Pompino Alfine 11 project

Copied over from On One Pompino owners thread:

5 days ago:

Planning to finish my blue V4 build with Alfine 11 hub this weekend. I am an old bloke so rather traditional components, and all metal parts but the front light, stem and brakes are silver. I got the frame early last year when they were £99, it arrived with a 1cm chip on the back of one fork leg, sent photo and negotiated a £20 refund. Got a reasonable match with car paint touch up- a Rover colour which I can check if anyone needs it. It is just ever so slightly darker, but the position of the chip means it is not easy to spot.

Frame: Pompino V4 blue, medium- rear spread with care to 135mm using Sheldon Brown method, track ends carefully re-aligned with help of 18" adjustable spanner.

FSA Orbit MX headset installed

Token 103mm carbon square taper JIS BB installed

Front wheel stress relieved tensioned and trued: Shimano DH-3n80 dynamo hub, 32h, ACI Alpina DB spokes (could not get my usually preferred Sapim Race in right length)
Rear wheel needs final truing and tensioning: Alfine 11 hub, 36h, Sapim Race DB spokes.
Rims: Exal LX17 (17mm internal width)
Rim tape: Schwalbe HP
Tyres: Vittoria Voyager Hyper 32mm
Tubes: Conti race 28-32mm
Valve caps: tarty blue anodised from Fleabay
Mudguards: Dia Compe ENE silver alloy
Brakes: Front Shimano Sora 90mm v-brake, SwissStop GHP pads in BBB shoes; Rear old LX low profile canti, Surley cable hanger hung on seatpost clamp bolt
Brake cables: 'We The People' BMX linnear outers, Shimano SS road inners
Gear cable Shimano SIS/ Shimano stainless inner.
Bars Planet X Strada Compact Lite 7050 400mm
Bar tape: Vavert blue cork gel, cheap from Fleabay
Stem: On One Hot Box 90mm
Shift/brake levers: used Versa 11 from Fleabay
Saddle: Spa Cycles Wharfe leather (like B17 narrow)
Seat post: something silver from back of garage
Crankset: Spa Cycles TD2 double 165mm
Crank bolts and chainring bolts: Jtek stainless
Chainring: Surly stainless 34T
Sprocket: Sturmey Archer 1/8" 22T
Chain: KMC B1S
Rear rack: Tortec Ultralite, used from Fleabay
Rack bolts: Ti Grade 5 mushroom head
Brake bolts: stainless mushroom head
Mudguard & bottle cage bolts: M5 15mm caphead alloy screws in silver, may need cutting to length.
Lights: Front: Hermann H-One S 90lux dynamo LED lamp; rear Spanninga Solo XDS dynamo rack light.
Also silver Tortec alloy bottle cages x 2, silver Shimano M520 SPD pedals, Shimano SM-PD 22 pedal reflectors, am I forgiven now? ;-)
Seatpost clamp: could not find a reasonably priced silver one so bought a black one to swap with the silver one from my Claud Butler Dalkesman touring bike, which has a black headset anyway.

What have I forgotten??

2 days ago:

Jobs done over weekend:

Final tensioning and truing of rear wheel
Assemble and fit chainset
Fit pedals
Fit front brake
Fit levers
Fit brake cables
Wrap bars
Fit rear rack
Fit rear sprocket and gear selector 'cassette'/ cable hanger on rear hub, plus cut and fit chain.

Chain runs nicely with no tight spots, axles about half way along dropouts and 42mmish chainline seems good enough. With the 103mm BB and Spa Cycles TD2 double chainset, chainring is on the outside and cranks are passing the chainstays at about 4mm clearance, so Q Factor is approaching the minimum.

I used the anti-rotation washers for vertical dropouts which angles gear cable upwards, so cable will be running along top tube and back of RH seat stay, which will hopefully keep the weather out better than running along the chainstay, which creates a low point in the cable where I know water and crud can collect from previous experience with a Nexus 8 hub-problem could be worse with Alfine 11 as cable has to run up to a higher position above chainstay, as opposed to below on the Nexus 8.

