After high school there was a disturbance in the force, by which I mean my motorised automobility got interrupted. One of my criteria when looking at universities had been whether they allowed first-year dormdwellers to have cars on campus. It wasn’t a make-or-breaker, but much to my parents’ annoyance it was on my list. Even though the University of Oregon was a Yes on that question (and I got in, and we liked it for a stout list of sturdy reasons) my folks wouldn’t let me take the car. We flew out to Eugene with duffel bags and suitcases—it was 1994 so that law was still in effect requiring all rentcars to be Ford Tauruses—unpacked them in my half of a glovebox-sized dorm room, drove around buying stuff we hadn’t brought, and then my folks went home.
So there I was without any wheels, and that wouldn’t do. If I couldn’t have four of them on a car—and I couldn’t—I’d settle for two on a bicycle. I knew just what kind I wanted, too: an English Racer. That’s the kind of bike my dad had when he was a kid, he’d told me, and sometime in the late ’80s or early ’90s he’d retrieved the very one he described from the furnace room of his folks’ house in Seattle and brought it, knocked down, back to Denver in a United Airlines bike box. It was a 1954 Norman (‘scuze me, Norman of England), in that kandy-apple colour created by transparent deep red over silver. Brown leather Brooks saddle well moulded to the one butt it had ever kept off the street; gold pinstripes, “Made in England” decal, a chrome front chainwheel with Norman-soldier spokes, and a three-speed arrangement I found fascinating but sort of incomprehensible. It had a trigger-shaped shifter, the position of which put the letter L, N, or H in a little round window in the chromed top plate, which also bore the highly British-sounding name of Sturmey-Archer.
The cable from this trigger ran along the bike’s top tube, over a steel roller wheel near the seatpost, and downward-rearward to enter the axle shaft. Three speeds, but just one sprocket at the back. I didn’t know how it worked, but I liked how it worked: akin to car gears. Even putting the shifter in top gear after parking the bike—good practice, I was taught, so the system wouldn’t be unnecessarily under tension—was sort of like shifting into Park. And there was none of the mishegoss mishmash mess of zigzag chainlines and metal fingers shoving the chain sideways on and off multiple sprockets. Let’s just get this out the way: derailleurs are offensively clumsy, Rube Goldbergy things. I’ve never liked them and I didn’t want one—still don’t. This is not based in logic; I know they work, I just dislike them, same as my aversion to vertical-pull starters on lawnmowers.
A three-speed, then. There was a heavily advertised bike shop I think I recall being called “Campus Bicycle Shop” despite being a long bus ride away from campus. I wish this first lie had been more of a red flag for me, but it wasn’t. Yes, they had just the thing, the man said on the phone. “A 1971 Raleigh Superbee”. I bussed over the bridge and eventually arrived at the shop. There it was: a faded yellow-green Raleigh Superbe (said the bike) Superbee (said the man) with a tatty mattress saddle and some rust in the chrome, but it looked to be all there, more or less; no key for the front fork lock. When it was new, it looked much like the ’72 shown below. My options: buy it, or wait an hour and get back on the bus and still have no wheels. I bought it for too much money—I wonder how many times this guy sold that bike over the years—and set off back toward campus.
It was a difficult ride in afternoon traffic. The bike wasn’t well adjusted for me, the brakes were marginal, the saddle was uncomfortable, and there was a weird asymmetry to the pedal effort: easier with the left foot than with the right. But I did make it back. First order of business (aside from, um, classes and stuff) was to get it into better shape. I found the bike shop I should’ve ducked (see what I did there?) into in the first place: Blue Heron Bicycles, on 13th street just half a block from campus. They were enthusiastic British-bike experts, and they found a gritchingly long list of stuff wrong with mine. The crank arms weren’t the proper 180° apart, which explained the dissimilar left/right pedal effort. The brake caliper bolts were bent, as were the calipers themselves; the cables were seizing, and the pads were as age-hardened as the remains of the grease in the bearings throughout. The handlebar stem was bent. The wheels werent’ anywhere near true, and the tires were, ah, past due. Other than that, it was in fine shape!
Sue and her Blue Heron gang did a terrific job putting the bike in reasonable condition as affordably as possible—aided and abetted by their enormous collection of parts and parts bikes. It rode much better after their work. I started hanging out at Blue Heron in my free time, and I quickly came to see that a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub gear is a close bicycological analogue of a Slant-6 engine (or a Torqueflite transmission, if we want to be picky about the matter), and I dug into the world of the one just as enthusiastically as I was already into the other. I got my first access to the internet, and even back then there were apposite pages to be found. I learnt an Englishman had written a whole book about the history of Sturmey Archer, and straightaway I sent for a copy.
Meanwhile, the improvements accrued on my green Superbe: Chinese-made Cheng Shin tires probably weren’t the world’s finest, but they surely improved over whatever crusty old crap went before. I put on a Brooks saddle like the one on dad’s Norman, and better pedals. A bigger rear sprocket so the gears were more like their nominal low-normal-high rather than high-higher-hellbound. New shift trigger that wasn’t worn and sloppy like the previous one. I learnt to gauge the hub’s state of lubrication by listening to it in high gear: silence meant too much oil, a metallic Clack! Clack! Clack! Clack! meant not enough, and a happy tick-tick-tick-tick was just right. I put on a big chrome Ding-Dong! bell.
I think it was one of the Blue Heronistas—Steve, probably—who alerted me to a nice matched his/hers pair of 1969 Raleigh Sportses for sale, similar to these pics. The Sports model was not quite so fancy as the Superbe, but in this case the difference wasn’t much beyond the lack of the Superbe’s fork lock. The Sportses were a very attractive bright metallic mustard yellow, and had a snazzy de luxe chain guard I kept wanting to call a “flightsweep” style, though I’m sure that wasn’t its actual name. By this time I was heavily geeked in, and so we upgraded the yellow men’s bike. Aluminum rims in the 26″ × 1⅜” (EA3) size had just become available, looking just like the chromed steel originals but much lighter, so I had Blue Heron build me a set. The twist-grip shifter went away in favour of a trigger, and I swapped on the Brooks saddle from the green ’71.
Oi presto: a hot-rod Raleigh that was an utter joy to ride: geared just right, and the alloy rims made a giant improvement in both acceleration and deceleration. Don’t look now, but chromed steel is a thoroughly rotten choice for a brake friction surface. It’s (just) okeh when dry, but the slightest bit of moisture means applying the brakes does nothing except perhaps make rude noises, which at least might help warn people to give way. It stands to reason, if you think about it: just as the Finns and Swedes make excellent winter tires because they have long, severe winter, the English made bicycle brakes that quit when wet because of that country’s notoriously arid climate. Ahem.
