You are reading a single comment by @Howard and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Howard
Nexus can be re-spaced to around 125mm relatively simply - Alfine can't unless you have an appetite for fairly serious modding. But if you have a dremmel drill, are an expert at calculating spoke lengths and dishing, and are happy trying to get spare parts from shimano getting it down to about 125mm is possible.
You may even be able to simply ping your drop outs open and drop a nexus in, depending on how flexible your frame is. If you do consider a nexus go for a Red Band which is pretty much an alfine hub anyway.
The comments on Hubstripping are quite useful for this stuff:
http://hubstripping.wordpress.com/alfine-shimano/
The SA 8 isn't really suitable due to it's wierd gearing. IIRC the lowest gear is direct drive, meaning a pretty exotic sprocket and crank are required, and then the force this applies to hub when using 700c wheels eventually mangles it's reportedly weak internals.