Thirty Years with a Sturmey Gear.

[Brucey]

....and do it the cheap and easy way,by putting a 13 to 28 seven speed cassette on the rear(Which i already have,along with a rear mech and control)with a 40 tooth front chainwheel.

I'd probably do the same thing myself in your position; -I'm guessing that you are not planning on the thick end of 200 miles a week for years on end in all weathers, mind....

cheers

[robc02]

That looks rather nice, a far better exemplar than my scruffy heap!

Photos can be deceiving! The frame is a Raleigh 18-23 carbon steel tubed frame (the only "carbon" frame I own ) - over 2.6kg in weight, just a few pounds in cash. I had to perform a few modifications, involving lots of heat and pressure, to get the 35mm tyres to fit.

Maybe I'm not seeing all the pictures, but what shifters are you using BTW?

I'm using two trigger shifters, one beneath each brake lever.

I've changed the settings on the photo, so you should now be able to see it and another of the same bike. They were taken with my very basic, Tesco vouchers, camera - so don't expect much detail!

[ConradM]

Sorry this is a few posts late but....
I run two hub-geared bikes, one with a very old K-series (pre AW) 3-speed (less obvious neutral than AW's), and another with a Nexus 7 of dubious history. Both also have hub brakes. The bikes are very different BUT the Sturmey is DEFINITELY giving less drivetrain friction, in all gears. Other Sturmeys' I've known were similar. This goes through an enclosed 48/20 geartrain with 26x13/8th wheels.
The Nexus is driven through geartrain of 33/16 on fat 700c's giving a middle/normal of about 56", so it runs with no. 5 (about 65") as main road gear. I want to drop the gearing to 42/21 to give a slightly lower range and better chain wear/efficiency. Even the middle (no. 4), gear is NOT direct drive, Shimano state it's 0.989 from direct , so it's running through some transmission even there. Nexus has lower friction on gear no. 6 (about 75") but is very draggy in all other gears. Might have been poorly maintained, I dis-assembled and gave it a dunking in gear oil 2 years ago which helped but it's never been great - other than you can easily get a decent gearing spread from 35"-85" a la Velocio with even steps and no neutral spaces. Even allowing different drivetrain details the Nexus drags noticeably.
Sturmey 3 AW's (and this K), are like hitting a wall with your kneecap when you change up. Efficiency is good but the spread is really wide (is 3 ratios really a "range" of gears?!) - but when will the AM and AC's reappear?

my 2 pen'orth

[Brucey]

that is very interesting. I've heard similar things reported before, but often there are other differences in the two bikes which might mask the differences in the hubs, which is enough to cast wee shadows of doubt in my mind.

One suggestion I have heard is that the 'geared middle gear' in Nexus hubs was deliberate, in order that the rider might not notice the efficiency losses vs a direct drive middle gear as you get in sturmey-archer hubs. Needless to say if you (say) change down 14%, but immediately incur an extra (say) 10% efficiency losses, the gear will only feel 4% easier; similarly changing up +14% on ratio might feel more like +25% in terms of effort....

I'm sure this would be disconcerting at least, and may go some way to explain the large gaps in SA hub gears (2 and 4 are well away from 3 in a five speed, too...). You could build them with closer gears (and they did for a long time) but I bet the ratios don't feel evenly spaced near the direct drive gear, even if they are made that way....

I must get my AM gear installed in something.... And I have an alloy-shelled FM hub somewhere, too....

cheers

[robc02]

when will the AM and AC's reappear?

Hear, hear! - or, better still, FMs and FCs.

I have an FM on a late '40s Claud Butler and it's lovely on the undulating roads where I live. My forthcoming project is a winter bike with an FM hub - better get my finger out as winter's not far away now!

[Patrickpioneer]

After reading the book about Tom Godwin and his record on a 4 speed Raleigh I started reading everything I could on our forum about hub gears and I have enjoyed every moment of this thread, the only trouble is I now fancy a hub geared bike.
Pat

[Brucey]

if you fancy a bike with a hub gear there are a few easy routes that are worth considering;

1) modified singlespeed. Singlespeed bikes have a functional aesthetic all of their own; one way of looking at (say) a 3s bike is 'a singlespeed with more choices' and realistically (because of the dropout design and spacing) most singlespeed bikes will accept a 3s hub quite easily, adding about 1-1/2lbs to the build. This echoes back to the early days of variable gearing; this was initially offered as an option on bikes that would otherwise have been default singlespeed machines. Through most of the twentieth century manufacturers offered essentially identical machines with singlespeed or 3s gears. You can try out both singlespeed and 3s gearing in a single bike, just by having an additional wheel available.

2) rescue bike. The world is awash with old bikes that need a bit of TLC before they will live again, and many of these have three speed gears. Quite often neglected bikes need a set of tyres, a few small parts and a bit of TLC and then they can be used, sold on etc. This sort of thing is usually cost neutral and you get to save the planet to the tune of one bike's worth of resources.

