I took the plunge and pre-ordered one, before they'd actually made any. Have been riding it about a month, loving it. Was previously riding a Trek Portland.

One criticism of the spec is that the bb5 brakes are a bit pants - am in the process of replacing with bb7s. The bike is otherwise a very smooth and comfy ride, not had a chance to do a long ride on it yet but it definitely feels like a bike I could put in a lot of miles on.

Looking forward to the alfine 11 too, definitely the 8 is missing a little range at the top end compared to the Portland but not so much I feel it's a hardship (and I did know this going in.) It's gonna be a while before the 11 is widely available though and it'll need someone to produce a drop bar shifter for it too, so I'm not holding my breath.