Nexus/Alfine shifter options

[lj mangin]

I am considering a Shimano 8 speed internally geared hub but I have some questions regarding the shifters.  I am hoping to use standard road bars.  My question is, will a standard Shimano downtube (or bar-end) shifter with indexing work?  What about without indexing, just as a friction shifter?

Thanks,

John M

[Wesley Smith]

This is a good option:  http://jtekengineering.com/jtek_bar-end_shifter.htm.

Sad to say that the owner has cancer and his son is taking over.  I wish him the best!

Wes

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[Bill Gobie]

Another option is the Hubbub adapter.  It mounts the hub's twist shifter on the end of the bar.  I think the Jtek shifter is the better option, tho.

http://www.hubbubcustom.com/store/proddetail.asp?prod=HUROHL

Edging into Rube Goldberg territory, it looks possible to control the hub with a Shimano 8-speed brifter and Problem Solver Travel Agent.  The brifter pulls 2.8 mm per click, the Travel Agent doubles that to 5.6, the hub needs ~5.5 mm per gear.  

Brifter cable pulls:

http://www.ctc.org.uk/desktopdefault.aspx?tabid=3946

Nexus cable pull (see the comments):

http://hubstripping.wordpress.com/alfine-shimano/

Travel Agent:

http://www.problemsolversbike.com/products.html

Don't try to control hub with friction shifting.  You won't be able to feel when a gear is fully engaged.  Partial engagement could damage the hub or you.

Bill Gobie

[Ian Boehm]

On 29/03/2010 10:50 AM, Wesley Smith wrote:
> This is a good option: http://jtekengineering.com/jtek_bar-end_shifter.htm.
>
> Sad to say that the owner has cancer and his son is taking over. I wish
> him the best!

Pleased to see that Jtek appears to be thriving. Took delivery of a
Shiftmate #3 a couple of weeks back, fine piece of kit.

--

Cheers
__o
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...(*)/(*)

Ian Boehm

[lj mangin]

Thanks everyone for your input, you have all given me some great ideas to consider.

John M

[Charles Coldwell]

On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 7:44 PM, lj mangin <lj.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I am considering a Shimano 8 speed internally geared hub

I recommend against it. I've had two, and had lots of problems with both.

For background, I used to commute about 10K miles per year on a
Sturmey-Archer AW 3-speed hub, so I'm no stranger to the
idiosyncrasies of internally geared hubs. I could field strip a
Sturmey with one hand tied behind my back, and replace the circlip
with my bare thumbs. It is a part that I know and love well.

The Shimano Nexus 8 is a different story.

Somewhere around 500 miles, both of my hubs developed a problem where
when down shifting from 5 to 4, it would go into a "no-gear"
condition, and stay there until I downshifted from 4 to 3 and back up
again. Of course, my first instinct is to double check the adjustment
of the shifter cable by making sure the fiducial marks line up in 4.
They do. Next, I lubricate the shifter cable in case there's a return
spring that isn't strong enough to pull against the friction of cable
against housing. Still no joy.

At some later point, it develops trouble staying in 7th gear under
high torque conditions.

When the first hub developed these problems, I got desperate enough to
pull the thing apart (not for the faint hearted) and replaced the
grease inside using a tube of Shimano-supplied purpose-made grease.
That didn't help either. Eventually, in frustration with the hub and
other problems, I sold the bike.

Now I have another Nexus 8 on another bike, and I'm having the same
problems. I'm thinking seriously about replacing it with an old S-A
AW.

--
Charles M. Coldwell, W1CMC
"Turn on, log in, tune out"
Winchester, Massachusetts, New England (FN42kk)

GPG ID: 852E052F
GPG FPR: 77E5 2B51 4907 F08A 7E92 DE80 AFA9 9A8F 852E 052F

[Ingle, Bruce]

Topic: Nexus/Alfine shifter options

A few comments to add to Chip's...I owned a Nexus 7 for a few years and
have been using Sturmey AWs and S5s quite a bit before and since.

- The Shimano hubs are lubricated with grease, so internal resistance
rises precipitously as temperature drops; my Nexus was a real dog in
cold weather.

- The shifting is low-normal. I'm very used to controlling high-normal
shifting with my right hand, and no amount of shifter reconfiguration
could solve this (other than perhaps putting the shifter on the left,
which I didn't bother trying.)

- The Sturmey S5 has the same overall range as the Nexus 7, I'm quite
happy with the ratios between gears on the S5 and it's a lighter and far
less complicated hub, so I didn't see much point in using the Nexus
after comparing them.

The modern Sturmey 5-speeds appear to offer the same ratios, but with
single-cable control.

- Bruce

[Steve Park]

The Alfine 11 is due out later this year, and I believe that is lubed
by an oil bath. Maybe that will solve the cold weather issue. At any
rate, the preliminary reviews say it's a good deal better than the
existing Alfine 8, perhaps even a threat to the Rohloff.

I doubt JTEK will have a drop bar shifter for the Alfine 11 any time
soon.