# Feedback: Your Alfine gearing..



## EFMax (Aug 20, 2008)

Question for those of you who have already riden or are riding the 8 speed Alfine.

I have just worked out my proposed gearing and it seems as if (by my calculations) that I will have the following gear inches..

1: 32.46"
2: 39.67"
3: 46.07"
4: 52.42"
5: 61.60"
6: 75.33"
7: 87.41"
8: 99.48"

I ride 35% on road, mainly to get fit and to get to the places that I do my 65% off road. I do indulge in a little Free Riding but most of my MTB is off road to have fun and stay fit.

Am I right in thinking that with these gear inches, that my downhill pursuits are more than well taken care of but that my uphill might be limited or is a 1st gear of 32.46 gear inches more than enough for most steepish hills.

My current single speed gearing gives me around 51 gear inches and this means I spin out on very slight downhills at around 16-20mph.. and on my more aggresive off road stuff where I can freewheel downhill at speeds of 30+ mph.. whereas I want to pedal and push that speed right up..

My average cadence is around 65- 85rpm (mood and weather dependent) and my fitness has allowed me to tackle short but steepish climbs but there is no chance on the longer or steeper climbs as I am then struggling to a point of almost stalling, especially off road in sandy or light muddy conditions..

I just really wanted to know how current or previous owners have felt about their range of gears because hub gears are going to be a new thing to me and I much prefer the idea over a conventional setup.. cheers..


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## pursuiter (May 28, 2008)

I don't need anything over 90 inches on the road. I ride my Alfine HT 5 miles to the trail with a high gear of 68 inches. Back in my youth, my wife and I went out west in the Rockies on a 2400 mile, 6 week bike/camping trip. Gear range was 27 inch to 90 inch. Only used the 90 inch gear a few times, made it up every 7% grade pass no problem..

Here's what I run:

My Jabberwocky rigid with IM9:
IM9 gear inches:
frt ring: 34
rear cog: 20
primary ratio: 1.70

9th: 90.9
8th: 79.4
7th: 67.8
6th: 57.8
5th: 49.3
4th: 42.1
3rd: 35.8
2nd: 30.6
1st: 26.7

My Misfit diSSent with Alfine:
Alfine gear inches
frt ring: 32
rear cog: 22
primary ratio: 1.45

8th: 68.1
7th: 59.9
6th: 51.6
5th: 42.2
4th: 35.9
3rd: 31.6
2nd: 27.2
1st: 22.2

My outcast 29er commuter with Nexus 8R35:
Nexus gear inches
frt ring: 34
rear cog: 18
primary ratio: 1.89

8th: 88.5
7th: 77.7
6th: 67.0
5th: 54.8
4th: 46.6
3rd: 41.0
2nd: 35.3
1st: 28.9

for reference, here's the bikes:


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## ALMEIDA (Mar 23, 2008)

> I just really wanted to know how current or previous owners have felt about their range of gears because hub gears are going to be a new thing to me and I much prefer the idea over a conventional setup.. cheers..


Hi !!!
How you've said: depends on the terrain you ride on:
road or off road
uphill or downhill
steeply rising or flat
...

I havn't still ridden the Alfine, only for a short test run. But I ride the SPEEDHUB for a long time and my experience is that the range of gears is o.k. But shouldn't be smaller.
In my view the increase between the gears is very important. For riding on road the increase is too large. Wish it would be smaller for road. Increase for off road is perfect. 
Alfine could only be a compromise unless your favorite is downhill.


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## pursuiter (May 28, 2008)

ALMEIDA said:


> ...Alfine could only be a compromise unless your favorite is downhill.


I was thinking I wanted a Rohloff until I started hearing about the issues. For $1600 it should be perfect, otherwise IMHO, it's a compromise. 1% out of box failures is a huge quality problem, I'd never buy a critical product that has a 10,000ppm out of box failure rate. A QA SWAG would put the 1 year failure rate is maybe 5% or 50,000ppm. This QA level is 1950s engineering....


