derailleur to hub gear conversion

[fenmanctc]

I have an Airborne titanium bike with ultegra 9sp gear set. Would it be feasible to convert this to accommodate Alfine hub gears? It's the most comfortable bike I've ever ridden but as I am in my 70s and am doing more and more town riding, I appreciate the convenience of hub gears (I also have a Trek Soho which is OK but rides like a brick!) What mods are likely to be needed? The Airborne has vertical drop-outs.

[Elizabethsdad]

An Alfine hub should fit ok - just make sure it comes with the vertical drop out fixings and not the horizontal (green and blue no-turn washers instead of yellow). The other thing to check is the width between the drop outs - Alfine hub need 135mm I think from memory.
I would recommend the 8sp hub over the 11sp as it is generally reckoned to be that bit more reliable.
I too had a Trek Soho a while back and liked it very much - I only passed it on when I got a Carrera Subway Ultra 8 which I liked better because of the disc brakes. I am riding a Bakfiets long john with roller brakes these days, so anything else is going seem like a whippet with it's tail on fire in comparison.

[Brucey]

if you have vertical dropouts you will need a chain tensioner of some kind too. Shimano make two different Alfine branded ones, but really any chain tensioner will work with a single chainring, but a twin-pulley one (that looks a lot like a rear mech) would be more the thing if you intend to widen the gear range by retaining more than one chainring.

Alfine 8 comes as 135mm rear hub width and with some fiddling can be reduced to close to 130mm which is probably what a road bike frame like yours has set at present.

Other options include a 3s hub which accepts a cassette; this weighs more than a triple chainset plus rear cassette, but still allows you to downshift whilst stationary. Both SRAM and Sturmey Archer make such devices.

cheers