In late 1995 my older sister was working in London, and somehow or other I put together a trip to visit her over Winter break from school. I took the train from London to Nottingham, where I had the great privilege to tour the Sturmey-Archer and Raleigh works. I was welcomed very kindly by a Mr. Cullingsworth at Raleigh, who was quite elderly; he was apologetic that they weren’t making exactly the sort of bike I was so keen about, and he loaded me down with a heap of terrific loot: a big double-handful of assorted old-stock decals and a green Raleigh necktie, all of which I still have. He showed me the ingenious metal tool, a hold-in-the-hand item about the size of a Zippo lighter, that was used to apply the pinstriping to the bikes, and was very sorry he couldn’t give me one to take away. From him I learnt the English say Raleigh to rhyme with alley, not folly. I knew this from John Lennon, but hadn’t connected that across to my Raleigh bicycle…habit?
Across the road, the Sturmey-Archer people just barely concealed their distaste at having some American kid come tromping through their factory. They had half a point; I was an eagerly enthusiastic 18-year-old with broken spectacles held together with tape, and aside from a factory tour I also wanted to gripe about a recent-production single-shifter 5-speed hub of theirs which had snapped its axle shaft almost immediately after installation. Not on my bike, but on one belonging to Blue Heron mechanic (and UO instructor) Louis. He’d let me try out his bike with the newly-fitted 5-speed, and the axle had gone breaking while I was halfway round the block. Groan.
They gave me for Louis a replacement set of hub guts—this particular 5-speed model was a half-baked design, one of several forces behind Sturmey’s skidding downfall—and I even got a pretty good factory tour, all things considered, though they wouldn’t let me in the torture-test room. I was amused to see the workers sitting at benches, hand-assembling three-speed hubs as had been done more or less continually since 1936. Quality control? Yeh: each worker used a particular colour of plastic spacer washer. Their powdered-metal operations were also most impressive, as was the spokemaking line. They behaved curtly toward me, but who won in the end? I got great memories; they got sacked and their factory blown up!
Because I didn’t know any better, I also made a side trip to Milton Keynes and spent some time with the proprietor of a backyard-shed business by the name of Phoenix Restorations. This thoroughly bizarre man took a fair chunk of money from me for a (photocopied) book he said he’d send and never did, and when I enquired after it some months later, he responded with a £375 invoice for “consultation”. In fact all that had gone on was I’d learnt why Milton Keynes isn’t listed in the tourist guides, and he and his wife and I had tea and biscuits while they evangelised the new universal language they had invented and were teaching to schoolchildren unlucky enough to have complicit parents. Mr. and Mrs. Cuckoo were a particular kind of, erm, eccentric that seems endemic to England, a country which was slow to remove lead from their petrol. Oh, well. I did eventually get my hands on a copy of a copy of his book, which consisted of exploded views and commentary on more or less every hub Sturmey-Archer made between the early 1900s and about 1990.
Somewhen along the line I played around a little with Sturmey 4-speed hubs; these were essentially the 3-speed with an extra-low gear added on. I found the system difficult to keep in working adjustment and eventually, just like Sturmey themselves, I gave up and went back to the 3-speed.
After the 1995-’96 school year I left the University of Oregon—supposedly in search of better academics, but I was really after better excuses. After a year’s hiatus, I wound up at the University of Michigan. I’d left Mean Mister Mustard, the hot-rodded ’69 Sports, in Denver, so after some hunting around I found a bike shop occupying the same ecological niche as Blue Heron. They had a his/hers pair of black 1950 Raleigh 3-speeds. Clearly Michigan bikes; there was quite a lot more rust than I’d seen in Oregon. Nevertheless, I bought them both, put all the best parts on the men’s, and it was my daily transport all over campus. I’d imported a case of very nice Vredestein tires with retroreflective sidewalls, so a set of those went on. I oiled the Brooks saddle thoroughly, installed special wet-weather brake pads with inlaid leather strips I’d bought on the trip to England (rusty steel is a much better braking surface than chromed), another Ding-Dong! bell, and I was all set.
There was a rat trap-style rack above the rear fender, and I put it to good use. I rode to the food co-op through January slush, loaded up the rack with a big box of fresh citrus, rode back to my building and up to my apartment, and chowed down on hold-in-the-hand sunshine. What I didn’t eat, I juiced. It was welcome bright orange relief from the wintertime drear, and when I was all done I did something very immature: I looked down from my 15th-storey window and saw a pearlescent-white Audi parked (again) in the handicap spot directly below. Defying Doug Llewelyn’s advice, I took the law into my own hands by piling up all the empty citrus half-shell rinds into a bowl and dashing them out the window, which I hurriedly closed. Then I took the lift down to ground level and casually sauntered outside for a walk. I’d scored a direct hit: the Audi was covered with orange peels, and its owner was walking in circles around it, periodically looking up in an effort to see what kind of cloud had produced this very tightly localised rainstorm of used citrus.
The rust on that ’50 Raleigh bothered me a little, but not a lot, and the bike overall had a nice amount of patina. The brass shifter plate had mellowed to a nice golden dark yellow, the red pinstripes and gold “Made in England” decals showed their age without being worn out, and there was a thick stack of years’ worth of registration decals on the back fender below the retroreflector. It made the bike homey to me and invisible to thieves—I never had any trouble finding something flashy and expensive to park it next to.
But being such a geek as I was, of course I wanted was a paragon: a perfect example of the topmost model. That would have to be a Raleigh DL-1, the English bobby (police) bike with the tall frame, 28″ × 1½” wheels, rod-operated stirrup brakes, and enclosed chaincase. Eventually I found a honey of a one: a 1950 model, damn near new. That’s the one I’m showing here. Think I found it on eBay; don’t remember where or for how much money. It arrived with all the original documentation including assembly and repair manuals, tool kit, and everything. And oh, boy, was it ever a beauty. Well equipped, too: black with red pinstriping and a white rear fender flash, all shiny and nearly unmarked; Sturmey-Archer Dyno-Hub front hub generator for the headlamp and taillamp, nickel-plated top-tube shifter. We—that is, the shop and I—cleaned and lubricated all the bearings and mechanisms as we assembled it. I bought a new set of tan Schwalbe tires with retroreflective sidewalls, and the bike was just gwahgeous.
Heavy as all hell, though; over 50 pounds! Raleigh’s slogan for a lot of years was The All-Steel Bicycle, and that was a selling point. Like the others I’d bought, it came with a small rear sprocket, making the gearing very high. I rode it a few times and once it was up to speed its inertia and extreme positive front-wheel caster made it a lovely cruiser. But getting up to speed was a serious ordeal, and those rod-operated stirrup brakes were much more fun to look at than to try to use. I kept that DL-1 for 22 years and doubt if I rode it more than two whole, entire miles; shame on me. But I surely spent a lot of time on Sheldon Brown’s rabbit warren of a topical website!
