I was busy traveling when this was first announced, so I debated whether to even mention it at this point, but the new 11-speed Shimano Alfine hub is something I am pretty excited to see. Up until now, Rohloff had the market cornered for internally geared hubs with a wide range of gearing. According to the Lazy Randonneur, this new 11-speed Alfine has a gear range of 409%, compared to 307% for the current 8-speed version. The Rohloff still has a greater range, 526%, but when you consider the cost difference, the 11-speed Alfine should give it some serious competition.
BikeRadar has a first look at the new hub, which is supposed to be available later this year. They point out that it is new hub is 90 grams lighter than the 8-speed version too. Weight is not a huge issue for commuters and utilitarian cyclists, but it should definitely help the product appeal to mountain bikers who are considering the switch to an internally geared system (which I think will be a trend in the near future). Personally, I would love to try this system both on my commuter bike and on one of my mountain bikes. Anyone at Shimano listening?
do anyone have more info about it?
price?
weight?
how can we compare the gear range with a traditional geared bike?
Can it work with 2 chainrings in the front using a chain tensioner back?
dude, beg much? If I were Shimano, I'd totally ignore you now.
According to road.cc, the gear ratio change between adjacent gears on this hub varies between 17% and 18%. On most road bikes the change between two adjacent gears is somewhere between 10% and 13%. Rohloff has a constant 13% change throughout the whole range.
A 17% increase in gear ratio is way too much! It means a cadence drop from 80 to 68 when shifting up.
Unfortunately the bikes fitted with Nexus 11 are sold from supermarkets and people who buy them have no clue about gear ratios. They only look at the number of gears and the range between largest and smallest gear.
I built a bike around a Nexus 8 Premium hub and the inconsistent gear ratios and giant leaps between 2-3 and 5-6 were an extremely disappointing experience right from the first ride.
I would love to see an internal transmission inside the bottom bracket. It would be wonderful for a mountain bike. Low unsprung weight, low center of gravity and no derailleurs to smash on thing. My guess is that we will be seeing that in the years to come.
As for the gear ratios between adjacent gears, Rohloff and Shimano are doing different math. Here's 14 gears with a 13.6% increase between each gear (the average jump on the Rohloff, according to http://www.rohloff.de/en/products/speedhub/gear_range_comparison/index.html), starting with a gear of 1.44m at the low end:
1.44
1.64
1.86
2.11
2.4
2.72
3.09
3.52
3.99
4.54
5.15
5.85
6.65
7.56
Compare that to 11 gears, with an 18% jump:
1.44
1.7
2.01
2.37
2.79
3.29
3.89
4.59
5.41
6.39
7.54
Notice that they both end at approx 7.55m, which would indicate that the new Nexus 11 has a similar range to the Rohloff (~526%). If, instead, you force the range to be 409% (starting with the same low gear), you would have jumps averaging 15%, as follows:
1.44
1.66
1.9
2.19
2.52
2.9
3.33
3.83
4.4
5.07
5.83
Nevertheless, the difference in cadence between 13%, 15% and 18% is fairly small:
Ratio—Cad(1)—Cad(2)
13%—–80——-71
15%—–80——-69.5
18%—–80——-68
I'm not sure if I can feel the difference in a drop of 9 RPM vs 12 RPM.
I just hate Shimano's shifters, as I run drop bars on all my bikes.
How about one of these with one of the Hammerschmidt cranks, that would be interesting!
Rumored price about $400, or a fourth of the cost of Rohloff SPeedhub.
Xurde, the projected price I have seen is 300 Euros, around $410 USD (as Fritz mentioned…much cheaper than a Rohloff)
Estimated weight is 1600 grams (3.5lb) for the system (hub and trigger shifter).
The 8 speed Alfine group includes a double crankset and a chain tensioner, so this one should work that way as well.
As the Rohloff chart that PabloZ referenced points out, there are several duplicate gear combination on a typical derailleur geared bike. You really need to look at the high and low gears on each to make that comparison.
The jumps between gears that Asb points out are a different story. It was my understanding that Alfine 8 had some large, and inconsistent, jumps between adjacent gears, and that was something Shimano was addressing here. I will have to look into that more. Thanks ASb and PabloZ for the conversation on that subject…keep it up.
$400 is far more doable than even thinking about a Rohloff these days. Still not cheap but yeah, far more swingable!
Most of the gears have 13% spacing..
See: http://thelazyrando.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/11-speed-shimano-alfine/
I expect to see a corresponding solution to the Alfine-11 from these folks – they make the only drop bar shifter for nexus/alfine8 http://jtekengineering.com/jtek_bar-end_shifter.htm
Jtek's shifter is plastic. Not pretty. Why they can't make it look like a classic steel barcon or downtube shifter, I do not know, esp. for what they are charging.
I have a JTek shifter for my Nexus 7. I can confirm that the shifter is all aluminum (not plastic!) and is of very high quality. Yes, it was expensive, but I would highly recommend one for the Alfine 11 if they decide to make one.
The gear ratios for the Alfine 11 are listed to be as follows:
1 0.527
2 0.681
3 0.77
4 0.878
5 0.995
6 1.134
7 1.292
8 1.462
9 1.667
10 1.888
11 2.153
This gives a "bailout" 1st gear with a 30% jump to 2nd, then 13-14% jumps for all the rest. It sounds well thought out to me.
Could be the NuVinci technology sold to Shimano? The NuVinci is really revolutionary gear. I believe when NuVinci hub gets lighter will be in every bikes in near future.
What about the reliability of the internally shifted gears? It will be expensive to repair? In the old days there was a Sachs (now Sram) Cargo hub called P5 with extra robustness.
If we look at cars some gears have been designed for very small operation hours, if you climb hills frequently with cargo the first gear will wear quickly..
I can’t speak to the Shimano, but the Rohloff had a 100,000km design target (vs the newer, lighter Rohloff at 50,000km), so a durable internally geared hub is certainly not unheard of.
imo, useful for mountain bikers, and hill climbers, not really useful for commuters on a flat commute. I went from a Shimano 8 speed to a Sturmey 3, both with effectively the same gear spread and I don’t miss the extra gears…
Great! Costs a lot less than Rohloff (Aye, I’m cheap) and unlike Rohloff you don’t worry about the flange cracking. The Alfine 11 is oil-bathed and uses helical gears. I bet it runs quieter than Rohloff and the drag is far less when coasting (especially in low gears).
Something tells me Rohloff price will come down when the Alfine 11 is officially released, especially if they see a drop in sales. Next spring might be a better time to compare the two price wise.