Just completed updating my Quickbeam with an 8-speed Sturmey-Archer hub. Photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35176...@n03/sets/72157622384321375/
You'll see that I used a J-Tek bar-end shifter in place of the standard gripshifter that comes with the hub. It works perfectly, and makes for a much cleaner installation, IMHO. Thanks to Jim at Hiawatha Cyclery, who sold me the hub and shifter. He even included in the inline barrel adjuster that sits just upstream of the hub (something I wouldn't have thought of). I have the chain running on 32T inner ring on the QB's crankset. The chainline is much straighter than on the 40T large ring, and the range of gears is better (for me). The hub's lowest gear is direct drive-- with the stock 25T cog, that gives me about 34 gear inches. Gears 2-8 multiply the low gear--top end is 104 gear inches. (By comparison, low/high on the 40T ring would be 43/131. The top gear there would really be necessary only on downhills of 30mph or more; I prefer a more usable range and a lower low gear.) Gear calcs from Sheldon Brown's online calculator (http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/internal.html ): For 700 X 28 / 28-622 tire with 170 mm cranks and 25 tooth sprocket 40 / 25 25.0 % 32 / 25 3.05 130.6 104.5 28.2 % 2.38 101.9 81.5 13.3 % 2.1 89.9 71.9 12.9 % 1.86 79.6 63.7 13.4 % 1.64 70.2 56.2 13.1 % 1.45 62.1 49.7 13.3 % 1.28 54.8 43.8 28.0 % 1 42.8 34.3 Pros (so far): --Simple and easy to shift --Impervious to weather --Singlespeed chains are cheap and easy to replace --Legendary Sturmey-Archer reliability --Good range of gears --Makes cool ticking noises that change depending on what gear you're in. Cons (so far): --Heavy. Hub alone is 4 pounds. Built wheel is close to five. --Impossible to fix on the road if something goes wrong inside the hub. I'm interested in any other experiences that members of this list have with Sturmey-Archer hubs. --Eric www.wheelsnorth.org www.campyonly.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
