Most of the Birdy owners I know use the bike for leisure speed rides. Hence they focus on weight savings (eg lightweight cranks) and highest gear ratio available.
I'm likely to retain my existing 56T oval chainring with the Rodloff hub before deciding if I need a smaller chainring.
I also read that the Rudloff hub can be noisy at gear 7, did you observe that?
Originally Posted by
JRat
I agree. While the Alfine 11 is more than double the cost of the Nexus 8 this difference is a relatively small proportion of the total bike cost. I briefly considered putting an Alfine 11 onto a Birdy City but quickly crossed off that option because I knew that it wouldn't have the gearing range I wanted (I've got another bike with the Alfine 11 which is waiting to be re-homed).
The standard Birdy Rohloff uses a 52T chainring and 13T sprocket (the smallest available). I'm planning to fit a 14T sprocket to get slightly lower gearing for my hills but if you don't have steep hills then you may want to investigate fitting a bigger (56T but even bigger if feasible) chain ring. Otherwise you'll never be using the bottom gears and be wanting another gear at the top end.
Note also that Rohloff hub gears improve with use but are very low maiintenance except for the oil change every year or 5000km, whichever comes first.