The Alfine 11 cable has an extended bellows arrangement at the end to help keep muck and water out with usual arrangement of the cable, but I have heard that this is easily damaged and can get caught up in the selector quadrant, so I may not even fit it.

Tyre clearance with the 32mm Vittoria Hypers* (which measure 33m wide on a 17mm internal width rim) appears just about adequate to fit the mudguard at the rear at the current axle position and fine at the front, plus the cable of the 90mm v-brake at the front has plenty of height over the tyre.

I run the same brake arrangement on my tourer: a 90mm Shimano v-brake up front (Tiagra on the tourer, with 37mm tyres and mudguard) and low profile LX canti on the rear. The (midi?) v brake works well and is plenty powerful as a front brake, the rear canti is less powerful, but still enough to lock the rear if used in anger as weight transference does not give much grip at the back in any case, plus the canti works better with a rack on a smallish frame.

Pics to follow

Jobs remaining:

Fit rear brake
Fit and adjust gear cable
Check saddle position, bars position
Cut stem
Fit mudguards: waiting on delivery of these, hopefully with me shortly, expect to complete this weekend.

Purpose of bike: commuting and on road day rides.

Very interest in your write up of fitting the Alfine I'm considering fitting one to my Crossxcheck for some light touring.

Looking forward to the pictures

Cross Check was another frame I considered but the Pomp frame was sooo cheap. Also the seat tube angles on Cross Check are a bit steep in smaller sizes, whereas Pomp is relatively slack in all sizes, but OTOH Cross Check more tyre clearance.

Apparently mudguards are waiting at home for me now, so no more excuses.

Meanwhile trying to resist buying a Pomp frame in Raw and building up some sort of straight bar cross bike/hybrid with a SRAM Spectro P5 5-speed hub I have lying around spare. Currently built into 26" rim as I tried it with an Inbred SS frame last year- love the hub but not the frame and wheel size, too harsh/stiff for an old bloke bimbling about on the trails...

Pics of finished build, a few deviations from the plan were required, notable the rear brake, the canti bosses are so high at the back (unlike the front ones which are quite low) that the slots in the LX canti brake that I planned to use were no good:

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That is a darn classy Pompino, great tape matchy match. Where is the Alfine shifter?

Can't help but think that with the Pomp's propensity for cracking it's chainstays it was far from the ideal frame for this build?

Wouldn't a Day One have been a better bet?

Shift/brake levers: used Versa 11 from Fleabay

In other words the Versa VRS11 brake/shifter for use with the Alfine 11 and drop bars, a modified Microshift brifter now discontinued, but Microshift have picked up the torch and produced their own version now: https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/gear-shifters/11-speed-microshift-inter11-sti-levers-for-shimano-internal-gear-hubs/

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Well I am quite light and not particularly powerful, the loading on the rack will be fairly minimal and the bike is to be used on road exclusively, so I think the risk is low. Anyway the frame cost me <£85 brand new even when you factor in touch up paint, so I am not going to lose any sleep over it...

Meanwhile just some further details on mods to the orignal build plan:

Brakes: front just as planned and is excellent, powerful, but firm at the lever. However, as I said the rear canti brake would not fit, the slots in the canti would not allow the blocks to go low enough (no matter I will just fit it to the back end of my touring bike so at least my efforts in servicing it were not wasted). Instead I have fitted the 90mm Shimano Tiagra v-brake from the front of the tourer on the back of the Pomp: it works but with the pads so low in the arms, that there is too much mech advantage resulting in a squishy lever and snatchiness, plus very limited rim clearance. This just underlines how many variables there are in brake performance: the front brake is a Shimano Sora 90mm v-brake, identical to the Tiagra apart from colour, but the blocks are ~15mm higher up the slots. My plan now is to try a Tektro 926AL mini v at the rear, this has 80mm arms which will reduce the mechanical advantage, but will also lower the straddle cable. There is over 10mm clearance over the rear mudguard with the 90mm brake so I anticipate no problem fitting an 80mm one.

Also I had to put a link back in the chain as there is not enough clearance between rear tyre and mudguard with the axle in the middle of the track ends. This gives me a lack of adjustment for taking up chain wear so a half link may be required at some point soon.

