Re: [CR]Styria hub gears

(Example: Racing:Jean Robic)

From: "Byron Morton" <randonneurextra@hotmail.com>
To: encouragetom@hotmail.com, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: Re: [CR]Styria hub gears
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 15:21:52 -0600


Hi Thomas, I'm not sure how much help this will be, but I have three Styria hubs from the 1950's. All of them have three smooth ridges around the middle of the hub shell. One is branded Styria, one is branded Sears and the third is branded J. C. Higgins - iirc, they all are stamped with the same model number (I'll check tonight). I was under the impression that these hubs were simply rebadged (re-shelled) Sturmey Archer hubs, but I haven't taken one apart yet to compare the insides. The Styria hubs I have certainly have a different sounding click to the pawls than a Sturmey. For what it's worth, I also had a SunTour 3-speed hub that was identical to a S-A, except there were twice as many ratchet detents in the ring-gear and left hand ball cup - it definitely sounded different than a S-A. I believe Tony Hadland makes some reference to Styria, SunTour and possibly some others as being licensed from S-A. If you haven't already, you might want to check out his book (and website): http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hadland/page5.html

Happy cycling, Byron Morton Nashville, TN
>From: "Thomas Benson" <encouragetom@hotmail.com>
>To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>Subject: [CR]Styria hub gears
>Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 16:51:27 +0000
>
>
>I have a 1954 Holdsworth Monsoon with 3-speed Styria hub gears. Anyone know
>anything about Styria? Reckoned to be superior to S-A or not?
>
>Thanks for all replies