Winter is really hard on drivetrains. Last winter, after several winters of having grit and salt trash my chain, chainwheels and rear derailleur, I decided to convert my basic commuter bike to an internal gear hub.
My commuter is a mid 80’s era Novara, which back in those days was lugged steel, brazed in Japan. It’s set up so that the handle bar to seat relationship is close to my RB-1.
Since the frame has vertical dropouts, I had to go with a chain tensioner. I also used a galvanized chain, which has held up pretty well in the year since I installed it. The hub itself is an Alfine. It looks a bit odd since it was cut out of a Shimano OEM wheel which has 24 straight pull spokes. I love the Alfine hub because it doesn’t have that annoying click-click-click sound when not in direct drive. As a bonus, it is still silent when I coast. It also shifts a lot better than my old 7 spd Nexus hub.
At that time, the Jtek bar end shifter had sadly gone out of production since the owner of the company had health problems. However, I found a writeup from Hiawatha Cyclery that said you could shift an Alfine hub with a Shimano bar end if you use a travel agent to tweak the cable pull.
Here is a picture of the inline travel agent. The mechanic that installed it said that travel agents are apt to get gummed up by dirt, so he installed a little plastic bottle as a dirt shield.
I rode with this set up for the better part of a year, but I was never quite satisfied. In practice, no matter how the cable was adjusted, I could get it to shift well for about 3 or 4 consecutive gears, but not over the whole range. At either the low or the high end, it would always miss shifts on occasion. Also, whenever I had to fix a flat on the rear, slacking the shifter cable would change the way the cable is wrapped around the pulley, and so I would end up having to readjust the cable each time.
The Jtek shifter became available again this year, and so I finally broke down and bought one a couple of weeks ago.
Here is a picture of the Jtek to compare it with the Shimano that it is replacing.
Here is a picture of the shifter installed.
Because I am lazy, I didn’t bother redoing the gear cable housing, and I just bypassed the travel agent.
Bottom line: the shifter works beautifully, and I can get all 8 spds with only an occasional missed shift. I don’t know if the missed shifts are due to the fact that the hub was damaged by using it with the travel agent, but I am much happier with this setup now.
I can hardly wait til the 11 spd alfine comes out.
Biking in a Big City 
Great setup Jun. Looking forward to hearing how it works this winter. My winter bike is an old Schwinn MTB from the mid-80s with the original 5 or 6-spd. freewheel/ derailer setup (newer freewheel & chain however). I’ve yet to have the freewheel freeze up in 3 winters of riding on campus while I’ve had quite a few customers and friends with modern cassettes who routinely have freeze-up problems causing the dreaded freewheeling in the wrong direction. The shifter cables do need regular servicing (salt water creeps in everywhere) to keep the old friction thumb-shifters shifting smoothly. I use Pedro’s Syn Lube on the chain to keep it functioning thru the worst of Michigan winters.
Last year after crashing on the first black ice of winter just after a city bus passed me I decided to finally get some studded tires. After pricing new ones I decided to make my own using the smallest sheet metal screws installed from the outside inward. Rather than grind down the pointy ends I used an old tire carcass (street-tread tires with the beads cut off) to cover them up. Yes, this creates very heavy wheels, but I’m not going for speed in the winter. I also found out (the hard way) that the double-tires end up providing run-flat capability in the event of a flat; just ride it home and fix the flat in the warmth of your home!
I like IGH, going to upgrade some time…
but(t) your seat!! It is the victim of a crime.
How was the chain tensioner worked out… skipping? That is one of my annoyances, sometimes the derailleur gets gummed up with slush so bad it will skip.
My seat just has a plastic bag on it. I’m using an Alfine chain tensioner which has a slightly stiffer spring than a regular derailleur. No issues with it. If your chain is skipping, it could be partially due to chainring or cog wear, or chain stretch. See this photo.
Alrighty about that seat. Regarding the skipping(tis more like ghost shifting) it’s not cog wear… a gentle tap with a boot and the ice or whatever falls off and the dérailleur’s back on track for a while.
http://www.tiloahmels.ch/satteltier.php
You’ll have to translate, but these seat covers are funny 🙂