Roadrat Alfine 8 with G370 hub build.

[Nealh]

Can I ask why you used the Alfine 8 instead of the Alfine 11.

Mainly becuase for me the alfine 11 would have still been an 8 spd motor as the last three gears would be mostly redundant.
Gear ratio step for 1 -2 in the A11 is a massive 29% though the rest of the gears are all reasonably matched step/% wise. I barely use the 7 or 8 on my A8 so the A11 made little sense.
Having done my homework I decided the A8 would suit my needs better.
Also the A8 is a stronger and better drive then the A11 which has been noted for being a little fragile at high torue . Cost as well the A8 is cheaper to buy .
A11 needs regular oil baths, seapage is another factor vs grease in the A8.

The A8 after the first use service period can simply be dunked in Red atm fluid left to drip dry and refitted having had the atm to soften up the original grease a little, later on in life one can use a semi fluid grease like land rover swivel grease as the greasing input for lubing the drive.

Even sheldon brown has reservations about the A11 prefering the A7/A8 for hub gears.

Lots of good advice also on uk cycling forum although a left wing forum with too many snow flakes on there , there are some good tech info regarding alfine stripping and maintenance. One gleans the info from various sources and makes of them what they wish to cherry pick the best advice.

 

[Nealh]

Like my Ute I have a front brake upgrade in the offing , a new 4 pot calliper upgrade.

 

[Nealh]

Another year has past by and the Cotic Roadrat build still going very well,
no issues at all regarding the Alfine 8 , Bafang G370 front hub or the KT 9 mosfet sinewave controller. Actually quite boring which is nice to say.

So yesterday being a BH , I decided to give the bike a clean and little service and promptly stripped a thread on the Alfine cheese like axle nut.
A pair of bog std 3/8 26 tpi's now ordered.
Brakes checked over pads not to bad should cover another 1k miles.
I noticed a slight bit of play on the Alfine axle so had the wheel off to tweek up the LHS bearing cone, then decided as it only adds another 10 mins to remove the Alfine drive.
Gave the inner shell a wipe no signs of debris just a nice fine layer of oily grease. After the last little service with ATF fluid I didn't bother adding more grease so this time I gave the innerds a liberal helping of Landrover swivel grease, in time this should work it's way into every nook and cranny of the drive.

 

[Nealh]

The Green treaded Panaracer Gravel Kings have given way to Sky Blue Gravel King semi slicks. The old rear having worn beyond the knobbly bits and become a little thin.
Swapped the chain over (part of my rotation ) cleaning regime.
Cleaned off all the built up detritis that accumulates on the exterior of the Alfine drive also the same with the tensioner ( both wheels removed for declogging) and a clean up of the tensioner.

 

[Scott_J]

Thank you for posting this. I'm looking to add an Alfine to the missus' bike.

 

[saneagle]

Thank you for posting this. I'm looking to add an Alfine to the missus' bike.

Be careful, you can get get shifting problems with a crank-motor. Bafang motors are worse than TSDZ because of the run-on. You can get a gear shift sensor that cuts the motor during shifting, but they can be a right nuisance on hills.

 

[guerney]

Be careful, you can get get shifting problems with a crank-motor. Bafang motors are worse than TSDZ because of the run-on. You can get a gear shift sensor that cuts the motor during shifting, but they can be a right nuisance on hills.

There's no run on if you change Bafang firmware parameters, when used on the road. Others haven't been so fortunate with the gear sensor for whatever reason, but the gear sensor on my bike works perfectly, apart from when it's raining heavily while climbing steep hills. The rest of the time, the timing of motor power cutoff is perfect. In heavy rain, the gear change takes a smidge too long. Dry, drizzly, or hill climbs in normal rain, no problem.

 

[Tony1951]

I have no gear change sensor on my Bafang BBS01. I just pause pedalling for a moment before changing. You do need to anticipate the gear changes and the odd time I have been caught out on a hill climb and had a crunchy change. Two thousand miles and no mechanical catastrophe's, but it is legally powered, so no massive break down problem. Usually, it is problem free.

 

[saneagle]

There's no run on if you change Bafang firmware parameters, when used on the road. Others haven't been so fortunate with the gear sensor for whatever reason, but the gear sensor on my bike works perfectly, apart from when it's raining heavily while climbing steep hills. The rest of the time, the timing of motor power cutoff is perfect. In heavy rain, the gear change takes a smidge too long. Dry, drizzly, or hill climbs in normal rain, no problem.

Do you have hub gears?

 

[saneagle]

I have no gear change sensor on my Bafang BBS01. I just pause pedalling for a moment before changing. You do need to anticipate the gear changes and the odd time I have been caught out on a hill climb and had a crunchy change. Two thousand miles and no mechanical catastrophe's, but it is legally powered, so no massive break down problem. Usually, it is problem free.

Hub or derailleur gears?

 

[guerney]

Be careful, you can get get shifting problems with a crank-motor. Bafang motors are worse than TSDZ because of the run-on. You can get a gear shift sensor that cuts the motor during shifting, but they can be a right nuisance on hills.

There's no run on if you change Bafang firmware parameters, when used on the road. Others haven't been so fortunate with the gear sensor for whatever reason, but the gear sensor on my bike works perfectly, apart from when it's raining heavily while climbing steep hills. The rest of the time, the timing of motor power cutoff is perfect. In heavy rain, the gear change takes a smidge too long. Dry, drizzly, or hill climbs in normal rain, no problem.

