Anyone tried an Alfine 11 Di2

A couple of years ago I built up a Titus Fireline as a winter bike with an 8 Speed Alfine hub which functions well in the mud, but doesn’t have the range I would really like.
I have also experimented with an Alfine 11 which has a better range but is very prone to cable stretch and as soon as mud gets anywhere near it I get the dreaded ghost shifting and hopping.
So my question is has anyone used an Alfine 11 Di2? It would have the same range as the mechanical version, but being enclosed and without cables to stretch and get clagged up with mud sounds like the answer to my dreams.
I would but would appreciate the views of someone with real life experience of one.
Before anyone says anything, yes a Rholoff would be great, but my budget won’t go there…. :(

Cheers,
Andy

I have Di2 Alfine on my commuter, long thread about it here.

The Di2 aspect has been absolutely flawless, apart from forgetting to charge the battery once, which I can hardly blame the system for! Every shift is perfect and pretty much instantaneous, although you do need to back off the power while doing so, which I’m sure you are aware of. Not entirely sure whether the normal Alfine 11 is compatible with Di2 or whether you need to get the specific hub – you’d need to check on that.

Not sure how long mine is going to last though, as it makes a horrible crunch and seems to miss a bit of drive occasionally. Hopefully it’s not horribly lunched inside – I should open it up to have a look sometime.

Any specific questions feel free to ask – email in profile.

Cheers, Rich

My cousin has built up a Spesh AWOL with Alfine Di2 (and belt drive too !), and he had loads of hassle getting it to work properly. I’ll point him at this thread to see if he’s got any useful info.

Hi Rich,

I like the build I put an Excentricker EBB in mine a few months back which seems to work pretty well.

From what I have heard I cant just bolt the Di2 gubbins on the side, apparently the mechanism is different as the Di2 doesn’t have a return spring.

I guess my main concern is how susceptible it is to getting mud and water inside the motor unit and stopping it changing gear.

Id be interested to hear from your cuz Sundayjumper….

Cheers,
Andy

I have Di2 on 3 bikes and the only time I’ve had an issue with water ingress was on the tri bike which I’d done a bit of a bodge job of hacking some extra shift buttons onto.

The motor unit has a small pin which protrudes into a slot in the hub, looks pretty weather-proof to me. I wouldn’t be at all concerned with water or mud, I ride mine all-year and it’s seen some horrible weather. I don’t ride through much mud, but the non-Alfine Di2 copes with mud admirably so I’m sure this would too, as it is much less work to do when caked in mud compared to a derailleur.

Chainline is important, especially with a belt, but there is virtually no adjustment to be done from installation – everything just worked perfectly after a firmware update.

Cheers, Rich

Andy – my cousin says:

It’s all about having the motor ‘indexed’ correctly. Even though it is Di2 and programming it to shift up and down the gears is easy, the motor still has to be indexed correctly. A bit like cable tension on the cable Alfine version, if the cable tension is wrong, you can still shift through gears but it may slip under load. Di2 Alfine is the same, if the ‘indexing’ is wrong for the motor it will slip under load sometimes. The motor indexing can be adjusted from the Di2 software. From memory there is +4 from the 0 position and -4 in the other direction from the 0 position. It is a bit of trial and error to set it correctly, much like cable tension. You won’t know what position you are starting at until you plug it into the software and it will tell you, it comes down to which position you fit the motor to the hub in the first place as to where you are starting from to adjust it e.g. you could be starting at 0, +2, -4 etc. You won’t know until you plug it in to the software. Hope this makes sense, essentially you need the software and a laptop to do this – possibly not a home mechanic job. I got a mechanic who is very experienced with Di2 to do it and even he had to speak to the Shimano tech staff at Madison to find out how to to it. There are many forum stories of people saying Alfine Di2 is crap as it doesn’t shift properly, it slips etc but this just because people don’t know how to set it up properly. It’s adjusting the shifting AND indexing the motor that will make it work properly

Thanks for the reply Sundayjumper and Rich, I might give it a go, Germany looks like the cheapest source these days.

Cheers,
Andy

I looked at this and came to the conclusion that you get close enough to the price of a Rohloff to make the Rohloff the more sensible choice.

I said not to mention the R word in my OP…..:)
It’s about £250-£300 more for the Rohloff but I guess it’s tried and tested to a greater extent than the DI2 11 which has a reputation for being a bit fragile…
A friend is just getting a Rohloff so I’ll be interested to see how he gets on with it.

Just to make the Rohloff more tempting I saw this the other day;

It’s a replacement shifter box for the hub that allows pretty much any cable pulling device to shift it, you could even use 2 brake levers but it’s intended to work with SRAM doubletap shifters with some of the internals removed so the paddles just flap and return, one shiftier shifts up the other shifts down.

Sundayjumper – very interesting, I’ll plug my diagnostics box in and see if some fiddling makes a difference and eliminated the occasional crunch I get under power.

Cheers, Rich