Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

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Carlton green
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Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Carlton green »

I guess that I’ve been using my SA AW for around two years now and I continue to be impressed by the utility of these hubs. If you set them up right and look after the mechanics then they can get you about very nicely. However, with all tools, technique makes all the difference and I’m finding this to be the case with the SA. It wouldn’t be too unfair to say that a decent derailleur set-up will get you to your destination both more quickly and with less effort than an SA AW but, of course, the SA AW has counterbalancing merits - I’ve just built up a spare SA AW wheel so I must like them.

Looking at ease of cycling and efficient riding technique with the SA AW I’m wondering how long term users of it have modified their riding to suit?

My bike is set up with a top gear of just 63” and that allows me to both make good progress and usually hold the top gear along the undulating ‘c’ class rides that I use the bike on, middle gear (direct drive) is good for climbing noticeable inclines - and mechanically efficient - and the bottom gear (about 35”) will winch me up most things - I’m also happy to walk up hills too. Gearing is pragmatic compromise.

Technique wise I’m happy to lightly spin along in top on the level, coast down hill and push a little bit on gentle rises and / into the wind. For the other gears I’m looking at better use of my natural cadence; rather than chase road speed and push to engage the next gear upwards (as I would with derailleur gears) I pedal at a comfortable and sustainable cadence for me and let my road speed drop to what matches a comfortable leg speed. Hills are approached with the idea of the easiest possible climb rather than anything else. The object is to avoid as much exertion as possible, one way to do this seems to be to engage low gear early and pedal at a comfortable cadence, more plodding up rather than pushing forwards.

Folk will have their own tips and tricks that work for them, please do share yours.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Nearholmer
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Nearholmer »

I’ve got one bike, my ‘shops and school runs’, which has a SA 5-speed, and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever cracked it!

First is good for fully loaded up hill, second and third are alright for cruising, but the bike seems to absorb effort with no noticeable affect on speed if I try to use fourth or fifth other than downhill. And, it’s very fiddly to set-up correctly, and goes out of adjustment at the slightest provocation.

The riders I still think of in awe are my grandfather and our neighbour Mr Peerless, both professional gardeners who rode 1930s Raleighs, with rod brakes and SA three-speed. Off they would go, tools tied along the crossbar, old sack on the front, old fruit tray on the back, and they would ride up the hill outside our house, about 1:3, at a steady tread, wearing heavy working boots and leather gaiters. Their speed was so slow that it seemed impossible they could stay upright, and they could keep up that sort of progress for mile after mile, in a really hilly part of The Weald, dig clay soil all day, then cycle back. Both continued cycling and digging until the day before their respective passings in their eighties. They knew how to ride using an SA.
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Tigerbiten
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Tigerbiten »

I don't have a SA but I do have a Rohloff on the back of my bent trike and I recognize a lot of your shifting techniques simply because I do them myself.
Shifting down early on hills and starting to pedal when the trike slows down to match the gear is a no brainer. You cannot shift a hub gear under load so if you wait until you're forced to shift down by the loss of speed, you'll loose even more speed when you shift. Better to shift down early and just accept the loss of momentum due to the hub gear.
As for ticking also in an easy gear at a sensible cadence, I just call that older and wiser ..... :D

Luck ........... :D
Carlton green
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Carlton green »

Thanks nearholmer, whether fact or ‘pulling my chain’ the tale of your grandad and neighbour brought a smile to my face. The five speed SA is a different beast to the three speed AW, yours could likely be ‘sorted’ to work better for you, but that’s better dealt with in a search of existing threads and them maybe a separate new thread.

I did a search of Sturmey Archer topics before starting this read and found much on mechanics but very little on technique, I suspect that experienced riders don’t realise that they have developed technique and just automatically ride and use the AW in particular ways. However, from that search, some comments set me thinking about ‘best practice’ and extracting the best from the AW, for example:
My No1 bike has a Rohloff but my winter bike is a single speeder fitted with a SA3 AW NIG hub. The AW drags me through hilly North Yorkshire for 2,500 KM every winter and it does it really well. ..... I would go anywhere on that bike. I regularly wonder why we have bikes with so many gears?
Quoting Tiberius from: viewtopic.php?p=1559153&hilit=Sturmey+Archer#p1559153

There are techniques to working with what you have to get the best out of it. With wide spaced and limited ratio range gears just accepting what you can’t do and working with what’s left (what you can do) seems to make the difference, the job still gets done and much less energy is wasted. Sometimes the (now) obvious and (now) automatic is difficult to identify and to then put into words.
Last edited by Carlton green on 14 Apr 2022, 9:00am, edited 1 time in total.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Nearholmer
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Nearholmer »

Grandad and Mr Peerless? Absolutely true.
My maternal grandparents bough their bikes as a wedding present for themselves in I think 1935 and used them until the 1980s when my grandfather passed away, never had a car, and for many years lived about three miles from the nearest village shop. One curiosity was that they always had old berets over the saddles, to preserve the leather from wear and weather.