I’d left Mr. and Mrs. Mustard in Denver; I sold them in 2000 when mother was cleaning out the house to move back East. The green ’71 had gone long before. I let go the remains of the women’s black ’50 when I left Ann Arbor. I don’t recall how or where I kept my collection between 2000 and 2011, but the patinated black ’50 from Michigan was with me in Toronto—I rode it there exactly once; that’s not a biking city unless one has a death wish. In 2011 I moved most of my collection to the family home in Seattle. Dad’s ’54 Norman moved back into the furnace room whence it had been rousted a quarter-century before, kept company by the DL-1 (tuned to perfection by Aaron & Co) and my green ’67 Sports with twin-shifter 5-speed Sturmey-Archer hub. This was a further development of the 4-speed, and adjectives fail me for the shift pattern:
1: Left trigger down, right trigger down
2: Left trigger up, right trigger down
3: Left trigger up or down, right trigger middle
4: Left trigger up, right trigger up
5: Left trigger down, right trigger up
Five minus three equals potato.
Also in 2011, my husband and I moved from Toronto to Vancouver. The patinated ’50 came with me. I rode it a time or two, then revamped it with aluminum wheels, new Sturmey-Archer aluminum-shell front (drum brake) and rear (3-speed + drum brake) hubs, and a multiply-sprung Brooks B-130 saddle. Big improvement, another hot rodded old Raleigh, but I’m ashamed to admit how much I don’t ride it or any other bike. Shortly after we got here, I found a seriously cool bike suitably proportioned for my tall, long-legged huz: a very posh tall-frame Pashley with a Sturmey-Archer 7-speed, Dynohub, fender spats, rat trap rack, and a whole bunch of other deluxities. He’s ridden it a couple-few times over the last decade.
Under grindingly sad circumstances I had to sell the collection out the Seattle house (and the property itself) in 2019. A man drove up from Oregon and paid $1,200 for the whole lot—the DL-1, the 5-speed ’67, dad’s ’54 Norman, and a hefty pile of parts, accessories, and literature. He’d recently stopped drinking and taken up bicycle collecting. I mean he really took up bicycle collecting; he showed me phone photos of bikes after bikes after bikes.
Bill and I have bought a house up here on this side of the border, and we’re gradually moving stuff in. Perhaps once we no longer have to horse the bikes up and down multiple flights of stairs, we’ll ride more. I’d like to hope so. In any event, we’ll be back (with a vengeance!) to motorised transport next week.
How fun! I can’t say that I ever got seriously into cycling, but there is something that appeals to me now about a classic English bike.
In our garage is a ladies Hercules with that S-A 3 speed. I am going to guess that it dates to the early to mid 60s, but don’t really know. It was provided to Mrs. JPC during her youth. It hasn’t gotten much use since we’ve had it.
I can remember thinking in the early 70s that the S-A 3 speed was the cheap multi-speed bike you settled for. This was, of course, when 5 and then 10 speeds became common on Schwinns. But I have come to appreciate the elegant simplicity of the S-A unit. And while I don’t have the level of distaste that you do, the concept of making a chain work at an angle does offend my sensibilities just a bit, now that you bring it up.
Since the bike probably has a Sturmey Archer AW hub, take a look on the shell and you’ll see some numbers, something like 11-68. Yep, that’s the production date, and since S-A was owned by Raleigh and that point, standard, on every British bicycle, and Raleigh had a very efficient delivery system, the latter two digits are probably the year of the bike. At worst, it might be one model year later, if we’re talking Oct-Dec production.
Congratulations of having written what is, to me, the most interesting Curbside Classic of the site’s history, and one that will probably never be topped. Yes, I love English Racers (aka, the Raleigh Sports and it’s competitors with three speed hubs and 26″ wheels) and English Roadsters (the larger, rod braked, 28″ wheel bicycles, lovingly known today as “Downton Abbey bikes”).
I fell in love with them back in the early 1970’s as a mechanic for A.R. Adams Cycle in Erie, PA, had an ivory white Sports for years as my main commuter. Right now, I’ve got the 5-speed Sturmey Archer S5 equivalent Raleigh Sprite in my garage as my main commuter, a Raleigh Tourist (the rod-braked roadster) as it’s backup, and, just for the grins, a Chinese Flying Pigeon (the Maoist era bike you saw in all those photographs of Tienamin Square) converted to 3-speed by using a set of Tourist wheels.
Sadly, at one point I had a 1938 Armstrong Roadster that I was restoring for a WWII reenactment group. It was lost in the fire that burned my garage/workshop to the ground in November 2019. I still have the remains, one does not toss out a pre-WWII Sturmey Archer hub (very different from the 70’s model AW hubs so common nowadays) and other parts which will get cleaned and rechromed one of these days.
These were the bikes that SHOULD have sold back during the Bike Boom of 1970-74, as they were certainly better for the average customer getting back into cycling for the first time since childhood, riding around the neighborhood after dinner every nice evening. However, given the fashion for drop bars, derailleur gears, and narrow uncomfortable saddles if you weren’t wear proper cycling shorts, we couldn’t given the damn bikes away.
Looking forward to the discussion that hopefully follows the rest of the day. I’ll most likely be popping in and out. Right now I’m off to the mass yard sale of three neighboring subdivisions with my bicycle rack on the back of my Bolt. Hopefully I’ll find a candidate or two for the shop.
Great article. I’ve been jonesing for an old 3-speed English bike, not that I would likely ride it that much, due to hilly terrain and the high gearing of the S-A hub. Thanks for the reference to Sheldon Brown. I’m amazed Harris Cycle has never published his complete works. A whole lot of bike wrenches have a three ring binder containing every webpage from his site.
I’m one of them. Happily, that was the one part of my workshop that wasn’t in the fire.
Great article Daniel, the S-A hub deep dive sounds right up your alley. I’m still mourning the loss of my Dad’s 1950’s Raleigh. I’d had my eye on it for years, only to find out one day he’d put it in the scrap metal bin. I only hope someone saw what it was and fished it out.
The S-A hub on Dad’s bike was the one thing I did not disassemble in childhood curiosity. I think some of my friends had done so on their 3 speed Raleigh Choppers and had a poor outcome.
Your post inspired me to go for a ride on my Opus this morning. A poor imitation, but better than nothing. Also note my new stroke shortener on the right side of the crank, which allows me to ride with a crap knee.
https://t-cycle.com/collections/assist-accessories/products/easy-knees-pedal-swing-and-crank-shortener-kit
My favorite bike in the collection (hoard) is my ’72 Sports. There are days when I think that man has devised no finer form of transportation – it’s rugged and beautiful. If I have to get to work or travel farther than 10 miles or so, I change my mind. 🙂
Last year, I disassembled and reassembled an AW, simply because I’ve never had to do it and a few of my bikes have one. I cleaned it up, greased it, and put it on the shelf just in case. It was in really good shape, as almost all of them seem to be.
I grew up with Raleighs and Sturmey-Archer. They were a bulletproof combination!
Another sterling article that brings back memories from the early to mid 1960’s when I was riding a lot .
Then in 1976 moved to Guatemala City, C.A. and discovered the “tourist” bikes with the rod operated brakes, were every where along with seriously bad copies of same .
-Nate
Got a good chuckle out of the “bad copies of same.”