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## EFMax (Aug 20, 2008)

pursuiter said:


> 8th: 88.5
> 7th: 77.7
> 6th: 67.0
> 5th: 54.8
> ...


If I went to a 38T x 18T setup I could achieve these ratios that you have quoted here.. how does this bike ride with that range as that sounds almost ideal.. thanks for your input..


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## ALMEIDA (Mar 23, 2008)

> I'd never buy a critical product that has a 10,000ppm out of box failure rate


Which products do you buy?

Nothing else remains left.

Do you have a car, tv, computer......?
What't about the other parts of your bike?

Sorry, but I can't agree with you and I can't hear the "1% rate" any longer.

There is no product which is 100% perfect. And no serious producer copany would claim that.
For me it is important how they handle the service issues. That is the way the companies can win the challenge.

ALMEIDA


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## pursuiter (May 28, 2008)

ALMEIDA said:


> Which products do you buy?


White goods run about 1000ppm in the first year (washers, dryers, dishwahers etc). $100 printers run about 400ppm. A simple mechanical product, engineered to today's expected QA standards should be well under 500ppm (American automobile transmissions do better than this under much harsher conditions). Rohloff is using it's consumers to test the product in the field instead of designing the QA in at the start. Considering how little bikes are used on average, the actual quality is much lower than 10,000ppm (since most consumers of bikes don't actual ride their bikes).


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## ALMEIDA (Mar 23, 2008)

> White goods run about 1000ppm in the first year (washers, dryers, dishwahers etc). $100 printers run about 400ppm. A simple mechanical product, engineered to today's expected QA standards should be well under 500ppm


Is that a official fact?

If yes, I have to apologize and I would suggest to confront Rohloff with these statistics.

Did Rohloff already claim the 1% failures?


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## pursuiter (May 28, 2008)

ALMEIDA said:


> Is that a official fact?


I work at one of the 10 largest semiconductor company in the world, I deal with QA problems at the customer. Some of the stuff I've seen at Fortune 50 companies would amaze you (it's all under NDA!).



> If yes, I have to apologize and I would suggest to confront Rohloff with these statistics.


You can be sure Rohloff is knows this. It is costing them big $$ to fix in the field, not to mention bad will with customers. It has to be a bummer to be in service at Rohloff.



> Did Rohloff already claim the 1% failures?


Rohloff's US repair person gave out that number. It's been my professional experience that these seat-of-the-pants guesses are much lower than the real number, people tend to to be optimistic. Most companies cannot afford this type of expense, in market downturns they really suffer. The warrenty work is paid for with current sales, when sales go down the warrenty work stays constant for quite a while. Have a look at the QA numbers for US auto manufacturers and notice how well they're doing today.


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## ALMEIDA (Mar 23, 2008)

Nice discussion. That's really interesting:thumbsup: 

Would like to hear from Rohloff Germany!


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## pursuiter (May 28, 2008)

EFMax said:


> If I went to a 38T x 18T setup I could achieve these ratios that you have quoted here.. how does this bike ride with that range as that sounds almost ideal.. thanks for your input..


The 5-6-7 gears are what I use 95% ot the time on the road, Nexus/Alfine's worst step is 5th to 6th, 22%. The Nexus/Alfine's skitzoid steps can be irritating on the road, esp into the wind.

I just took the i-M9/Jabber on my 4 mile test loop, 2.5 miles road, 1.5 miles trail with a sled hill drop. The i-M9 is sweet, the steps are nice and tight, a steady 17%.

I'm used to riding a no brake/fixie so it's not that big of a deal to me, maybe the Jabber's sweet ride is biasing me 

I'm begining to think the i-M9's best use is on XC bike that gets some urban mtb'ing. Quite often I ride 5 miles one way to the trail before going for a 12 mile loop, the Jabber may be my best fit. At $270 it's not a bad deal vs the Alfine.


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