The better half is thinking about buying a Genesis Day One Drop Bar. It’s a singlespeed cyclo-cross bike and costs £550. However, she is a little worried about the lack of gears and there is a chance we might use it to go cycle-touring so I have suggested we could buy and fit a Shimano Alfine at a later date (which is available on one of the Day One Models as a complete bike, but costs £999 which is well out of budget). I’ve priced the parts at a little over £200, on Chain Reaction. Am I being a fool? Has anybody had any experience at retro-fitting hub gears to a bike? Help!

the key is in the title, drop bar. You certainally havnt factored that into the cost if you looked at CRC as they dont have drop bar shifters for an alfine. I think the shifter is well over £100 so that goes some way to adding to the cost, not forgetting youll need to get the built into a wheel (or rebuilt into your current rim) so expect that to cost a bit more too.

Versa STI levers for drop bar = £179.99

Ah, drop bar, good point. I hadn’t thought of that. Is there definitely no way you can fit one of THESE to a drop bar? Even if you need to put your hands up on the tops to change gear? Not exactly ergonomically satisfying I know but it’s a solution…
I was going to rebuild the wheel myself, using the original rim 😉

The better half is thinking about buying a Genesis Day One Drop Bar. It’s a singlespeed cyclo-cross bike and costs £550. However, she is a little worried about the lack of gears and there is a chance we might use it to go cycle-touring so I have suggested we could buy and fit a Shimano Alfine at a later date (which is available on one of the Day One Models as a complete bike, but costs £999 which is well out of budget).

is the drop out spacing suitable for an alfine? worth checking..

not the end of the world if too narrow as other hubs such as 5 speed SA are suitable.

you can get a drop bar shifters for alfine:
http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/gear-shifters-internal-hub-dept639_pg1/

The drop out spacing is fine.

Nice one rootes1, thanks for that 🙂

You could bodge a flat bar shifter on, it would prob be annoying to use tho. You could fit a gripshift on the end of the drop like many people do with a Rohloff? might be better.

just fitted an alfine to my Pompino – it is a flat bar though.

Works a treat but I presume your getting your alfine much cheaper than I did. Shifter, spocket, hub, fitting kit, spokes and chain are surely more than £200?

Still quit keen to use one of these purely because it is so much cheaper. Do you think it will fit on a drop bar? Apparently the max diameter is 32mm. Does that sound unfeasible?

Ah, sorry Saccades, looks like you’ve a answered my question!!

Not answering your question, but have you considered one of these?

Yes finnegan, very much so! 🙂 Looks like an ideal bike in a lot of ways. Do you have one? Would love to have your opinion on it. Can you fit mudguards to it do you know?

Unless they have redically changed the pompino it’s got eyelets for mudguards and racks – mine even has a little hook for the chain.

I’m actually trying to persuade myself not to buy a Pompetamine frame to build up as an SS sort-of-cross-bike to see me through the snowy bits of the winter commute and a bit of light winter off-road.

I’m pretty sure it’ll take mudguards (certain I’ve seen standard Pompinos with guards), but now you mention it, that uncertainty might well go onto the ‘you shouldn’t buy one because…’ list.

Do Alfines need an eccentric bottom bracket and “special” drop-outs to work? Or could you just replace the gears on a normal (non-SS) bike with an Alfine?

If you have a vertical dropout bike you can use a chain tensioner or a magic ratio. I would go the tensioner route personally but the magic ratio looks cleaner.

Have a look at Forward Components (Canada) EBB for standard BB shells. Just ordered one for my Merlin Taiga – Alfine 11 winter filth conversion.

mud guards do go on a pompino (not sure about pompetimne; so far i haven’t bought one!) although the front fork isn’t drilled at the front-back only- so requires some thinking about.

Pompetamine 11 at £799?

http://on-one.co.uk/i/q/CBOOPOMPCOMP11SPD/on-one-pompetamine-alfine-comp-11spd

Fitted the alfine to my kona sutra, the shifter can be made to fit drop bars with a bit of machining and works fine on the centre of the bars.

07092010013 by markenduro, on Flickr

07092010012 by markenduro, on Flickr

07092010011 by markenduro, on Flickr