I’ve always wanted a Flying Pigeon bicycle just for the grins. Found one at the Westminster, MD swap meet last February (the weekend before everything started to shut down) in absolutely mint condition for $50.00! Oh, it had a flat rear tire.
I jumped on it.
Getting it home, I discovered that I could not ride the bike for more than three miles at any one time without flatting the rear tire. And they were tears, not punctures, on the inside (rim, not tire) of the tube. After months of working on it, I came to the conclusion that the rims were so badly made that they didn’t clamp the tire down under full inflation, causing it to shift, pulling the tube and rubbing it against the rim. With the friction causing tears. And no matter what material or combination I used of rim strips, I couldn’t get more than 8-9 miles out of the rear.
Picked up a set of Raleigh Tourist wheels and using the rear wheel converted the bike to a three speed, which I kinda wanted to do anyway. Problem solved, until I discovered the front wheel did the same thing only at about twenty miles. Swapped out both wheels.
I have both a Raleigh Tourist and a Flying Pigeon. The build quality between the two (the Pigeon is a licensed copy of an earlier Raleigh) is night and day. But the Flying Pigeon just looks so cool!
In the Spring of ’86, I spent a semester studying Chinese in Beijing. I went to the “Friendship Department Store” where one could spend “Foreign Exchange Notes” (before the Yuan became convertible currency) on a top of the line Flying Pidgeon. I paid about Y175, or 52 USD for it. I paid Y10 to get it adjusted by a street mechanic and that was my transport for a few months. I was issued Beijing license plate number 5852886. It was quite primitive compared to my stateside ’84 Schwinn High Sierra mountain bike. At the end of the semester, I traded it in at some state run bike exchange for 15 USD.
@Chris ;
Apart from it being ‘primitive’ was it a decent and reliable rider ? .
Some bicycle shop in Los Angeles began importing the Flying Pigeon, I went to take a look as was dismayed at the terrible build quality, a brand new bike that couldn’t be ridden makes no sense to me .
-Nate
After rereading the article more at my leisure (found a nice Bianchi hybrid that’ll be easy to clean up and flip at the yard sales) a few thoughts on your experiences. By the way, congratulations on discovering things in about the same order that I did fifty years ago.
Gearing on a three speed bicycle. Since most English roadsters come with either 46 or 48 tooth chainwheels, I long ago discovered that the perfect gearing is done by replacing the usual 16 or 17 tooth rear sprocket with a 22 tooth if the bike has 26″ wheels, or 23 tooth if it’s a 28″. That gives you roughly 55 gear inches on the 26″ ((chainring/rear sprocket) x wheel diameter) and 56 gear inches on the 28″. Which is a good ratio for running on flats, gives you a bit more gearing on downhills, and the ability to actually climb hills. In essence, the gearing change takes third and moves it to roughly the original second, second is moved to first, and first becomes very good on hills. Oh, the last I looked Sturmey-Archer doesn’t make those size sprockets. Happily Shimano does, and the mounting is identical.
The Sturmey-Archer AW hub’s second gear is direct drive, first is a 33% drop in gearing, and third is a 25% rise.
Don’t ever waste your time on the 4-speed hub. The Sturmey-Archer FW was the absolute nadir of the company’s design and production. Schwinn used them back in the late 50’s – for about six months, and then dumped them. The bicycle equivalent of the Austin Allegro.
I love the Sturmey-Archer S5, the twin stick five speed – but only after completely changing the shifting levers. The original levers are horrible in their action, incredibly fragile (I snapped two sets trying to keep the bike stock), and complete unobtanium (guess when I found that out – I have files for 3-D printing new ones, if I ever get a printer and figure out how the software works). The way you make an S5 work is to replace the right side lever with a standard Sturmey-Archer
3-speed handlebar shifter, and the left side is actuated by an old fashioned 80’s mountain bike front derailleur thumb shifter. This way you can at least get positive shifting action from the left side, most of the time. Supposedly adding a light spring to the left side cable improves it, I’ve yet to try it.
However, in the grand 20th century English engineering tradition, the hub is a bit of a kludge. You really don’t shift it 1-2-3-4-5. Rather you’re better off considering it a twin-stick (in the tradition of the 80’s Dodge Colt) running it as a dual ratio three speed. Pulling back on the left lever gives you 1-3-5. Disengaging the left lever gives you 2-3-4, which is identical to the 1-2-3 on an Sturmey-Archer AW. If I know I’m going to need the wide range (1-3-5) alternative, I usually actuate the left side well ahead of time while the right is in high. For some reason there’s a much more positive action that way. Then just go back to 3rd (direct drive) until you need the change.
The Raleigh Tourist is the supremely comfortable commuter, while the Sports/Superbe/Sprint is definitely a more sporting frame, better for fast acceleration in traffic and cutting thru backups. Your Tourist was probably a 24″ frame, they also cataloged a 22″ but I’ve never seen one. If you could fit the short frame, you usually went for a 23-1/2″ Sports instead.
As to the high gearing on these bikes. They’re lowered because I ride them with the same pedal cadence as my derailleur equipped road bikes. Traditionally, bikes of this type were pedaled a lot slower.
Good info. I remember Sheldon Brown discussing using a larger rear cog for lower gearing. I came up during the Stingrays/10 speed era, so never had much direct experience with hub gears, but I remember my older sister and friends pushing their “English Racers” up hill a lot.
Thank you for this explanation on gearing on these English hubs. I always found them maddeningly high, suitable for London or Amsterdam perhaps but not Denver or San Francisco.
I gave my brother a single-speed cruiser, a nice alley find in aluminum that fits him perfectly, but the bike is confined to his relatively flat local area (Longmont, CO) due to its lack of gear selection and unfortunately it can’t be converted to a rear derailleur due to a lack of mounting lugs. I’ve been looking into Shimano 7 or 8 speed internal hubs, which would certainly test my wheel respoking skills.
Yup, that’s exactly what I did: 21- to 23-tooth rear sprockets from “brand S”.
My dad was very fortunate in that his ’54 Norman had an AW, not the severely inferior SW Sturmey were putting out in that timeframe. I agree with you that the four-speeds (FM, FW, FG…) were problematic—in operation, adjustment, and (un)reliability. Then there were the repeatedly bad efforts at a 5-speed (S5, S5/1, S5/2, 5-Star…); not much of a surprise since they sprang from the troublesome 4-speeds. Did they ever finally get it right? I’m not sure. They had a 7-speed right near the end of Sturmey-Archer’s existence as a British company. I don’t think this was the one they patented in 1973 and didn’t commercialise, but I could be wrong. All in all, it seems to me the AW was really their high-water mark.
You’re right about the dual-range nature of the twin-shifter 5-speed, of course, but the (sequential) shift pattern is still ridiculous. I never messed with those twin-stick toys; all the two-cable 5-speeds I ever messed with were controlled by two ordinary 3-speed triggers.
My DL-1 was indeed a 24″ frame.
