Forum

[PeteF]

I stripped and repaired a SA hub gearbox once. Facinating mechanism!

[papasmurf]

8 speed Sturmey Archer:-

http://www.sturmey-archer.com/products/ ... /id/9.html

[simon]

My older brother has literally hundreds of old English bikes. Mostly 28" Westwood rim types but plenty of 26" ones and some half and quarter size as well. He started buying them for a dollar or two as they turned up at the Refuse Transfer Station when they came in house loads of rubbish. Like a gravitational pull this started all sorts of people bringing him more and more and now he is literally inundated with them. Happy as a sandboy but surrounded by bicycles. He has stacks of Sturmey Archer stuff 3,4 and 5 speeds although the three speed is by far the most common. Sturmey Archer used to make motorcycle gearboxes but sold the design to Norton. The Dollshead gearbox was I believe a Sturmey Archer design. They sold all their bicycle patents to Sun of Taiwan quite a few years back who have started manufacturing them again under the SA name. They are lovely things, an epicyclic gearbox that doesn't require a moving chain and all the complication and compromise that involves. I must say though that my personal involvement with them always involved them slipping at a crucial moment leaving lying at the side of the road nursing a set of badly bruised plums!

[Martin]

Nice that a reliable household name lives virtually
unchanged, whilst Simon's brother has saved earlier
hubs for posterity. Must say though as a schoolboy
in Oz so long ago, had a single speed alleged 'Army'
bicycle, surely twice the weight of the one Scaly had
seen; straight tubed with strong double strutted forks
that easily handled a Benilli front wheel drive cycle
motor too. Seem to recall it had a sturdy carrier also.
Sure built to last as my brother was apparently still
using it down there 50 years later.