My five speed is scheduled for partial dismantling and soaking/washing with ATF, which appears to be the recommended method to get all the little pins and pawls working just right.
Last edited by Nearholmer on 14 Apr 2022, 9:01am, edited 1 time in total.
Stradageek
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Stradageek »

I'm a big fan of the AW3 having built them into a number of wheels and onto old MTB frames with horizontal drop outs to make the 'ideal' zero maintenance town bike.

I have a collection of 22T SA sprockets and I set the gearing to give about 27/36/47 gear inches. With my Pashely Postie bike this needed a 33T front chainring. With this gearing the bikes are definitely 'town' bikes that can cope with any climb (and any load in the case of the Pashley); most of the descents are a case of freewheeling.

What I love about these bikes/gearing system is that I pump up the tyres every month, oil the chains every six months and do no other maintenance, leaving me with plenty of time to tinker with the 'performance' machines :D
Carlton green
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Carlton green »

Nearholmer wrote: 14 Apr 2022, 9:00am My maternal grandparents bough their bikes as a wedding present for themselves in I think 1935 and used them until the 1980s when my grandfather passed away, never had a car, and for many years lived about three miles from the nearest village shop.
I can envisage that way of life and bring to mind a local old lady, who until she passed lived similarly. She lived about two miles out of Town and riding to her (then) home involves a long climb ... a few short bits of which I’ve walked before today.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Stradageek
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Stradageek »

Nearholmer wrote: 14 Apr 2022, 9:00am My five speed is scheduled for partial dismantling and soaking/washing with ATF, which appears to be the recommended method to get all the little pins and pawls working just right.
I have a 5-star and an S52 ready to build into wheels and a collection of changers. I have rebuilt the hubs from the pawls upwards (making sure to set the correct planet pinion timing!) and am confused by the often reported issues with gear adjustment.

Internally it looks just like an AW3 with two sets of sun pinions, so I'm puzzled as to why is there such a common problem with gear adjustment. I was aiming to use a twin changer approach rather than the single 5-speed trigger shifter, is this likely to make gear adjustment less of a problem?
Carlton green
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Carlton green »

IIRC correctly Brucey had some good threads and posts about the Sturmey Five Speed and he managed to cover a lot of distance with them - a flawed design expertly beaten and cajoled into good service?

Thinking more about riding technique I applied some this morning to good effect. The art seems to be to apply just a light load to the pedals and then allow one’s road speed and cadence to drift - up or down - towards what’s comfortable. For hill climbing I applied that light pressure ‘rule’, changed down gears early and allowed cadence to drop down to just enough to keep the crank steadily rotating. The climbs took longer but at the end of them my heart rates were lower and my legs were less tired than would otherwise have been the case - I was also less near to getting off and walking the rest of the hill. Where the hills temporarily eased off I maintained (rather than increased) the lower cadence so letting my legs have a bit of a break / recovery.

It’s a journey and not a race, my idea is to keep peak power output low - easier on the heart, lungs and legs - and if that means the journey takes a little longer then that has no pressing importance to me.

It strikes me that peddling furiously on your bike in a very low gear uses (wastes) a lot of energy in just turning (churning?) the pedals - more energy efficient to let your cadence and road speed drop - and that standing on the stalled pedals of a bike uses up a lot of energy (just in pushing) and doesn’t move you forward one bit. In a way I’m aiming for the easiest way in between those two extremes, keeping the energy expenditure rate (input power) to as low as is practical and still comfortably turning the cranks (smooth crank rotation and reasonably low pedal pressure) to make sustainable progress. It’s the rate of energy expenditure that matters most (it’s the first limit on keeping things sustainable) rather than the total amount expended for any hill or journey.