This was a great detour, Daniel, told with the usual verve and attention to the details that escape most of us over the years (or seemingly days) as we age unless deeply steeped in them for years on end. I’ve always been interested in bicycles but always more as just transportation without delving too deeply into the minutae of the engineering. Hmm, that’s probably how many people approach cars too I guess. Anyway, great recollections of the, uh, collection!
Superb dive into one of my favorite subjects.
I was intrigued by bikes from my earliest memories, and loved riding on the kiddie seat of my Mom’s Puch bike in Innsbruck. Now that was a legendarily solid piece of work. Single speed. But she had ridden it all over Tyrol in her younger days. You just pushed it up the steep mountain roads if you couldn’t pedal.
My first bike in Iowa City at age 8 or 9 was a 26″ Dunelt single speed with a bent top frame member to make the seat a bit lower. I started messing with it, to make it faster, tore off the fenders, flipped the handle bars to make them low, etc. The kids with 3 and 5 speeds still couldn’t catch me.
I used to love to gaze at all the English bikes around the campus and town back then in the ’60s. They were ubiquitous.
Never rode in my Baltimore years. It was highly uncool there; preppies didn’t ride bikes.
A year or so after I moved back to Iowa City in ’71, I had a bit of money from a job to buy a bike; but a crazy tall 27 1/4″ frame Belgian Vainquear 10 speed. Brooks saddle. Rode the hell out of that, all over town and far out into the country, on long rides to get my energy out.
I should have kept that, but gave it to kid in LA who really needed a bike.
Bought a nice Japanese made REI-brand Montarra 10 speed in the late 70s, and still have it. Put on a 6 speed cluster in back 20 years ago, and a triple chainwheel in front. I still take it out for brisk rides, quite often in the dry time of year.
In about 1988 or so, I saw a black women’s British bike at the curb with the garbage cans in Los Gatos on a walk. It was a late 50s or early 60s Rudge “England’s Best Bicycle”. I took it apart, including the S-A three speed, after buying a little overhaul kit. Amazingly, I got it back together, and it worked great. It had a nice patina and those old student registration stickers. Someone’s bike from their college years.
I needed to get stuff out of the garage and finally sold it about 5-6 years ago for a pretty decent price to a collector. It needed a better home, as Stephanie never rode it except maybe once.
I’d spend more time with old bikes if I had the time.
I’ve been into bikes since childhood. My first somewhat serious bike was a Sears/JC Higgins three speed with the Austrian hub and shifter (a round bezel – unlike the S/A guitar pick shape).
Many years were spent on ten speed derailleur road bikes – Schwinn Varsity to French Peugeot/Gitane/Mercier to Japanese Nishiki. I agree with Daniel’s contempt for derailleurs.
Then, wanting a comfortable adult bike for 10 or 15 mile around town rides, old Schwinn three speeds, in the English racer style, came around. I started with the fairly common Racer/Traveler/Speedster variant; these have 26″ rims. This led to the Suburban, which usually was a five or ten speed derailleur bike. However it was also available in some years with the S/A internally geared 3 speed hub. The Suburban, like the Varsity/Continental, came with 27″ rims. And it could be found in three frame sizes. I prefer the large and by now I’ve accumulated four of them. These are ideal city three speeds. Rebuild it, add a Brooks and new Chinese tires and you’re good to go for comfortable city riding.
I prefer the Schwinn to a Raleigh (or the sub brands like Dunelt, Triumph, Hercules, etc.) for several reasons. The paint and chrome quality is much better on a Schwinn. The brakes (Swiss Weinmann or Japanese Dia Compe knock offs) work better. The crankset is not the typical English cottered type; rather it is a one piece Ashtabula crank that is much easier to remove when the bearings need attention and is more durable. And the Schwinn, with larger rims and frame, is simply more pleasant to ride; it feels more stable. They are proper adult bikes that were meant as such when new so they can still be found in very good condition. I recommend them.
Good to read that there are other bicycle nuts here; enjoy them.
The only Schwinn I ever had was my first-ever kiddie bike:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyU-14ZqRbw
I’ve never ridden a 3-speed Schwinn; my mental knowledge bank on that subject contains only one piece of information: the “26 × 1⅜” tires for a Schwin are not the same as the “26 × 1⅜” tires for an English bike.
I thoroughly enjoyed this!
I’d forgotten that I’d done so much bike work as a kid. Not out of love for it, but a bike was my wheels-to-the-world so I learned to keep them working.
I never had a rear-sproket-internal-gear-changer-thingy (that is probably not it’s proper name) so those are a mystery to me. But I can relate to most of the rest.
As soon as I had enough paper-route money saved, I got a series of Honda Express and Spree scooters and a Suzuki DS80 dirt bike. Then a car.
I didn’t ride a bike again until I was 19.
When my car broke.
I had access to my mother’s 70s era Sears super-lightweight magnesium-framed (she claimed; it that a thing?) 10-speed. It hadn’t been ridden much and had sat idle forever. It needed a serious cleaning and lubing and the tires had oldness-cracks. It was so light I could carry it with a pinky finger. (Granted, I did/maybe still do have good big strong manly-man hands)
The bike worked and was put into service as my wheels. I needed to ride to my job a few miles away. It took some getting used to but I did it.
I had to save for the fuel-pump for my ’79 Accord, which had died after making buzzing sounds for a few months at only 170,000 miles.
So there I was, in a chilly April of 1991, back to human-powered travel.
The bike actually worked flawlessly. The dry-rotted tires never lost air either. The bike was so light and I, being young fit and awesome, could go quite quickly on it.
And me being me I wanted to go faster on it.
Those familiar with Northwest Indiana will recall the Cline Avenue bridge, an enormously bridge crossing an industrial canal and area and apparently tall enough to let Clipper ships from Giantland pass beneath.
What I’m getting at is it was very big with very long paths connecting the bridge to ground-level Earth. Hopefully I’ve established its embiggeness.
So me being young fit awesome and stupid took the neglected 70s Sears superbike to ride across the bridge. The bridge with 70mph traffic and semi-trucks and dips and sways and road-patches.
The path up was a little tedious.
There was a lot of gravel/small debris on the shoulder. I’d never noticed that at car-speeds. It was easy enough to ride the shoulder up slowly and avoid the little rocks but I knew on the way down, the payoff for my efforts, I’d need to ride the real lanes, lest I die in a way I was not intending to.
So as I was at the top and admiring the view as the sun began to set (weekend evening/less traffic for “safety” LOL) I began pedaling. Pushing and pushing, shifting and shifting, up through the gears, even using that bigger crank sprocket that I never used, getting as much speed as I could muster before the downhill side. Fast as I could; big Polish head down for aerodynamics, and here I go!
