mikepwagner

I feel a little guilty posting here because I am not commuting on this bike - yet. But folks in this forum have been very helpful when I asked a question ...

I got a patent award at work - which fits into my "found money" category - so I decided to upgrade my Civia Bryant to an Alfine 11. It turns out that for clearance reasons, I also had to upgrade to the Gates Center Track system, so overall, it was more expensive than I had anticipated. I really respect a certain "do the most with the least" aesthetic in this forum, but this bike is not example.

Yesterday I rode the bike for about 6 or 7 hours just rambling and tooling around. The Alfine 11 conversion is very nice for one major and one minor reason:

• Major: The even spacing of the gears is very nice.
• Minor: The Alfine 11 mechanism is more like most other shifters I have used (big paddle lowers the gear ratio, little paddle raises the gear ratio). Purely matter of taste, but this feels more natural than the Alfine 8.

Truth to tell, I mostly got the Alfine 11 because even spaced gears in an oil bath seemed like a better design. Hey, I am engineer (hence the patent). What can I say?

Previously, I had no trouble the Gates belt drive, so I can't really say much about that part of the upgrade. It does look like a better design.

All in all, I am very pleased with the upgrade.

Mike

blakcloud

Congratulations on your patent and your upgrade. That is a double win.

DAME

Pictures?

mikepwagner

I expect to complete my "build" of the bike next month - then I will post a picture.

The final piece is Luxos U headlight (which is on order) - I like to ride pretty late at night, and I also have a pretty poor sense of direction, so I wanted to be able re-charge my iPhone for Google Maps

https://www.peterwhitecycles.com/b&m-hl.asp


Mike

hubcap

Alan over at the Ecovelo blog did that conversion to his Bryant a couple years ago. As I recall, he provided a pretty thorough summary of the steps he went through. Might be worth checking out for anyone else considering doing this.
https://www.ecovelo.info/

mikepwagner

I remember reading that. I didn't actually do the conversion, but my impression is that the guy who did the work ran into a different set of problems than were on the ecovelo site.

Mike

Breathegood

What shifter did you use? I'm assuming you went with the Versa. Ultimately,it was the cost of the Alfine 11-Versa brifter combination that pushed me toward the Aline 8-JTech bar-end combination on my T6, but after a little over a year and ~2000 miles, I'm kind of wishing I had gone the 11 speed route. I have no complaints about the shifting, in fact I really like the action of the JTech shifter, but it would be nice to have a little more natural spacing (5-6 is a big gap) and added gear range of the 11 speed hub.

And you made the right choice moving to the center trak. I ride my T6 like a mountain bike on the local singletrack through the summer and spend a lot of time at the local cross course in the fall. I use it hard and the center track has performed flawlessly. The only maintainence its had is a spritz with the hose.

agent pombero

Nice upgrade! My next major upgrade will either be an Alfine 11 or a Rohloff.

mikepwagner

Yeah, that was the only real option for drops bars. I read a couple of years ago that J Tech was going to make a shifter for the Alfine 11. I haven't heard anything about it. I like the idea of a bar end shifter, and probably would have gone with that if it were available. I like the idea hydraulic disk brakes, and that would be easier to do wit bar end shifters.