# Alfine 11 [mechanical] drop bar!



## wschruba (Apr 13, 2012)

Warning: long post ahead

So, for all of my fellow IGH people, I decided to post how I got a flat bar shifter onto my drop bars. I fully acknowledge that there were easier ways to do this, but I digress. I bought a full set of black Alfine stuff and was pondering how to attach a 22.2 shifter to a 24mm bar area. Obviously, I could've reamed it out enough to slide it on all the way around the bend, etc, but that would have involved unwrapping [expensive] tape, and besides which, I would prefer to be able to easily remove it for single speed use.

As I was moving around the studio one day, inspiration struck:









What goes good with gloss black? Brass.

To lock myself into my path, I removed the top cover, masked the ever loving hell out of the shifter, grabbed my power drill, a wood dowel, and a strip of course emery, and used it to ream the clamp area out to a consistent 24mm radius. At this point, there was no turning back, and with much trepidation, I turned on my trusty rotary tool, and cut the clamp just a bit after the halfway point.









A bit of cleaning up later, and I was ready to perform the first bit of prep work for attaching a brass strip in lieu of the back half of the clamp. To facilitate this, I sanded the radius on the top portion of the remaining clamp flat, and cleaned up the cut edge.









The next step was more than a bit convoluted, as I hadn't decided yet how I wanted to proceed with making the band/mounting it. I knew I wanted to bolt it into the existing area,but hadn't settled on how to do it.

I started by marking the best (read: thickest) areas of the clamp to drill holes for the bolts:









And then merrily proceeded off to screw around with stock that I had bending and forming it to fit the area _before_ drilling the holes in it























I eventually decided that this wasn't going to work, since I could not get any of the holes to line up, or look decent, without mangling the stock. I instead, took a different route.

I drilled and tapped the holes for m4 bolts (road brake shoe retainers) using a #30 drill bit and, of course, an m4x.70 tap. This required a bit of faith on my part, as I had neither an appropriate forstner bit (which would have been ideal given the small amount of material I had to work with) nor a plug tap. In the end it sufficed perfectly fine to drill and tap both holes to a depth of 9mm. The did wind up intersecting, but only well after the installed bolts.









Using an old trick to install locks in door frames, I chose a piece of stock, drilled one hole, bent it, and applied a large glob of grease to the future bolting site:









The grease translated to the spot that I needed to drill the stock.









At this point, I decided I was ready to remove the tape protecting the surface of the stock, since both holes were drilled, but, to my horror, I found out that it was enameled blue!









No matter, it would come off with a wire wheel. I shaped the piece with a bench grinder, and used a small file to knock off any sharp edges.

At this point, I was in the home stretch (and using both hands) so I brought it over to my bars, induced a bend exactly at the top of the original clamp, and curved it around the bars. I made another bend for the area that would serve as the hole for the clamping bolt, and drilled out the area.

I wound up having to use a rectangular washer from a drop bar clamp to give it a good, strong, flat surface to clamp against.

At this point, the unveiling occurred. I removed all the tape, and found that despite masking to within an inch of my life, aluminum dust had still gotten into the body of the shifter. I cleaned it out as best as I could, and reattached the top cover/shift indicator.









[Blurry] success! It does not clamp nearly as tightly as the original clamp would have (not that I have tested it to destruction, just that I am loathe to try it) but holds the shifter to the bar tightly enough to use practically.


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## Viking_sys (Jul 24, 2011)

:eekster: well, you did a great job, but redundant...

I`ve pulled shifter on dropbar by reducing clamp size.

I removed indicator, and accurately shaved off metal by round shaped rasp.

Shifter now fits well.


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## opusone (Jan 13, 2015)

Viking_sys said:


> :eekster: well, you did a great job, but redundant...
> 
> I`ve pulled shifter on dropbar by reducing clamp size.
> 
> ...


Hi - I'm really interested in this as I'm having trouble with the shifter on my alfine 8-equipped cross bike. I've not really looked into using a flat bar shifter, but could you explain a) what the problem was b) how you fixed it and c) whether or not you got a satisfactory result from what you did?

(PS - I don't have most of the tools pictured above, just standard stuff like hammer / screwdrivers / pliers / alan keys / piano / file, so would seriously struggle to do the thing the OP did)


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## Viking_sys (Jul 24, 2011)

> a) what the problem was
> b) how you fixed it and
> c) whether or not you got a satisfactory result from what you did?


Sorry if my explanation was unclear - I speak English badly.

a) Problem: Road shifter for Alfine 11 is too overpriced, so I have to use shifter, that was included.
I ride touring - not sportbike, so no needs in quick shifting.

As you know - MTB shifters don`t fit drop bars: clamp hole diameter is too small (flat bar has diameter 25.4mm in thickest part, when average dropbar diameter is 26).

b) I took a rasp and accurately increased shifter`s clamp hole diameter. 
It took about 30 min - it is very cheap and easy recipe.
You need only one tool








с)Of course I got satisfactory result - I build monstercross and didn`t wasted much time to do this.


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