I began to pick up speed. More speed. It was beyond my ability to keep pedaling even in 10th gear. I have no real idea how fast I was going not do I know how to do how to calculate it, but I was absolutely flying. You know that visceral feeling you get on a motorcycle? Imagine that on a flimsy lightweight 70s bicycle. Talk about feeling every little crack on the pavement, in utter silence except for the wind past your head as your face is inches from the handlebars, eyeballs starting to dry, hair blown back as you rocket down a curving path, getting a slight realization of how unpleasant a crash could be, but only in the back of your mind. The sensory-load was intense and I recorded the feelings in my mind in HD. Or “SP” for us oldies who used VCRs.
I don’t know how fast terminal velocity was and I don’t want to exaggerate it, but it felt like 70mph. Maybe that’s not possible with aero-drag or something. I dunno. But whatever it was it was way more exciting than 100 on a motorcycle. Or 140 in a car. It sure “felt” faster than anything else I’ve ever done.
I did it again on the way back but then I fixed my car and never rode a bicycle again until the mid 2000s for fun with the kids. Much slower. And they wore helmets. I never did. Too manly you know.
It’s one of those things where because I did not happen to die it is a good memory and I’m happy to have experienced it.
I have probably too many of those.
My sons are both very practical and not the least-bit interested in unnecessary risks.
They have my genes; they resemble me. But no crazy risk taking.
Must be a nature/nurture thing.
That sounds like quite an experience. I’m not even gonna ask whether a helmet was involved. 🤓
Please find vanished comment which I did not intend to be as long as it became and I did not back-up because I’m a silly silly man and I ended up spending an hour and a half on it.
Thanks.
It was a real pleasure reading that comment; glad it was retrieved! I’ve been there myself with not backing up comments.
Thanks, I appreciate that.
And thanks to whoever found it.
When I was a kid in the 1960s I was massively into English bikes. I came by this through my Dad, who seemed to have an appreciation for English engineering. (Our family car was an English Ford). My first bike in 1962 was a Phillips – 20″ wheels, coaster brake, and a rod brake on the front. That bike still resides back in my garage after being used by several of my sisters’ kids. For my 10th birthday I got a brand new Raleigh with the 5-speed Sturmey Archer hub. But there’s a story there..
In the early 1950s my Dad had a side hustle repairing bikes while in college. At the time Sturmey Archer sold a variety of 3 and 4 speed hubs, but no 5-speed. The 4-speed hubs use a planetary gear set with stepped sun and planet gears to give two sets of ratios. The -speed shifter engages the alternate ratio when pulled all the way out to give a 4th lower gear. My Dad realized that adding a second shifter and cable to independently control the sun gear allowed access to a 5th higher gear as well. Of course direct drive is the same for either ratio, hence 5 speeds and not 6. He built a matched pair of Phillips bikes with his 5-speed conversion for himself and my Mom. He made another set for his brother and my aunt. He may have made couple more. Fast forward to 1967. We’re at Wolf Cycle in West Philadelphia shopping for my new bike. My Dad sees that his 5-speed conversion is now available from the factory. So we came home with my new Raleigh 5-speed. It had the plastic twin shifters on the top tube, which broke after a few years and were replaced by a pair of standard handlebar trigger shifters. I still have that bike, although it hasn’t been ridden in decades.
Immediately on reading of your father’s 4-to-5-speed conversion, I thought of this by the author of that Sturmey Archer Story book. Scroll down to the second heading.
Yes, that’s it exactly. I don’t know where he sourced the bell cranks. Some of my Dad’s hubs had the old 408 sun gear and for the others he ground off the chamfer from the dogs to make it work. He had access to machine tools, and so may have fabricated some parts.
I loved this story, and enjoyed reading all the Sturmey Archer love in the comments. I hated mine 55 years ago, as fitted to my 1964 Schwann Racer. All the other kids could skid the rear tire with the coaster brake on their Stingrays, and then throw’em down on the gravel. If I could even get my Weinmann (I think) brakes to grip that hard on those chrome rims, tossing it down on the right side would grind down that little roller chain and the cantankerous shifting would stop altogether.
By the time I touched SA drivetrains again, just a few years ago when I briefly worked in a shop that sold Brompton, they seemed better. Though I suspect my skills had greatly improved in the intervening 50 years. There are a few other internal drive hubs on the market now that work pretty well. Though the modern rear derailleur has become pretty amazing, able to smoothly shift a chain across 12 cogs, making the front derailleur a thing of the past for most applications.
Here’s my one piece of Raleigh memorabilia; US quarter for scale.
dman: The current internally geared hubs are all made by Shimano. There is a three speed that seems to be just a continuation of the S/A. I installed one on my 1963 Schwinn Fleet middleweight bike. It works great.
There are also seven and eight speed IGH from Shimano and their upscale brand Alfine. I have both 7 and 8 on newer bikes; the 7 is all I need as an older adult. These provide enough gear ratios (I’m not going to ride the TDF) for my purposes. But they are fragile – not at all as durable as the original S/A 3 speeds. I have had three of them rebuilt; a kit is available. Despite their fragility I do prefer these to any bike with derailleur(s). They are all internal so not victims to road grit/grease/water nor to banging that low hanging rear cage into curbs.
All three configurations are available with (or without) coaster drum braking. My one 3 speed has the coaster brake and I have the 7s and 8s both with and without it. Beauty of coaster brake is no rear brake calipers to also get grit/grease/water from the road. Front brakes can also be internal drum so no front calipers are needed. I have that on one bike; it works great and is reliable/durable.
That’s not so, not at all. Shimano have nothing to do with the current range from Sturmey-Archer (owned for a fair number of years now by Sunrace; current Taiwanese build quality is widely considered consistently better than the UK-built ones of the past); there’s the astounding Rohloff, there are manual and automatic(!) continuously-variable ones from Enviolo, and there’s an unusual front-chainring 2-speed by Haberstock.
I have Shimano’s 3-speeds filed right next to derailleurs: yes, they work. No, I don’t care. No, I don’t want one.
The only advantage the Shimano 3.3.3 hub had over the Sturmey-Archer AW was that it was easier to tear down and rebuild. Which was fortunate, because it invariably needed that kind of work more often.
That’s interesting to learn; I was under the impression the Shimano 3-speed was a use-it-up-and-throw-it-away disposable item. I had some seat time on a Sears bike with the Shimano 3-speed hub. It worked in all three gears and had exactly no charm.
Back the I worked at Adams Cycle, there was no “use it up and throw it away”. We fixed things. I could tear down and rebuld an AW in about thirty minutes, without a manual. Shimano 3.3.3’s took about 2/3rds that time, but had to be done a lot more often.
It’s been so long since I’ve done one that there’s no way I’d consider doing it now without the full manual in front of me, and I’d budget 3-4 hours until I got it back in my fingers.
Thanks Daniel for confirming my statement that the internal 3 speed on the Brompton is indeed SA, though I didn’t know they were owned by Sunrace. I have ridden the Shimano Alfine and the Enviolo. Both work very well. Though I’d agree the have no charm. But if I ever get an electric cargo bike I’d consider one of those, with clogged belt drive. My wife and I recently passed down our oldest bikes to our daughter and her BF. Both Japanese, and curiously both highly regarded now. Here’s a Miyata (yes, with a Y) and mine a Bridgestone. Both with more than one of those horrid derailleur things.