Do you have hub gears?

You're always knocking mid-drives in general, and going on about run on with Bafangs, and the gear sensor causing problems. Did you bother to make changes to firmware, when you had that old version all those years ago? My theory is, bad installation of the gear sensor creates problems. The run on issue is easily addressed, it doesn't have to keep running on and on. All this anti-Bafang BBS mid-drive stuff, which appears to be based on your experience of an old BBS01 years ago, without firmware fiddles, is misleading. I still can't believe you chose an odious torque sensored Tongshen object over a cadence sensored mid-drive for your secret project bike. Too late now.

@Brik's Bafang mid-drive with Sturmey Archer hub gears seems to be working great.

https://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/bbs-motor-with-gates-belt.46915/post-725901

 

[saneagle]

You're always knocking mid-drives in general, and going on about run on with Bafangs, and the gear sensor causing problems. Did you bother to make changes to firmware, when you had that old version all those years ago? My theory is, bad installation of the gear sensor creates problems. The run on issue is easily addressed, it doesn't have to keep running on and on. All this anti-Bafang BBS mid-drive stuff, which appears to be based on your experience of an old BBS01 years ago, without firmware fiddles, is misleading. I still can't believe you chose an odious torque sensored Tongshen object over a cadence sensored mid-drive for your secret project bike. Too late now.

@Brik's Bafang mid-drive with Sturmey Archer hub gears seems to be working great.

https://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/bbs-motor-with-gates-belt.46915/post-725901

The question was what gears do you have?

 

[guerney]

The question was what gears do you have?

I give up.

 

[Nealh]

Be careful, you can get get shifting problems with a crank-motor. Bafang motors are worse than TSDZ because of the run-on. You can get a gear shift sensor that cuts the motor during shifting, but they can be a right nuisance on hills.

Mr H he is going to use the Alfine in place of the rear cluster so no crunching of gears (if the Alfine is set up/tensioned correctly via the Alfine cassette Yellow marks ).

 

[Nealh]

Thank you for posting this. I'm looking to add an Alfine to the missus' bike.

Afine8 for the wife may be a good idea if she has gear changing issues or forgets to change up for a lower gear at a stop.
Alfine are marvelous for those situations where one forgets also the twist grip is sooo much better then a thumb changer.

Before the Roadrat I ran the Alfine on a Kona Blast with BBS01, no issues I can remember with changing gears . I also had a two chain ring set up on the BBS01 and the extra torque with the small chain ring didn't create any issues for me.

 

[Nealh]

Mid drive is down to ones personal preference of whether he/she likes cadence or TS drives and how fast ones cadence is . Too fast and one will be better off with TS imv.
Cadence for road and TS for offroad and knoblly tracks/bridleways.

Some ten years ago I rode my brothers Bosch speed pedelec bike, it cruised quite well at over 20 with minimal effort but give it the beans and it hit 33mph . Quite mad and tbh too fast for the road with cars not expecting it, much like my Swizzbee give is some beans and one is flying.

Differing styles of riding and terrain need differing drives, their is no best option it is down to the option that the rider prefers.
Given the choice of cadence drive then for me it is hub over midrive and hence why I had a hub drive off road bike for many years that did many thousands of miles on the north and south downs and any where off road in between.

 

[saneagle]

Whether anybody likes mid-drives has no bearing on the issue. The problem is that hub gears have to be unloaded to shift. That's no problem with any hub-motor because the motor will generally still give power when there's no significant load on the chain to keep you going when shifting. A crank-motor needs to be paused to remove the load, especially when shifting down going up hills or shifting up when accelerating.

Derailleur gears are the other way round. They need to be kept turning when shifting, which is a big advantage in those two situations of hills and acceleration, but the downside is that you can't shift when stationary.

The Bafang mid-drive has a slight run-on because it has a cadence sensor. To avoid that, the power needs to be cut by a gear or brake sensor, which is a lot of messing about and still doesn't give a very satisfactory result.

My thoughts are that if the gf can't manage derailleur gears, she's not going to get on very well with the more complicated shifting techniques of hub gears with a Bafang crank-motor. Whatever anybody else has figured out or got used to is a bit irrelevant. Most of us can manage derailleur gears fine, but the implication is that she can't.

 

[matthewslack]

I give up.

If you resume, why does heavy rain affect the gear changes/sensor behaviour?

 

[guerney]

If you resume, why does heavy rain affect the gear changes/sensor behaviour?

In heavy rain, the gear change takes a smidge too long.

My theory is heavy rain reduces friction, making the gear change down take ever so slightly too long. There's no firmware parameter for gear change cutoff duration, and if there was, data from an inclinometer would be needed to make it work well in those circumstances in addition. My gear sensor is waterproofed with self-amalgamating rubber tape either end. By "Heavy rain", I mean vertical ocean with holes. When I installed the gear sensor, I made sure to microfile away any burrs on the brand new kevlar lined outer gear cable, and ensured there was a straight run of cable through, placing it on the chainstay secured by a sticky pad and two very small tight zipties, rather than leaving it bouncing about on a bent bit under the handlebar or somewhere - I reckon that may be why mine works well on my bike. On the other hand, that could be what everyone does, and my Dahon bike could simply be superior.