I would have thought that the above could apply to derailleur gears too.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
millimole
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by millimole »

I toured extensively in the 70s and early 80s with AW and AWC hubs at a time when club riding had moved to dérailleurs.
I don't recall, on club rides, my speed being any different to my pals.
When touring my bike would have been quite heavily loaded and I covered some good distances in the UK and France, doing upto 65/70 miles a day.
My recollection is that the advice was for 'normal' (middle) gear to be around 63-65 inches, and that's still what I aim for on both my current bikes with three speed hubs.
I've never thought about a specific technique, but certainly hills require a different approach because, I suppose, the lack of a true granny gear means that once brute force has failed you have to resort to the 24 inch (two feet) gearing - which was not frowned on back in the day.
Leicester; Riding my Hetchins since 1971; Day rides on my Dawes; Going to the shops on a Decathlon Hoprider
Carlton green
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Carlton green »

millimole wrote: 15 Apr 2022, 8:22am I toured extensively in the 70s and early 80s with AW and AWC hubs at a time when club riding had moved to dérailleurs.
I don't recall, on club rides, my speed being any different to my pals.
When touring my bike would have been quite heavily loaded and I covered some good distances in the UK and France, doing upto 65/70 miles a day.
My recollection is that the advice was for 'normal' (middle) gear to be around 63-65 inches, and that's still what I aim for on both my current bikes with three speed hubs.
I've never thought about a specific technique, but certainly hills require a different approach because, I suppose, the lack of a true granny gear means that once brute force has failed you have to resort to the 24 inch (two feet) gearing - which was not frowned on back in the day.
Thank you for that insight; you’ve obviously covered a lot of miles on AW’s and done so over several decades - a voice of experience. As with all things usage, personal and local factors impact on what works for each individual - hence YMMV - but there’s nothing as useful as talking to folk who’ve actually ‘done stuff’. Ta.

As I understand it the original SA shifters were labelled up with ‘high’, ‘normal’ and ‘low’ (gears) rather than ‘1’, ‘2’ and ’3’; so normal was direct drive (2nd gear) and virtually mechanical loss free. I can see that arrangement working very well for many people, but the safer roads around here (‘c’ roads and less) are hilly and hence I’ve opted for 63” being my ‘high’ (3rd) gear rather than my ‘normal’ (2nd) gear. Usually having a 10 plus kg load on the rack can’t be helping me either :lol: . That said I wonder about trying ‘2nd’ as ‘normal’ on another bike and just seeing how it pans out in practise; I’d have to walk walk many more hills but I’d be able to go quicker on what few flatter and faster roads we have around here. I rarely venture onto ‘b’ roads but on them quicker is safer amongst the cars that speed along them; the ‘b’ roads tend to be less hilly and a higher top gear could be advantageous.

Walking hills does somehow seem to be an admission of weakness and is just ‘not done’. Personally I’ve come to realise that that attitude is foolish when applied to one’s self and rude when applied to others; I like to think that I’m enlightened, but others might think something else. My perspective on three speed hub geared bikes is also a bit different to that on bikes with many more gears. I now expect to occasionally walk with the three speed bike and am glad that it carries my goods and acts as a wheeled walking stick, whereas my expectations of bikes with many more gears are not quite so liberal - maybe that awaits further enlightenment and truth be told the weak link is this rider rather than the machine.

Whatever, it’s all about making what you have work well for you in your own particular circumstances; the experiences of others and tips towards doing that are most gratefully received.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
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gazza_d
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by gazza_d »

I have a Moulton with a three speed hub gear. A Shimano nexus rather than a Sturmey, as the wheel was ridiculously cheap from Taylor Wheels back in the good old days when we could buy things from the EU.

I have my normal gear set for 3rd.
That leaves second as a step down for drags, decent headwinds and if I'm lugging a bunch of shopping.
First is the bailout gear for decent climbs.. works well enough for me.

Ratios (inches) are as follows
0.73 (Low) 1.0 1.36 (High)
40.5 55.3 75.4

I've previously done similar with SA 4 sp hubs and SRAM 5sp, where I've kept top gear as an "overdrive".
That setup let's me keep a decent pace most of the time..
Carlton green
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Carlton green »

gazza_d wrote: 17 Apr 2022, 1:25pm I have a Moulton with a three speed hub gear. A Shimano nexus rather than a Sturmey, as the wheel was ridiculously cheap from Taylor Wheels back in the good old days when we could buy things from the EU.

