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Hi,
I’m thinking about getting an Alfine 8 equipped hub for the back of my Gary Fisher rig, but before I do I’m interested to hear what people who use them (honestly) think about them. Are they durable enough for MTB use? What’s servicing like/how frequent? Is there much (or any) scope for adjusting the chain line at the hub (or does it all have to be done at the chainset end). Does the weight of them make it hard to bunny hop over trail obsticles?
Any other observations would be appreciated.
Cheers
VC
"who use them (honestly) think about them"
Now you've just made me want to fib :).
They've been done to death on here but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as a lot of the old posts have disappeared.
Durable - absolutely no problems with mine. Running for it's second winter (used as a commuter all year round too, although I've not commuted on it as much in the last 5 months). No maintenance so far. Have been thinking about taking it to bits to service the internals but it's pretty manky so I might not do it for a while!
If you get the Alfine sprockets you can flip them to adjust the chainline at the hub by slightly less than a centimetre. I'd imagine the Nexus ones could do this too. I bought some spacers to adjust the line of the middle chain ring and it's bang on.
The weight, oh the weight *chuckle*. Yeah it's heavy but you get used to it pretty quickly. I had it on a bike made up with a steel frame and low-mid end bits and it was heeeaaaavy. Put it on my lightweight XC build and it feels ok. Can still bunnyhop when required and it's not that heavy to put on the roof rack. Wasn't even too bad on the heavier build just noticeably different from my lightweight XC bike.
Love the low maintenance, could do with a slightly bigger span of gears to fit in commuting and off-roading but it's bearable. Alfine 11 likely better from this point of view but significantly more expensive.
Recommended.
Stu.
I've got a rohloff and an Alfine.
to keep things simple, wait for the 11-spd Alfine. Aswell as the extra gear-spread, its lighter than the 8-spd (and the Rohloff) and uses helical gears and oil-bath lube. and is a lot cheaper than the Rohloff.
You soon get used to the different weight distribution. The only thing I keep forgetting is heavy landings on the back wheel are even heavier.
...wait for the 11-spd Alfine
I getting fed up with waiting - for the price of the 11-spd hub I could have gone 8-spd AND got the Versa shifters. It's been a battle to not go down this road, keep the credit card on ice..... and a face nearly-built Pompetamine when i get my current commuter out of the shed each morning 🙁
Here:
HTH
😀
Using a Nexus sprocket on an Alfine hub does mean you can flip it to get a better chainline if you need to. The Genesis iO ID uses this trick.
You can also use Sturmey-Archer or SRAM (or old coaster hub) sprockets in most cases. Some of them have different offsets which is useful if you want to experiment with chainlines.
Old S-A sprockets are made of very hard material and last just about forever (if you can find them).