21/11/2008 : Oliver Davey's Alfine Hub Geared Simple

I recently fitted a Shimano Alfine 8-speed rear hub to a Cotic Simple and after letting Cy know about it, he asked me if I could pass on a little advice to anyone who may be interested in doing something similar. I'd been attracted to the idea of a hub gear ever since I saw a Rohloff a couple of years ago as I think bikes that rattle, squeak and grind their way around the trails are right up there with nails scraping down a blackboard. The idea of a constant chain line and no chain slap was very appealing, but the initial outlay for a Rohloff was a bit beyond my means and I've never been a big fan of grips shift. So when I heard that Shimano had allowed Genesis to fit an Alfine hub to one of its mountain bikes, it got me thinking.

I spent the next couple of weeks only riding in my middle ring to try and find out what being limited to 8 gears is like; but as only the top three gears in the big ring, and bottom three gears in the granny ring are actually "new" gears (and not just overlaps with those in the middle ring) I haven't missed them at all when riding around the North Downs and Swinley Forest.

So having decided on an Alfine hub I then needed to choose a frame to hang it off, and to really enjoy all of the benefits that a hub gear can bring you need a dedicated single speed frame. I love to ride fast, flowing, pumping singletrack and this is what Cotic's are made for - the sort of riding that puts a huge grin on your face and frequently makes you giggle to yourself. So a shiny black Simple was ordered, along with a host of other wish list items and the Allen keys were soon put to work.

It may sound obvious but the first thing you need to do if you want to run an Alfine hub is order it. However this is not quite as simple as it sounds as you have to order the hub, shifter, cog and fitting kit separately. The hub is pretty straight forward, either black or silver with 32 or 36 spoke holes. Likewise the shifter comes in either black or silver, but there are a few options when it comes to the cog. I went for an 18T with a 32 on the front and seem to have a pretty perfect spread of gears - I've yet to want for anything bigger or smaller. The cog itself is a real pain in the derriere to fit as you have to try and coax a spring clip over the hub axle to hold the cog in place. It took me 20 minutes of cursing, scraped knuckles and nearly taking my eye out before it went on.

The fitting kit is where things get interesting. All hub gears require the axle to be held in place while the wheel spins. On a Rohloff this is done using a torque arm, whilst on the Alfine the fitting kit includes different washers that lock into the drop-outs and hold the axle in place. The kit comes with a few different washers and you just need to select the white and silver ones for horizontal drop-outs. As a bit of an aside, one of the magazines suggested that you could try running an Alfine hub with the new two speed SRAM chainset. My only concern with this is that it would allow you to run some very low gears, which would potentially start putting a lot more torque through the hub and dropouts, which neither may have been designed for. I would suggest that you do some more research into this before taking the plunge.

Once fitted the hub is actually very simple to set-up. You have to align a couple of yellow dots on the hub, initially by fitting a (rather cheap looking) nut to the gear cable 101mm from the end of the gear cable outer (those Shimano boys seem to have a very odd sense of humour), which then slots into the hub. The shifting can then be fine tuned using a standard barrel adjuster on the shifter.

The Alfine hub comes with a centre-lock fitment, which can take a standard six-bolt rotor with the use of an adapter if you want, but it's a system that I like for its simplicity and security, and so the rotor from a set of XT disc brakes slid straight on. And that's about it as far as fitting the hub is concerned. With the rest of the bike built-up it was ready to roll.

In the woods the bike is brilliant. I had some reservations, having read that the planetary gears inside the hub were not as efficient as a derailleur setup, but I haven't notice any difference. I'm sure that in a dust free laboratory an XTR groupset could be proved to be more efficient, but within 20 minutes of riding through mud my Cotic is in a different league to my old derailleur setup. It's comparable to the difference in performance between a V-brake and a disc brake. A good V-brake can be set-up to work very well in a workshop, but as soon as you throw in some real world conditions the performance begins to fall away. By sealing the gears in the rear hub they shift faultlessly no matter how deep the puddles get. With a perfect chain line no matter what gear you are in it also means you never get that horrible grinding noise caused by your drive-train disintegrating.

I've found that the gear shifts are no different to a derailleur set-up, you just have to back off a bit to get it smooth. Changing gear while at a standstill is a real bonus that you don't really appreciate until you have tried it. The shifter itself is taking a little while to get used to as it is the wrong way round to a normal setup, and is a little hard to get in a comfy position next to the brake lever - probably due to its commuter roots. You are also limited to only shifting one gear at a time. Weight wise my bike has come in at just under 30lb, which is no whippet and is probably a bit more than a derailleur set-up. This weight is also a bit further back, but this is something that you get used to very quickly and I remember having similar concerns about weight distribution the first time I fitted a set of bronze Judy XC's to the front of my bike a decade ago. Finally, the rear wheel takes a little longer to remove and requires me to keep a 15mm spanner in the bottom of my Camelbak.

So to summarise the Alfine hub is easy to fit and I believe has performance benefits that comfortably outweigh any of its costs for the type of riding I do. I wait with baited breath to see what Shimano can develop next - an XT level 8 speed planetary geared bottom bracket would do very nicely.

Oliver Davey