I have my normal gear set for 3rd.
That leaves second as a step down for drags, decent headwinds and if I'm lugging a bunch of shopping.
First is the bailout gear for decent climbs.. works well enough for me.

Ratios (inches) are as follows
0.73 (Low) 1.0 1.36 (High)
40.5 55.3 75.4

I've previously done similar with SA 4 sp hubs and SRAM 5sp, where I've kept top gear as an "overdrive".
That setup let's me keep a decent pace most of the time..
Yes, in a lot of ways being outside of the EU is a right pain but it is what it is and at some point things will change again. The Pandemic was beyond our imagination but it has happened, War in Ukraine was beyond our imagination but it is happening, resurrection in the USA was beyond our imagination but it happened, it was unimaginable that the U.K. would ever leave the EU but we have and we might well end up back in it again too - life’s full of the unexpected and all we can try to do is try to roll with what it throws at us.

The gearing range choice on your Moulton sounds very sensible to me, well something that at one time I’d have happily picked and used ... but I’m a bit heavier and older now, and then there’s my 11kg ‘companion’ sat on the rack too.

With a five speed set up using fourth as a normal gear and fifth as an ‘overdrive’ is, to my mind, the best choice. When lack of spare parts supply forced a moved :( from my Sach five speed hub to a SA three speed hub then the pragmatic choice for me was to use 3rd as my normal gear and these days that’s in the low 60’s.

For me moving to an SA AW has required a ‘mind shift’; if you want to always go as fast as is possible then there are now better choices than an SA AW, but if you’re content to strike a balance where you cover the miles at a gentler pace and walk some hills then the SA AW is a workable option that’s reliable and requires little maintenance.

It’s all interesting though, seeing what other folk finds suits them and why. There’s always something to learn from others.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
jimlews
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by jimlews »

Used to run a very low geared AW for commuting.
22t sprocket and 22t chainwheel.
The ride included a couple of 1in4 hills, some city riding and about five miles of flat/undulating lanes.

The 'technique' along the level was to spin like crazy for a few seconds then freewheel until loss of
momentum necessitated a repeat performance. Could make good progress, and no more fatiguing than 'normal'.
On the 1in4 hills, middle gear was best for climbing, with low as the bail-out option.
That bike also towed a log hauling trailer-up the 1in 4 slopes on occasion!

Changing down there was about one and a bit revolutions of the crank before drive engaged.
Disconcerting at first, but soon got used to it.
Carlton green
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Re: Sturmey Archer AW Riding Techniques

Post by Carlton green »

jimlews wrote: 18 Apr 2022, 12:44pm Used to run a very low geared AW for commuting.
22t sprocket and 22t chainwheel.
The ride included a couple of 1in4 hills, some city riding and about five miles of flat/undulating lanes.

The 'technique' along the level was to spin like crazy for a few seconds then freewheel until loss of
momentum necessitated a repeat performance. Could make good progress, and no more fatiguing than 'normal'.
On the 1in4 hills, middle gear was best for climbing, with low as the bail-out option.
That bike also towed a log hauling trailer-up the 1in 4 slopes on occasion!

Changing down there was about one and a bit revolutions of the crank before drive engaged.
Disconcerting at first, but soon got used to it.
22T does seem tiny for a chain wheel and it’s easy to type 22 instead of (say) an intended 32 - which would be similar to Stradageek’s arrangement some posts above and part copied below. I’m just wondering, checking even, whether there might be a typo with the chainwheel size?
Stradageek wrote: 14 Apr 2022, 9:01am I have a collection of 22T SA sprockets and I set the gearing to give about 27/36/47 gear inches. With my Pashely Postie bike this needed a 33T front chainring. With this gearing the bikes are definitely 'town' bikes that can cope with any climb (and any load in the case of the Pashley); most of the descents are a case of freewheeling.

22T on hub and chainwheel, on a 27” wheel, gives: 20”, 27” & 36” for 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
My 1st gear is currently 35”, it seems low but on a flat and shared space pathway it’s still much easier and quicker than walking - it seems at least twice as fast. With that in mind I suppose a 22T chainwheel might be a practicality for someone (rather than a questioned typo) and particularly helpful when faced with 1 in 4 hills and a trailer to pull - good brakes needed for them too!

Whatever, it’s a thought provoking arrangement. Thank you.
Last edited by Carlton green on 18 Apr 2022, 6:22pm, edited 1 time in total.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
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