This would be super cool on a bike like you describe: http://www.sturmey-archer.com/products/hubs/cid/7/id/57. You would need front and rear brakes, but that is the way the RBW SS/fixie frames are designed, no? I am not sure this hub is available yet, but the coaster brake version is so I'm sure it will become availble soon(ish).
Doug On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 8:50 AM, Thomas Lynn Skean < thomaslynnsk...@comcast.net> wrote: > Hi, all! > > Does anyone have any experience with the sorta new Sturmey-Archer duomatic > hub? If so... Are they of reasonable quality (as opposed to being a novelty > or a fashion-gimmick or something intended for a department-store bike)? If > you have no experience but would venture an opinion, would you *expect* them > to be of reasonable quality? (I know nothing about the modern Sturmey-Archer > company or about low-gear-count IGHs at all.) > > Could you imagine one on a Quickbeam/SimpleOne? > > I like the idea of a singlespeed bike. But I expect that with my weight > (~240ish) and given that I have already flirted with slight knee pain, > riding a singlespeed bike very much would not be my favorite thing (or the > smartest thing) to do. Over time, I expect that launches would challenge my > knees with any gearing that I could contemplate cruising in. I understand > that the SimpleOne is designed to be more than just a singlespeed. But I > know me; I really can't see me hopping off the bike and moving the rear > wheel whenever I needed to exploit that fact. > > However, I've done some gearing arithmetic and have concluded that I might > be happy with the two-speed duomatic hub. I could imagine launching in "low" > (somewhat carefully) and then cruising in "high" (somewhat spinningly). But > the "carefully" and "Spinningly" parts would be generally "good things to > do" sometimes anyway. And, though I am in now way tired of biking the way I > do now, I am on the lookout for ways to "mix it up" so as to keep riding as > long as possible (think numbers of years, not distance per ride). I'm > thinking the duomatic might even prove a "gateway hub" to actual singlespeed > riding (theory being that if I keep riding in general, and sometimes a > two-speed in particular, I'll continue to get healthier and become less > vulnerable to knee pain as a result). I'm not remotely considering doing > away with multi-speed riding (why would I leave my home in Hillborne > heaven?). > > I've had uniformly bad experiences with multi-speed IGHs in the past (7- > and 8-speed Shimanos of 5+ years ago). But I'm open to the idea that, with > the duomatic being a two-speed and with IGHs having perhaps improved as > they've become more popular in the mainstream since then, it might not give > me problems like those hubs of yore. > > Any thoughts? > > Yours, > Thomas Lynn Skean > P.S. > One possibility I'm considering is a completely cable-less SimpleOne with > the coaster-brake version of the duomatic. That's the way I often rode bikes > growing up; one rear brake, one rear gear. Though there'd be complexity > hidden in the hub, the rest of the bike would be as simple as it gets. > -- 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-bu...@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.
