Re: [CR]RE: WTB Sturmey Archers hub, further elaboration

(Example: Production Builders:Tonard)

From: "P.C. Kohler" <kohl57@starpower.net>
To: "Bob Freitas" <freitas1@pacbell.net>, "CLASSIC RENDEZVOUS" <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
References: <43FA490D.7090607@pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: [CR]RE: WTB Sturmey Archers hub, further elaboration
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 19:00:47 -0500
reply-type=response

Bob... kudos for considering Sturmey-Archer! I am not sure of the date of your Jack Taylor. Or maybe it doesn't make a difference. But I am not sure I'd go with a five-speed SA hub. As Harvey suggested, they weren't the best of the genre and I dislike the Rube Goldberg shifter arrangement. Unless you like the Brady Bunch era top-tube shifter thingy the first Sprites came with.

If you have access to them, take a look at the gear ratios of the various SA hubs. They ran the gamut and the sexy club bike hubs like the FM, AM (the single best SA hub ever in my opinion), AC and FC might suit you better. The number of gears is not, I feel, as important as the ratio range for your type of riding. The FM has a really, really low gear that, admittedly can be a bitch to shift down too, but is lower than any of the others. Plus these came with alloy shells as a matter of course.

The SA catalogue says the FM had a 12 1/21% increase, direct drive and reductions of 14.3% and 33%. That low gear compares to 25% with the AW by the way. If you need lower than that... well yes Cyclo-Benelux beckons!

Me, I am chuffed to have scored a 1939 close-ratio AR9 three-speed hub recently. Just the ticket for my 1939 23" RRA... if and when I get one that is. Carts before horses notwithstanding, one does have to start somewhere.

Peter Kohler
Washington DC USA