Internalisation of my bike

Yes you heard me correctly, if my evil schemes come to fruition the gearing systems of my Giant Trance will be completely internal by the 12th September (yes there is a reason for that date). All I need is a Surly Singleator, a lovely Shimano Alfine 8 speed rear hub which is generally found on city bikes but has been certified for XC riding and has even been used on DH bikes to be built into a Mavic 321 rim with a few other little bits like spokes and a Center Lock disc adaptor. It’s about 200g lighter than a Rohloff and 200g heavier than a full Shimano XT setup so not at all bad for a hub that costs 5 times less than the Rohloff. It works out more or less equal to running a 11-34 cassette depending on how you set it up and is supposed to be extremely reliable. This is all depending on if I can get a hold of one of these which are selling out faster than Shimano can produce them but I’ll keep the blog updated with the progress.