I was rather disappointed with the very short stays supplied with the Dia Compe ENE Mudguards, so short that at the rear they were nowhere near reaching the frame eyelets and I had to use an ugly lash-up with p-clips on the rack legs, as you can see.

I am happy with the gear cable run and used some nice stainless cable clamps by Jtek on the top tube (those plus the crank bolts and chainring bolts are all Jtek stainless abd came from SJS cycles and seem like really good kit, as does the Surly stainless chairing). At the back the cable runs away from the seat stay to curve into the cable clamp arm and along the length of this I have put an inline cable adjuster which is a very convenient location suggested by a Cycling UK forum member: with the cable at this angle the yellow adjuster marks on the hub are at the rear so you just need to look from the back of the bike and twiddle the easily reached adjuster at the same time: much easier than reaching forward to the shifter as per the OEM flat bar shifter and how the Versa came, with an adjuster at the shifter end of the cable.

The Jtek cable clamps have a little gap at the bottom where they bolt up, through which I was able to thread the wiring for the rear dynamo light.

On a test ride last night the hub shifted superbly and I was pleased by the lack of perceptible drag compared to the Nexus 8 I have experienced previously. The Hermann H One S dynamo headlight is also excellent: bright, nice beam pattern and a warmer colour than most LED lights.

I was worried that my small hands would find the Versa/Microshift levers a stretch, I am OK with Campag Ergos but struggle a bit with Shimano STIs even with the reach adjusted to the closest, but the Versas were fine, plenty of braking from the hoods and drops and the shifting was easy enough, even the long down shift lever which does have a long throw. The main issue was getting my brain and hands to do the new shifting method, but this will no doubt come with time.

After a bit more riding around I have concluded that I do need a 2cm shorter stem so have ordered a nice silver 70mm Ritchey Classic from Acycles. I was glad of the excuse to get rid of the ugly On One Hotbox TBH (so a barely used 90mm On One Hotbox will be available shortly).
I have also ordered a Tektro 926AL 80mm mini v brake for the rear so I can put the Tiagra one back on my tourer.

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Did a 50 mile ride on Sunday with local club 'Intermediate' group: hilly but not too fast. The bike is a lovely comfy ride with the Voyager Hyper 32mm tyres and the shifting was fine except when I forgot and tried to shift with load on the pedals- it really does not like any load at all at least not yet, maybe it will get better when run in a bit.

Shifting up is great from the hoods but not easy in the drops- I have to lift my hand up to hit the short lever with my index finger; shifting down is OK from either but takes a bit of forward planning as it is a relatively slow process due to the long lever throw- should get better with practice. Mind you if you stop suddenly on a hill or at a junction it is no drama to shift down as much as you want whilst stationary.

I was very pleasantly surprised with the efficiency of the hub, nothing like the drag of my old Nexus 8spd.

The rear brake is rather fierce and I locked the back wheel a couple of times on wet tarmac, but the shorter Tektro mini v arrived yesterday, which I hope will help.

I am in two/three minds about the stem length- at 90mm it seemed fine to start with, but by the time of the cafe stop I was thinking maybe 80mm would be best, and then near home maybe 70mm after all. However I am a bit down on fitness this month having not done much but commute since November, so that may be part of the issue. The new 70mm will be with me today but I think possibly I should send it back to exchange for an 80mm???

shifting was fine except when I forgot and tried to shift with load on the pedals- it really does not like any load at all at least not yet, maybe it will get better when run in a bit.

You're using the Versa/Microshit sti shifter?

Might be to blame. Versa sti shifter I had for the Alfine 8 was awful. So was the Microshit bar end shifter that came on my Nexus hubbed Day One.

Genuine Shimano flat bar rapid fire shifter is the only thing I've had good results from. I know that's no use if you're set on drops but might not be the hub's fault is all I'm saying.

I thought 1.9:1 was the lowest ratio recommended by shimano for the alfine. 34&22 give 1.55:1 I hope you don't tear it to bits!!

I know Shimano have some figures for this somewhere but there's plenty of e-bikes running (what at least looks like) sub 1:1 gearing with Nexus and Alfine hubs so I think it might be a load of nonsense.