November 12th, 2008
Alfine Shifter with Drop Bars
One of my readers worked out this creative way to mount an Alfine shifter for use with his drop bars.
The Old Raleigh with the Shimano Nexus 8 hub now has a new shifter and It works well for me. I can shift while going uphill without taking my hands off the hoods. This is nearly like an STI set-up for me, since I have been using a twist grip shifter for a long time, I have experimented with the placement of that twist grip for a long time. This new trigger shifter works very precise and quiet. I am posting this to show the odd way I have mounted this shifter. A Minoura Space Grip adapts mountain bike size accessories to a road style handlebar. I have tried so many ways to find a satisfactory set-up with the internal gear hub. I liked the convenience of flat bars, but they make my wrists hurt. After posting my old Raleigh on “Ecovelo” gallery a few months ago and mentioned that I wished for a good shifter for internal gear hubs to be used on road style handlebars, I got a few suggestions after that post. I thought I should try this new Alfine shifter.
This trigger shifter is it for me. The only thing that could be better, are the brifter style brake/shifter levers. (Ergo or STI).
I hope this can help other riders looking for a unique and convenient way of setting up their internal gear hub. — Jim
Thanks for sharing Jim!
7 Responses to “Alfine Shifter with Drop Bars”
Another blog with an Alfine/dropbars post?! Damn, when is Shimano going to wake up? All they have to do is make it possible to put the trigger shifter on bars without having to slide it all the way up. Anyway, Shimano’s too late for me. Sick of waiting, I built up a touring-geometry all-weather drop bar fixed/free bike. No way I’m dropping hundreds now on a Shimano Alfine wheel, and I love fixed I discovered. Screw you Shimano!
Neat step-up. I thought I read that Shimano geared hubs were compatible with any 8spd Shimano shifting system. Maybe that is just for the all new Alfine hub?
http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/shimano-nexus.html
You can use a Nexus 8 gripshift with an Alfine hub if you like as well as a bar end shifter. Here are some solutions to using a grip shifter on a drop bar, many will work with a trigger shifter as well.
http://thelazyrandonneur.blogspot.com/2008/08/thorn-accessory-bar-gripshifter.html
http://thelazyrandonneur.blogspot.com/2008/08/hubbub-drop-bar-adapter-for.html
http://viksbigdummy.blogspot.com/2008/10/rohloff-shifer-on-drop-bar.html
http://thelazyrandonneur.blogspot.com/2008/08/bar-end-shifters-and-ighs.html
safe riding,
Vik
Bravo for your creative solution, Jim. If Shimano doesn’t make a compatible brifter by spring, I’ll be using your fix. I scour the Internet regularly hoping to see if anyone has managed to hack the cable-pull of an existing brifter, but it seems the mechanism is too complex, or built in such a way that it can’t be taken apart. There will be great glory for the bike mechanic who manages this. That, or Shimano will have him killed.
Ahmad said he was looking for a brifter solution, the above post from vic, refering to the “thelazyrandonneur” uses a Travel agent between bar-con shifter and hub. He says it works good for him. The bar con and the Shimano brifter would have the same length of pull. The brifter should do the the job with the travel agent if one wanted to go that way. 8 speed Sora STI’s may still be available (bikepartsusa - $145). I bought the Alfine shifter for my old Raleigh, mainly because it was a lot less money. If anyone tries the Sora and the travel agent idea, I would be interested in how well it works.
Jim
Yes, the Sora 8spd brifter might be a good option. I found a post over at http://hubstripping.wordpress.com/alfine-shimano/ discussing the cable-pull per click. One post said the Alfine has a total pull for the Alfine at 38.9mm, and “Each shift looks to be an equal amount of pull since a measurement at gear 4 confirmed a linear interpolation.”
Now I just need to find out the total pull and increments for a Sora and I might be good to go!
Ahmad
We’ve been running bar-end shifters on 8 speed hubs for a while here in Burlington, have a look at our basic conversion set up
http://www.oldspokeshome.com/blog/?page_id=125
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