That’s it exactly.
Oh, Daniel, rarefied territory! You know about the $1,329 Rohloff, the $740 Haberstock system and the the $250 Enviolo hub. I didn’t; I had to research. None would be an easy sell at a bike shop in Wyoming. But you are correct; the $76 S/A is Sunrace, not Shimano. I was wrong. Mine works great. Ride you bikes.
I know of ’em, sure, but I don’t foresee trying out any of those costly setups.
Easy mistake, now I think of it; both Shimano and Sunrace starting with the same letter.
Great article. Growing up in the UK, bikes with Sturmey Archer 3 speeds seemed about as cool as 1970s BL cars – something your granny would have.
But – I occasionally rode one and refused to admit to myself that I much preferred them over derailleur equipped “racers” and mountain bikes. I was waiting for a mention of Pashley – I hanker after a Guvnor.
I share with your distaste for derailleurs themselves, for the reasons stated and the fact I so often find myself smashing them with a blunt instrument. But the comment about British craziness just wasn’t cricket. Firstly, we call them “eccentrics”, and secondly, well, those in glass houses dear boy. Of course I’ll forgive you if you substitute “England” for “UK”.
I’m also not convinced all English people pronounce “Raleigh” like that. Not only are there significant regional differences, but probably of more relevance in this case, one’s accent varies with one’s social class. I’m from Scotland where “SAAB” rhymes with “cab” so can’t claim to be an expert but I could swear I’ve heard a BBC type say “Suh Waltuh Raahhhhli” at some point.
As well you should, for they be of the devil.
Fair point. As I’ve never met such a one but in England, I’ve made both changes.
Alright, I’ll bite: please describe Canadians in glass-house terms.
Oh, you’re probably right. But I reckon the gent who seemed to have been with the company right from the start came in at 87.613 per cent authoritative, and I’m okeh letting John Lennon top up the remaining 12.387 per cent!
Certainly! Even in countries where they claim to be classless (and they’re right, just not in the way they think they mean).
And I’m in Canada where Mazda is pronounced “Mazz-duh”, which Americans think is weird because they say “Mozz-duh”.
You’d probably consider my father’s old English bike a sacrilege. It was a roughly 50s vintage of a forgotten make (possibly Dunelt) and was black with a 3 speed hub and the sacrilegious bit, a Cyclo 3 speed derailleur with a top tube shifter giving a total of 9 speeds. I don’t recall him ever riding it and it was traded in 1975 for a new Raleigh Grand Prix at the same time that I got a Raleigh Record so our English bikes that we used were 10 speed. I find it ironic that the rear cassette alone of my current bike has 10 speeds.
Oddly I’ve never ridden a Sturmey Arche hub bicycle since my sole experiences with a 3 speed hub were with a Shimano.
The ultimate internal geared hub, found in high end touring bikes, city bike and tandems is the Rohloff with 14 speeds. Personally my ambitions were more modest, back when i was bike commuting I wanted a Bike Friday with a 7 speed Alfine and belt drive.
Been there, done that. Before I truly understood what I was doing.
The only problem I had with the Ivory Sports was I lived in a second floor apartment with a large closet at the top of the stairs. And pulling the Sports up ever night was a bitch. So I sold it and picked up a Raleigh Twenty (20″ wheel folding bike, Sturmey AW hub). It was nowhere near as good climbing hills, so when I found a Cyclo three speed freewheel in the back room of the shop (this dealership went back to 1917), I bought it and did the conversion.
Knowing nothing of Cyclo or Benelux derailleurs (state of the art late 50’s) I made due with a Huret Allvit (you probably know them better as Schwinn Approved on early Varsities) while worked. Clunkily, but it worked.
Now that I own a 1958 Raleigh Lenton Grand Prix 8-speed, my oldest derailleur bike, I find out how much better this would have worked had I used the derailleur meant to go with that triple sprocket.
I do remember those Cyclo kits—long obsolete by the time I came round, I’m pretty sure, but I saw them in the old cattledogs and used to have fun thinking about cobbling up a system of three front chainrings and six rear sprockets on a 5-speed gearhub for a total of four shifters and 90 speeds. I never even tried to work out what the shift pattern would look like. Let’s see, 77th gear, so that’s left shifter down, second-from-left shifter…uh…sorry, could you repeat the question?
I would like to try out one of those Rohloffs…on somebody else’s bike/dime!
Very much enjoyed this and agree on the Sturmey Archer being the undervalued slant 6 of the bicycle world. Sadly, even snow-free locales are no longer heavily populated with cheap and durable Valiants and Darts, but my local craigslist will nearly always turn up a Sports for $200 that is ready for daily transport duty.
It’s amazing to me how many thousands of miles I’ve logged on SA 3-speeds without ever having one fail. I’ve never had to open one up, and I’ve got spare parts that I’ll probably never need.
In contrast, my son’s 5 year old bike has a Sram hub that’s unable to handle getting rained on. All my experience disassembling internal geared hubs comes from the faulty assumption that other companies’ hubs would be just as bulletproof.
Also, color me jealous. I’ve been hoping to add one those oddball gold S22s to my own island of misfit 3-speeds for a while now.
Green’s usually my favourite colour, and when it’s in good shape Raleigh’s metallic yellow-green is a fine one, but yeah, that bright metallic yellow was hawt. I miss Mean Mister Mustard.
Very much enjoyed this and agree on the Sturmey Archer being the undervalued slant 6 of the bicycle world. Sadly, even snow-free locales are no longer heavily populated with cheap and durable Valiants and Darts, but my local craigslist will nearly always turn up a Sports for $200 that is ready for daily transport duty.
It’s amazing to me how many thousands of miles I’ve logged on SA 3-speeds without ever having one fail. I’ve never had to open one up, and I’ve got spare parts that I’ll probably never need.
In contrast, my son’s 5 year old bike has a Sram hub that’s unable to handle getting rained on. All my experience disassembling internal geared hubs comes from the faulty assumption that other companies’ hubs would be just as bulletproof.
Also, color me jealous. I’ve been hoping to add one those oddball gold S22s to my own island of misfit 3-speeds for a while now.
The Sturmey-Archer AW and its predecessors were one of the pinnacles of British engineering. Of course, for the most part, everything was designed before WWII, that’s why it’s so good.
My collection used to include a 1937 KB, that was a type K 3-speed (predecessor of the AW) with a large drum brake. I never weighed it, but that was a very heavy hub with a long indicator chain.
I was just given one this afternoon by a friend of mine who collects real antique bicycles. As in pre-WWI. Definitely going to be looking for a frame for this one.
I have many happy memories of my Malvern Star Skidstar, named after the Melbourne suburb of Malvern where they used to be made.
it was equipped with the delightful Sturmey-Archer 3speed hub, I have often thought of these with the same reverence as the TorqueFlite in terms of power transmission.