3) used bikes. Buying a used bike with a hub gear is often a good way of dipping your toe; provided you buy well, if you don't like it you can always sell it on for about the same money.

Running a hub gear doesn't fundamentally change cycling, but it does give it a different slant that suits some folk/situations better than others.

cheers

[Greystoke]

If like me you'd like drop handlebars then option 1 is costly. Single speed drop bar bikes are very expensive, even 2nd hand.
Options 2 & 3 don't really exist with drop bars.
Yes you can change them to drop bars.....
So option 4 is buy a well used drop bar bike and replace the wheels and drivetrain with hub gears. That's the option i'm planning but intend to add a few cogs to extend the range.

[Brucey]

there are still lots of old 'racing bikes' around which have slotted dropouts. These are very easy to convert to singlespeed, and of course to fit a simple hub gear to as well.

Any of these routes will give you a chance to see if hub gears are for you or not; you can always build/buy the bike you really want later on, and you will be better informed as to what that might be exactly.

cheers

[mjr]

It's worth knowing the basics like how to adjust the gears (what the Sturmey indicator bar end through the hole or Shimano yellow lines/dots should look like) because I suspect that some used/rescue 3-speeds get sold cheaper as non-working because they're simply misadjusted. If needed, check that the tightest gear is really selectable by pulling the gear cable rather than adjusting it in sight of the seller and increasing the value.

My rescue bike was sold unable to select first, which I corrected on the ride back to the train station with it. It also had a tiny sprocket on it, so the gears were knee-poppingly high, but that's not a roadside fix IMO and fortunately the route home was pretty flat!

[Patrickpioneer]

Thank you all for the advice. My problem is I cant justify another bike no matter how much I fancy another, for one thing I do own a hub geared bike, a rather old but special to me Brompton T5 (sprinter hub) which I pumped up the tyres on and took out for a little six mile ride this morning. It was a joy to be out in the sun on it with just the gentle ticking of the hub.

But I do fancy a full size bike with hub gears either fitted by myself or original factory. I know one day a rescue bike (love that term) or frame will show up and I can give it a 'for ever home' after I have had my grubby little hands and spanners on it.
take care all
Pat

[bgnukem]

Quite fancy a hub-geared bike for commuting myself, better still with disc or drum brakes for low maintenance. I'd need more than 3 gears though for the hills around here and the reliability of the 8/11-speed Shimano hubs has put me off a bit plus the cost of a Rohloff seems OTT for a commuter...

Nice to see an old faithful bike in regular use. Had my oldest (Dawes) for 24 years so no comparison, and my commuter's only 18 years old

[Tiberius]

if you fancy a bike with a hub gear there are a few easy routes that are worth considering;

1) modified singlespeed. Singlespeed bikes have a functional aesthetic all of their own; one way of looking at (say) a 3s bike is 'a singlespeed with more choices' and realistically (because of the dropout design and spacing) most singlespeed bikes will accept a 3s hub quite easily, adding about 1-1/2lbs to the build. This echoes back to the early days of variable gearing; this was initially offered as an option on bikes that would otherwise have been default singlespeed machines. Through most of the twentieth century manufacturers offered essentially identical machines with singlespeed or 3s gears. You can try out both singlespeed and 3s gearing in a single bike, just by having an additional wheel available.

That is exactly what I did....My Genesis 'Flyer' drop bar/single speed/steel frame/carbon fork, now fitted with a 3 speed Sturmey with a nice little bar end shifter. The whole thing has a lovely, simple, clean look to it.

I liked the Flyer (once I had replaced the entire braking system,bottom bracket and tyres) but it's hilly around here and I've had one knee op' already. The Sturmey 3 has given the bike a whole new lease of life and it's my 'go to' for local rides.

AND...It weighs shed loads less than the Rohloff !!!

[mjr]

Quite fancy a hub-geared bike for commuting myself, better still with disc or drum brakes for low maintenance. I'd need more than 3 gears though for the hills around here and the reliability of the 8/11-speed Shimano hubs has put me off a bit plus the cost of a Rohloff seems OTT for a commuter...

I don't know where you are, so it still might not be enough, but remember most three speeds are wide-spaced so it's not like three adjacent derailleur gears - it's more like having first, fourth and seventh from a modern rear cassette.

As for the reliability of the 8/11-speed Shimano hubs - do we really know yet? They've only been around a few decades.

[Brucey]

an AW hub gives you gears of 0.75, 1.0, 1.333 respectively. Two common ways of setting up the hub are to make gear 2 or gear 3 a 'tapping along gear'. Supposing that your chosen tapping along gear is ~65", then two setups are compared here;

http://ritzelrechner.de/?GR=SAAW&KB=40&RZ=22&UF=2150&TF=90&SL=2.6&UN=MPH&DV=gearInches&GR2=SAAW&KB2=46&RZ2=19&UF2=2150

You will see that bottom gear is ~48" or ~36" respectively. A 36" gear will get you up quite steep hills.

cheers