Hub gears? Your opinions and experiences please...

[drystonepaul]

I know that this has been discussed before, but now that Winter is upon us I'm looking at building up a hub geared winter off-road hack.
I'm thinking about getting an 8 speed Alfine hub, and running with discs and a single stainless steel front ring for the ultimate low maintenance geared bike.

I do sometimes single-speed and love the lack of maintenence and simplicity it brings, but I've got some pretty steep hills near me and I value my knees too much to SS all the time.

One thing is though that I'm a sceptical of the Alfine gear shifter. I know that I don't want to go with with a Nexus gripshift style. Can't afford Rohloff either. Is the Alfine shifter any good? What is the cable pull and can another shifter be bodged on...?

So who has or is using a hub gear? Any opinions/experiences/tips much appreciated.
Pictures would be a bonus too please...

 

[barry2017]

Do let me know how you get on, if you buy an Alfine.

I quite fancy one, not yet though.

You could do worse than a Sturmey AW with a long axle and spacers to go into a 130mm dropout. Proves the theory, and you can get them secondhand for less than the price of a pint.

 

[Xesh]

......Is the Alfine shifter any good? What is the cable pull and can another shifter be bodged on...?........

I've never used Alfine yet, but I know you can't use another shifter as the spacing between gears is different from the other Shimano units.

I have used a Nexus 7 speed hub with the rapidfire style shifter and found it to be very good for round town and short rides. It was quite heavy and had too limited a gear range for longer rides.

Alfine has a wider range and is lighter so it should work better.

I've been looking at a couple of the Charge bikes that come with Alfine but I have to get a full time job to get one.

 

[drystonepaul]

Anymore thoughts chaps...?
There's one on eBay that ticked over the £100 with a few days left to run.

 

[yo-eddy]

sorry to sound like a broken record :roll:
but Rohloff is the only serious option for offroad use, just beats an Alfine on all aspects (... including price )
Read a review lately from a Dutch guy using an Alfine offroad in Belgium as a cheap alternative for a Rohloff and the results were a laugh imho.
any chance of a Christmas bonus this year....

 

[ekiborter]

The Alfine hub is an exceptionally well put together piece of kit.

the question you need to be asking is who in the bike trade has had to send one back to Madison / Shimano???

I reckon the answer will be nobody.

Personally I find the Rohloff Hub horrid to use because of the 'grip shift'.

The Alfine shifter is a great unit but I do wish they had reversed the shifting as it is like using rapid rise.

Both Alfine and Rohloff are great hubs... I'm sure that providing you lube a Rohloff every 500 miles and flush the old oil it will outlast an Alfine hub... but then it does cost a lot more £££.


;]

 

[orange71]

bit of info here

http://hubstripping.wordpress.com/2007/ ... ub-strips/

 

[drystonepaul]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'm still undecided whether to bite the bullet and try hub gears, so keep it coming.

any chance of a Christmas bonus this year....

I'm self employed so no chance of a Christmas bonus unfortunately.

£840 approx for Rohloff as opposed to about £180 for Alfine is a big deciding factor. Even if I could afford to experiment with the Rohloff set-up I'm still not keen on the gripshift style element it requires.

I'm reckoning on a more modestly priced build to use as a Winter hack bike more than anything.
Which is why I'm considering trying Alfine.

I don't mind a bit of regular servicing if that is required to keep a hub gear running smoothly. (Thanks for the link o71)
What I'm trying to avoid is the need to keep replacing all the parts of the drivetrain so frequently.
I'm figuring that the cost of a single chainring, chain and sprocket, will work out cheaper in the long run than everything required to replace a 24 or 27 speed set-up.
I ride through Winter in the Peak District which means regularly immersing my bike in wet abrasive grit. To illustrates the conditions my bikes are subjected to, I used to wear through at least two rear rims each Winter, before the advent of disc brakes.
I'd like a bike that I don't have to worry about destroying when the trails are filthy.

 

[dbmtb]

Only problem with Nexus 8/Alfine is the sealing (and of course the weight but that goes for any hub gear). And even then that's only when numpty OEMs fit the wrong dustcaps. Having straight fork ends is also crucial to the long term durability of all Shimano hub gears. You'd be amazed how many frame manufacturers send out frames with fork ends that are badly out of alignment.

Provided your frame is straight, you fit the correct integrated sprocket/dustcap and route the cable outers so there are no sharp bends, then you'll be fine.

Get any of those variables wrong, and you'll be in trouble when the frost sets in.

 

[dbmtb]

the question you need to be asking is who in the bike trade has had to send one back to Madison / Shimano???

I reckon the answer will be nobody.
;]

Well you'd be reckoning wrong then. However most problems are covered in my previous post and the big S are really good to cover warranty when they forget to put relevant stuff in the instruction manual.