Patrick,
It's a switch to hear you talking about gearing, although I've noticed
over the last few years snippets of discussions of Sam Hilbornes and
the Fargo, etc.
I've had a more deliberate change in my use of fixed and single
riding. Osteoarthritis discovered in my right knee not so long ago
keeps me from standing and walking very far, standing in the pedals or
pushing to hard on the flats. It's a MAJOR bummer. I spent twenty
years working on the floor building sails so it's not exactly a
surprise.
Anyhow since my round town errand bike was a flip flop fixed coasting
number I swapped over to 1x8. But I've been thinking about how all I
use are 2 or 3 gears, and I would like to try fixed occasionally.
So what about the fixed 2x and 3x hubs from Sturmey and Sachs? One of
the attractions for me is the hub can accommodate a thread-on
freewheel thereby giving you an option to a coastee. But I think that
puts the cabosh on a coaster brake yah?
Anyone have experience with these hubs? I was hoping to score a cheap
rear facing rear drop-out bike
Phil B
On Jan 14, 8:42 am, PATRICK MOORE <bertin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Speaking of coaster brakes, my first bike build, circa 1970 or '71,
> involved a (newly purchased; only frames readily available in Nairobi,
> Kenya at the time) frame for an Indian 28" wheel roadster, a Czecho flip
> flop, steel rim, 700C rear wheel donated by a friend and the Westwood
> rimmed 24" wheel stolen from my little brother's miniature Indian roadster
> kid's bike. Of course I discovered the hard way that no brake would fit so
> I rode it for some time on the hilly, winding and dangerous roads around
> Nairobi and in the heavy downtown traffic with no brakes, jamming my
> sneaker into the fork blades to retard the front wheel. ("There is a
> special providence that watches over fools and Americans.") I later found a
> coaster brake at a flea market and had it built into the rear wheel, but
> with the absurd gearing, something like 50/15, there was too little torque
> to operate the brake effectively, unless you kicked the pedals back hard,
> which would lock the wheel.
>
> I note that SA made a 5 speed coaster option: has anyone used it?
>
> All of this sounds so complicated that I am now seriously thinking of
> sticking to a fixed cog with a flip Dingle. And so back and forth it goes.
>
> Patrick "indecisive" Moore
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 9:16 AM, PATRICK MOORE <bertin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Interesting tale; thanks. 34", 53" and 72" sounds about right; I'd gear it
> > for 3d/cruising -- have done this before, actually, tho' without a coaster
> > brake. Does the coaster brake mechanism add drag to that of the planetary
> > system?
>
> > I'd love to see photos.
>
> > Too bad the kickback hub doesn't have a wider gear difference; on the
> > order of those bb drives, 1:160 or so, instead of 1:138.
>
> > On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 9:00 AM, Tim McNamara <tim...@bitstream.net>wrote:
>
> >> About 10 years back, when I stopped track racing, I built up a single
> >> speed coaster brake wheel for my track bike (using a ca. 1938 Bendix hub
> >> that I found in a box in my basement and have no recollection of buying; it
> >> was smooth as silk after rebuilding it). That worked great except the bike
> >> wasn't very comfortable to ride on city streets. So I sold that and then I
> >> built a single speed frame a few years back around that wheel, with no
> >> accommodation for a rim brake on the back. My friend Mike Pofahl, who
> >> builds frames in Faribault MN, walked me through it; it was a lot of fun,
> >> very interesting and made it clear that I would not want to try to build
> >> frames for a living. To do it right is a *lot* of fiddly detail work with
> >> files and grinders and test fittings, etc. If I had been paid the US
> >> median wage I'd have had about $800 in labor alone into that frame.
> >> Building that frame really made me appreciate
> >> Waterford/Joe/Curt/Match/etc. It also put me in awe of Tom Ritchey, who
> >> has said that he can start with a set of tubes first thing in the morning
> >> and have a frame ready for painting by lunchtime (the result of personally
> >> building thousands of frames- a lot of my time was spent learning how to
> >> miter and align and then doing the mitering and alignment, plus filing
> >> lugs. Hours filing lugs).
>
> >> That was fun for a year or so but I decided gears would be nice. Jim
> >> Thill set me up with a Sachs/SRAM 3 speed coaster brake wheel about 4 1/2
> >> years ago and it has worked great. Like many 3 speeds, though, the jump
> >> between gears is really wide. Too wide, really, as it mimics the Sturmey
> >> Archer AW gearing pattern. I think an AM style spread would be better.
> >> The difficulty becomes choosing the gearing. Do you gear it so that 2nd
> >> or 3rd is about 70"? If you choose 2nd, then 3rd is going to be about 90"
> >> and 1st is going to be about 42".
>
> >> After puttering around with different options, my current setup is a 42 x
> >> 21 resulting in gearing of 34", 53" and 72". I find this works fairly well
> >> although top practical speed is about 20 mph. Steep hills aren't a
> >> problem. This isn't a bike I tend to ride in a hurry, though, as I mainly
> >> use it for commuting and pottering about.
>
> >> --
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>
> > --
> > Patrick Moore
> > Albuquerque, NM
> > For professional resumes, contact
> > Patrick Moore, ACRW
> >http://resumespecialties.com/index.html
>
> --
> Patrick Moore
> Albuquerque, NM
> For professional resumes, contact
> Patrick Moore, ACRWhttp://resumespecialties.com/index.html
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