alfine with drop bar
 

OK chaps,

Anyone figured out using an alfine with a drop bar STI shifter yet?
I know the 8sp is about a 5.4mm pull/gear which is huge compared to the 2.xx that a 9 or 10 sp STI shifter pulls, but maybe you have used some kind of problem solver ratio device?

I would realy like to use one on my CX/commute bike, but I'm not prepared for the inconvenience of bar end or down tube and obviously the correct flat bar shifter is out.

Come on Shimano, where's' the Di2 Alfine goupo?!

It's not exactly what you are asking about, but the Hub-Bub will allow you to mount a twist-grip shifter on your drop bar end: http://www.jensonusa.com/Hubbub-Twis...op-Bar-Adapter

If you have a long enough threadless steerer you can put a second stem with a stub bar and mount the twist-grip shifter to that. Here's a Sheldon Brown article where he does something similar: http://sheldonbrown.org/raleigh-inte...nal/index.html Scroll part-way down the page to see what I mean.

THere is an STI style Alfine/Nexus 8 speed lever available from (I think) Versus. For sale from Soma Fabrications and others last I checked. Also, Jtek makes a bar-end shifter that I personally am getting for my Alfine bike.

Edit: http://store.somafab.com/ve8alsh.html
the company name is Versa.

You do know about the Versa brifter? http://www.bikeman.com/LD0090.html

Pricey, but so is the hub. I've got a Jtek bar end on my Nexus 8 myself.

I've got a versa VRS-8 brifter and an Alfine 8 speed hub. Works fine, comfortable hoods. The upshift throw is rather long. Most of that is the huge amount of cable htat's pulled, but some is the dead motion before it starts pulling. shifting is sort of slow, but that's mostly the hub. The brakes on the bike are bb7 roads, and also work fine with the levers.

Fatten up your wallet, they are showing a prototype of just that.
... but it will cost you.

I guess a specific shifter designed for it was never going to be cheap.
A bit rich for my taste.

if an existing shifter could be made to work somehow, tht's more what I was thinking.

I have seen hubs going quite cheap so i was considering it, but $200 for a new shifter set, I'll stick with the 10sp set up.

As for the Di2... in my dreams maybe, but I would love to see it none the less.

I paid forty or fifty bucks less than that in January, when I bought mine. I suspect you can do as well. Still spendy, but not our of line for what a set of brifters cost.

the versa is basically a microshift/sun race

Someone designed the detent spacing to match ,
TW has become the Island contract shop
making a majority of the Bike stuff, by now.

Sun Race Bought Sturmey Archer too..

Not really. In any event, it doesn't matter who makes it, what matters is that it pulls the correct amount of cable each time you push the lever.

I used the Versa-8 shifter on my Civia Bryant for a couple of years. They work fine but feel a bit cheap compared to the Shimano STIs I've used, even Tiagra - the long upshift throw dscheidt mentions is part of that.

Am currently running a JTek bar-end that I picked up on eBay for $50 and really like it so far - it's a really nice shifter, very solid feeling, nice action and you can shift through the gears much faster than with the Versas. The JTek seems like the best bang for buck Alfine drop-bar solution, even at full retail. IMO.

BTW, I did also think the Versas were based on the Microshift design, externally they are practically identical. I have actually referred to the Microshift manuals on occasion since there is no manual or any documentation for the Versa that I can see. Also, while the price isn't out of line for a *pair* of brifters, bear in mind that the Versa-8s are one shifter and one ugly brake lever and it starts not to look such great value when you look at them that way.