Alfine 11
The German website Aktiv Radfahren is reporting on an 11-speed Shimano Alfine internal gear hub and matching Rapid Fire shifter. Specs are listed as follows:
- Gear range: 409%
- Weight: approximately 1600 grams
- Oil lube gearbox (yes!)
- Silver only (initially)
- Price: approximately 300 Euro
- Due out September 2010
This is all very preliminary and I can’t confirm the details, but so far this hub looks very interesting!
View the article (Google translation) →
26 Responses to “Alfine 11”
Good news for people who could not afford a Rohloff like me.
Can it be used with a v brake?
I have been toying with the idea of going with an internal hub for the rear on my commuter. That is really cool that they managed to shove 2 more gears into that hub! I hope the 9speed version gets cheaper now. :)
Oh and Billy, you can just lace it up to a rim brake rim a use your V-brake. :)
I’m excited about the oil bath. It should make the hub even smoother (the 8-speed was already very smooth) and extend the life of the hub. Let’s hope it has a drain port like the Rohloff.
Alan
If it doesn’t come with a drain port, it can be given a drain port!
This is seriously good news if true. The Rohloff is a great product, but 11 gears gets the Shimano squarely into “good enough” territory for me, particularly given the price differential between the two. Hopefully, Shimano will simplify the cabling so tire changes are less fussy. Coupled with their awesome hydraulic discs and given another engineering turn on the front dyno hub to better match the efficiency of the SON, Shimano’s Alfine group could be incredibly competitive.
Most excellent. Sounds like a really impressive product to me; that’s pretty outstanding value.
Wow, the conversion factored out to 3.57 lbs. Great weight and oil bath too? How much oil, because it must be factored in as weight too! Sounds really good actually! Figure 4. lbs max
and 11 gears, disc or v brake compatible nice!
For people who likes and enjoys the magic of internal hubs, adding a few lbs and compare to the overall weights of bike + rider means nothing.
That looks very impressive indeed! Has a lot of potential.
I hope the Versa dudes are already beavering away working out an STI shifter for it (or perhaps Shimano will just get on with making one).
interesting that the weight is about the same as the current hub.
I’m with David. Shimano needs to bring out a matching brifter. The current flat bar shifters are what keep me from riding an internal hub.
Finally a hub for those of us who like to crank it to 11! Imagine that there you are, rocking out on 9, when suddenly you feel like you want a little more… there’s no where to go. But now, we can crank it to 11!
Shimano brifter, or barcon/downtube-shifter a la the new Sturmey Archer hubs! $450US is pretty spendy. What is the 8? $300? 11 gears and 409%? That’s 25″ to 102″, or 23″ to 94″. The present 8 is about 30″ to 95″. Not sure the bottom/top ends get $150, and another half kg of use.
“Good enough” is a singlespeed. Any other gears are gravy.
With a hilly commute and 20 lbs in my pannier each way, I’ll take the gravy, thanks.
I hope this development spurs Rohloff out of their complacency, otherwise Shimano’s gonna eat a big chunk of their business. Rohloff would have a good line expansion if they made a less expensive version that got rid of their step-down planetary assembly and added another two or three gears to their single stage. They could get up to 10 speeds over a good range and do away with all the rumbling in the lower gears and the glitchy 7-8 transition.
@Billy From Hong Kong:
It’s true that a couple of extra pounds means nothing on a commuter…unless you have to carry it down a couple of flights of stairs like I do! Lol!
Seriously, this is great news–I may have to have a few frame adjustments made to the Quickbeam…
On paper that’s a lot of hub for the price. The helical gears and oil lubrication should make it run smoothly. It’ll be interesting to see how well it holds up in practice and especially in the long run.
From a go anywhere touring perspective, the robustness, durability and massive wear life are what set the Rohloff a step above the rest of the IGH crowd for me. I’m glad to see Shimano’s efforts to compete with Rohloff by increasing the gear range, but I’ll be itnerested to see how this new hub holds up over the long haul.
@ Aaron
While the longevity argument may be valid, for the price premium the Rohloff commands over the Shimano, you could build up an entire backup wheel if you’d like…
Too many gears. Seven is plenty – I just want more range. 409% is nice, but I don’t want to wear out my thumb finding the right gear for sudden, steep hills!
It’d make more sense to put an Alfine 8 with a Hammerschmidt, if the financial and weight penalties were not so HUGE as at present. You’d get say 25-77″ in the bottom of the Hammer, and 40″-124″ on the top: better than my triple ring road bike!
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Greetings from Finland!
The oil bath works very well. I’ve been driving with Nexus8 for over 3 years and it started to work much better when it was cleaned and oiled. I made first maintenance after 2 years (first should be after 3 months and then once a year, yeah, lazy me) and there was little rost inside the hub, and I was very glad that the guy at Shimano service workshop could remove all of rost.
At same workshop I’ve seen Nexus7 hubs that have been rosted so much that none of the inside components moves as it should. Totally “fixed” speed.
And for the notice, the Nexus8 works in -16.6°F but it requires “little pit more” pedal power >8D
I wonder about its load carrying ability. Can it withstand a loaded utility bike (say, a Big Dummy) in a hilly environment?
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