintenance.

I had both, yes the 501 has a diff clutch/straight cut mesh or something, both seemed to work fine, the clutch on the 500 seemed a bit more spongy.Only problem I had with them was the regular freezing of the shifter mech at the rear wheel in really cold condition leaving me stuck in 1 gear

I love mine too, I use it on my winter road bike and it works great, ride garage ride etc etc, no clean and a very occasional squirt of gt85 on the chain, just what the doctor ordered in the winter.

I do find it can feel slightly draggy in low gears, but I’m probably running lower than recommended gearing. It’s fine just doesn’t feel so direct when in gears 1 or 2. Have seen others make similar comment. iirc was designed for tourers never intended for low gear abuse of mtbs.
For all that love mine 1 year of use and utter neglect still going strong. Bike doesn’t get hosed and a lube once every few weeks all it needs

Yep, same here.

Have one on my cross/winter bike and I just ride it and put it away. Occasionally I hose it down and lube the chain, but that’s it. There is some extra weight and drag, but it makes getting on the nice road bike more of a treat.

I love mine which I have on a roadrat for commuting. I’ve not tried one on an mtb but with the weight and also location of said weight I’m not sure I’d like it. Ymmv

Love mine, got it on an old inbred and not really noticed the weight, don’t recommend the twist grip changer though mine seemed to fail fairly quickly

Alfine 8 on my roadrat with Nexus gripshift. Wouldnt want one on an MTB due to the much heavier back end, might not be as much of an issue if your wheels stay on the ground. Made a world of difference to smoothness & drag when I switched to oil bath inside.

thanks for the replies.
i think i want the 01 model, the non spongy one.

i like the idea of riding more and cleaning less 🙂

Got to be the future if the can reduce the weight. Or integrate into the bottom bracket so the weight is in the middle of the bike and attached to the frame rather than hanging out in the back wheel.

There is also the SG-500, has some of the improvement that the 501 has.
I had one on a inbred for a while, you only notice the weight when you pick it up, not so much when you are riding. They are a bit of a fiddle to get on and off if you get a puncture.

my 4yo mtb sg500 has gone rumbly in the cup and cones, which considering i’ve done nowt but oil the chain in that time is acceptable.

never noticed a spongyness compared to:

3yo cx/commuter sg501 which has had the cup and cones serviced twice and oiled a bit.

Oh and for those of you that don’t like the RapidRise style shifting you can now convert a SRAM x9 shifter to work with the Alfine

@thepodge – how do you mean ‘now convert’ a SRAM shifter? Is it that any ESP 1:1 shifter will work, or is it a specific X9 model?

I’ve been considering one, but don’t know which frame to get to build a hub geared bike

I got a bit confused, the shifting is still backwards but the convert lets you change multiple gears at once instead of the one at once that the standard shifter does.

You have to buy a little plate that fits to the X9 shifter apparently it only works with the X9. Search for the Zerode Europe facebook page and its a couple of posts down, he’s out of stock at the moment but has a load more on order.

Any frame will work, I find running it on vertical dropous much easier for fitting & removing the rear wheel that horizontal ones

Has anyone a view on the Alfine 11 – it seems to be a lot of cash for an extra 3 gears ?

It’s lighter but there seems to be a high number returned under warranty

Any 8-spd shifter can be made to work with the Alfine 8, using a Travel Agent widget – I’ve done it with a bar-end shifter, for instance.

I’ve seen and heard of a surprising number of faulty Alfine 11s – the 8 is great, the 11 is perhaps a step too far.

Of course, neither are a patch on the Rohloff 🙂

For the money the 8 is brill. Probably all you need on the road. I can see how the extra 3 gears would be more than usefull off road.

I’ve been riding an 8 speed for a couple of years on my commute bike. It’s low maintenance and with a 16t nexus cog, I no longer get overtaken. However, I do get the odd gear slip when out of the saddle and today I went arse over tit clipped in pulling out hard on a roundabout at rush hour!

