I have run S700 11 & S7000 8 speed on my MTB for off road commute & general winter bashing thorough the woods in the mud. The 8 speed is considerably more robust & I like the simplicity & ease of maintenance. However, if you have little mechanical sympathy, my recommendation is go derailleur as Alfines will not last if you abuse them - especially the 11.
cheers for that ..my brother doesn't ride hard he just doesn't look after stuff and is a bit clumsy with gear changing etc . He'll hose a bike down but well ..lubrication doesn't seem to be understood. Just picked up an sg501 + accessories so we'll see how that goes ..if the range isn't enough or he doesn't like it I'll change to 1x9 .
The 8 is generally considered more reliable. One tip would be to repack the NDS bearing with extra grease from new. The one vulnerability they seem to have is water ingress via the NDS bearings.
I've been using mine for the past year commuting. It's done about 6k miles and all I've done it strip it and dip it in ATF about a month ago. I've never had a puncture either.
My advice would be if you're gonna get a bikeshop to service it, make sure it is a shop that knows about servicing Alfines. My second bit of advice would be don't bother and service it yourself, it is v easy.
epicyclo's tip about unhooking the cable is good, but the newer hubs have thumblevers on the sprung carousel, so you can just push it round with a finger, unclip the cable from the clip, and the nut/cable just springs out. Easy peasy.
good advice ..cheers ADH