I used to love the gentle clicking sounds they made and 3 gears were enough for my needs.
Hey, that Star Skidstar’s a curvy wonder! Great pic.
A great read again. I’m a long time bike riding enthusiast, but not particularly educated in the mechanics. I can maintain the basics myself, but have occasionally had a shop deal with some of the more complex stuff.
In my youth, my parents could only afford to make me a Huffy rider among Schwinns, and later a Huffy rider among a few Raleighs.
It is going to take me forever to start saying Raah Lay. Is Rally close enough?
With my first couple of part-time paychecks in hand, I bought a Japanese Takara, and it was comparatively fabulous. Eventually, it was joined by a (you get what you pay for) cheap Huffy for my wife. Total dreck.
A couple of Treks now reside in the garage, and we are quite satisfied with them.
Raleigh three-speeds were the top of the bicycle food chain in Canada in the early 1960’s. Many kids climbed the ladder of ever-larger-frame CCM coaster brake bikes and a few, including me, eventually went on to Raleighs.
In the 60’s however the age at which a three-speed made sense (roughly junior high school years) was also the age at which riding a bicycle became more uncool with every passing year. All anyone could think about was getting their driver’s license as soon as possible after their 16th birthday. So my Raleigh mostly stayed, unloved, in the basement.
I had the chance to sample three-speed biking again though, in 2008. While travelling in SE Asia I bought a used Panasonic ‘step-through’ frame in Phnom Penh for about $100 (pretty much the top of the used-bike food chain in Cambodia as well), and rode it on a Lonely Planet suggested route down to Sihanoukville on the coast.
It was a comfortable bike for relaxed touring, and the gears worked flawlessly. I’d arranged for that part of my trip to be carrying only about three changes of underwear and two T-shirts, so everything I had fit in the wicker basket on the front handlebars. Still possibly uncool, but far outweighed by the joys of travelling light. 🙂
GREAT read, Daniel (and group). Finding serious bicyclers who disdain the anachronistic derailleur is manna to me. I was given a Rudge at age 13 (see photo). I owned it from 1956 to 1966—a lifetime, then—and left it behind when I got my first car. Never had a lick of trouble with the SA 3-speed; I don’t think I ever even adjusted it more than once.
Fast forward to age 70 and my first folder, a Downtube Mini with aluminum frame, 12″ wheels, Sturmey-Archer 8-speed internal hub. Perfection. I no longer understand why larger wheels are a thing—though I’m neither an athlete nor a serious biker. Loved that bike like no other, until it was stolen; model no longer made so I replaced it with a Dahon with Sram 3-speed—back where I started 63 years ago. Love it when people ask, “So, do you have to pedal faster with the small wheels ?” !
Thanks kindly—great photo! I’ve never tried a small-wheel folding bike, but have long been curious.
I’m one of those people who believe a bike’s top tube should be parallel with the road. Naturally, the green Downtube mini satisfies, while the red Dahon D3 (Downtube Mini now has that frame) doesn’t.
I know it seems like a toy bike—or worse—but it really has its charms. I haven’t compared the wheelbase of these bikes to that of a racer or ten-speed (do they still have those ?) but the smaller wheels certainly reduce the overall length. I got a folder only because it would be easier to get into the small elevator in my building, and to store in my apartment. I never fold it in half, just fold the pedals and drop the handlebar, which lies flat against the frame.
But the compact wheels and abbreviated length provide a nimbleness that’s very pleasing—and the tires are fat enough to absorb bumps very satisfyingly. The Downtube had a bit of rear suspension that seemed perfect considering the rear weight bias resulting from the seat position. The Dahon came with Schlwalbe Big Apple rubber. A broad handlebar inspires confidence; the ride is comfortable. I liked having eight gears to choose from—the top gear had long legs—but the three-speed suits my needs adequately. It’s a commuter; I’ve ridden it across the city a few times to drop off and pick up the car from my remote Honda mechanic, but most rides are in the neighborhood. I’m a happy camper.
The Rudge took me a mile and more to high school—yes, it was me and the Reid twins, the only seniors still riding rather than driving to school. The Brooks saddle took a beating, standing out in the rain over the years but never complaining. Still comfortable to the end. A pair of wire baskets over the rear wheel carried schoolbooks or a spare jacket. The dynamo-powered headlight would look like a weak candle next to today’s LED units. The bike had gold striping; the Rudge lacked the Raleigh’s enclosed chain but otherwise seemed similar.
I don’t recall whether I chose that bike or if it was a surprise from Dad, but it became my trusty friend. Summer evenings under the heavy foliage of suburban streets with their half-hidden streetlights; the quiet asphalt and the moon. There’s nothing quite like it . . .
Great read and comments, finally got through it all this morning. In the better spent days of my youth, there was a scrap metal section of the now-closed town dump that would wind up with all manner of disposed but still usable bikes. We’d manage to cobble together some serviceable Frankenstein rides out of the pickings. There was one unusual rear hub that I ran across, it had a coaster brake, and while riding, if you briefly tapped the brake, it would shift gears. I can’t recall how many it had, and we never really delved into the details of who manufactured any of what we messed around with. Just curious if anyone knows about this (what was to us at the time) magical hub?
Two speed kickback hub, very common and easily found. Bendix were the most popular in the US. I used one to build a wheel for the Yugoslavian folding bike my wife used on our honeymoon in St. Augustine while I was riding my current Raleigh Twenty.
I managed to convert a pair of coaster brake hubs to shaft drive, for incorporation into a four-wheel pedal-driven vehicle. Never put them to use, so I don’t know if they would stand up to torque forces in practice.
Raleigh Bikes – are there any others (says an Englishman of the era)?
Nice tale, and I like the special to type spanners at the end.
I remember my first (second hand) bike with S-A gears – best Xmas present ever.
Oh fellow cyclists, I shudder to think of the reception that my prose will receive. You see, after a childhood of “English three speeds” I went out into the world and discovered that French 10 speeds with derailleurs was much easier to understand. Opening the rear hub of a coaster brake Schwinn scarred me for life. The complexity of the internally geared hub versus being able to see all the important parts and how they moved… freewheels, free hubs and derailleurs. It has nothing to do with my big brother having an 8 speed Raleigh racer with a seat tube rod shifter for the front chain rings while the rest of us got along on three speeds that seemed to be really old or came from Austria via Sears. What I do like about IGHs is the possibility of a chain case and the reduction in drive train wear and cleaning. I am not so resistant to cleanliness that I will put up with a belt drive and it’s penchant for turning effort into heat instead of acceleration. Also, those frames with a removable seat stay are so déclassé. So great to see gear heads united around the wonderful bicycle. I currently have a few too many, but San Francisco is a lovely place to ride with almost perfect weather (drought) for cycling. This year alas the drought has been replaced with incessant rain, though denizens of the great northwest would scoff at my lamentations. Perfection would be a derailleur with a chain case! Even better would be a tilting velomobile! Happy New Year!