I have an 8. Seems good so far but lordy its heavy!

Thinking of selling mine alfine 8 if anyone is interested?

My 8-speed Alfine is probably the best bike thing I’ve ever bought. Reliable and so far maintenance free, this is the 3rd winter with it.

The extra 3 gears are all at the top end so, if anything, it’s even more aimed at the road/touring/trekking market.

Makes no difference what end they are on, you can just adjust you rear cog to alter the gearing, or the front chainring if you fancy.

Although Shimano have a recommended gear ratio for the 11-speed that limits how low you can go (if you want to follow their recommendation).

bencooper – Member

Any 8-spd shifter can be made to work with the Alfine 8, using a Travel Agent widget – I’ve done it with a bar-end shifter, for instance.

Does it have to be a Shimano 8 speed shifter?

ben interesting comment about the rohloff

i have both a well bedded in and serviced rohloff and an alfine 8 and barring embarking on a world tour id take the alfine every day.

Does it have to be a Shimano 8 speed shifter?

Well, it has to have the same cable pull as Shimano.

i have both a well bedded in and serviced rohloff and an alfine 8 and barring embarking on a world tour id take the alfine every day.

Interesting – why? I do loads of Rohloffs, but happy to admit they’re not for everyone…

@bencooper

I’ve seen and heard of a surprising number of faulty Alfine 11s – the 8 is great, the 11 is perhaps a step too far.

Faulty how?

ben

because my alfine feels like im riding multiple SS ratios – very very little feedback from the hub

my rohloff and others ive ridden all feel like im pedaling through treacle and sound like a bag of spanners in half the range.

my rohloffs done a few thousand K and had a couple of services its not out the box and needing bedded in.

I’m running a cut down Nexus hub in the back of a Specialized Tricross singlespeed frame – it has 120mm track ends, but the Nexus is hackable. Did 120 miles on it last Saturday night with nary a complaint. The cable needed adjustment from time to time (it seemed to stretch a heck of a lot), but I have an inline cable adjuster, so didn’t need to even get off the bike – just gave it couple of twirls. I use a Jtek bar end shifter, which is simple, light and nice and solid to use.

I’ve not strictly used it off road – just a bit of bridleway bimbling with ‘cross tyres on, and towing the nippers around in a trailer. Works a treat, very reliable.

Keep the hub in adjustment at all times, and you won’t have the slipping problem – it’s a case of lining up two yellow dots, so very simple.

Ben.

Anything else you need to do with the Travel Agent to get it working with the Alfine or is it just a case of fitting it into the cable system as per the standard instructions?

Have to agree with trail rat about the ‘Hoff.
I sold mine for those very reasons.

My experience is that Alfine 8 is bombproof, but the Alfine 11 can have issues, just like previous posters. Shimano finally admitted that there were sealing issues with the 11, but it’s also almost impossible to tell if you’ve changed gear at times. Also customers can complain that gears feel like they have shifted the wrong way, when in fact the internals are really draggy in certain gears, combined the the close gear ratios.

I was open to hub gears until I actually started working on them a lot and now have a new found enthusiasm for boring old derailleurs 😆

Nothing special needed with the TA – I just fit it onto the cable stop at the hub.

The Alfine 11 hubs I’ve seen / heard of have failed almost from new, slipping or missing some gears, mostly lower gears I think. I don’t think it’s a sealing issue, it happens too quickly for that to happen.

It’s a bit like a problem we had with the first batch of Sturmey X-RF8(W) hubs where the spring groove in the pawls was machined a bit too deep, causing the pawl to crack in half and jam or slip.

my rohloff and others ive ridden all feel like im pedaling through treacle and sound like a bag of spanners in half the range.

Hmm. There was a slight issue with one batch where some shift springs were weaker than they should have been. But I think they were all sorted out. I guess it’s one of those subjective things – I can’t hear mine at all. Is it in an alloy frame by any chance?