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I’ve got a Alfine (courtesy of SJS), and changed from a 6speed. I found the Sturmey hub a lot smoother and freer running but for any hub gear you can’t change whilst putting significant pressure on the pedals. You need to back off then change gear, same as you would with a derailleur.
I change over as I wanted disk brakes so thought why not, but if you don’t need disk brakes then I’d have stayed with my 6 speed.
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Just wondered what people thought of the Alfine Conversions as I did not quite like the gear changing on 6 speed I was testing; albeit maybe it was just because it was heavily used and quite old?
I never got on with the 2-speed derailleur part of the 6-speed Brompton. After a month or two of commuting the changer would become unreliable. It seemed like the spring was too weak and the pusher pivot became clogged up easily. Two separate trips to the Brompton dealer, only improved things temporarily. Mine was from the first implementation (with the SRAM hub gear) so perhaps things have improved, but I regularly read of others who also had problems with reliability of the two-speed mechanism.
In the end, I converted it to an SA 3-speed set up which has been trouble free. From the empirical tests I've read, the 3-speed hub gears are also the most efficient of the internally geared hubs. I just wish they would make the highest gear the direct drive. I can't comment of the Affine as I have not tried one.
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C4r1s
Nick_S
@homingmissle
I finally got to try out a Brompton and am now ready to take the plunge and buy one (when my Cyclescheme Application comes through)
Just wondered what people thought of the Alfine Conversions as I did not quite like the gear changing on 6 speed I was testing; albeit maybe it was just because it was heavily used and quite old? It just seemed quite hard to change gears when going uphill. I thought the brakes were pretty good so probably no need for me to go discs.