A very exciting find! The bike appears to be in absolutely excellent condition - especially considering the age. Many Thanks to both
rhm and
Junkyardbike for sharing the photos with us envious folks. Can't wait to hear more once you get the bike.
You inspired me to scan and upload some useful images for you last night [... Insomnia is a useful malady].
In the following Set on Flickr you will find the last 6 images are about the 4-speed hub. It seems the "FW" was a very useful wide ratio gear, first introduced on 1939, it immediately won an award from the CTC - the famous British cycle touring club (who's members number in the tens of thousands) for being the best cycling innovation of that year. The pages here are from my
1956 Sturmey Archer Master Catalogue, but I'm sure the design would not have changed much at all since 1949. So, the parts illustration may be useful should you ever need to disassemble or repair the hub. Just click on an image and when it opens in a new window select the
"All Sizes" button above the picture to pull up a large size suitable for printing or downloading to your PC for future reference.
Here is another handy link to play with if you are curious about the actual gearing in use on your bike, as set up with that specific chainring and rear sprocket combination. By changing one or the other you can alter the entire gearing for the bike, so this is both fun trivia and a potentially useful tool.
Gear Calculator To use this gear calculator you can use the drop-down selections or manually key in your data for each option in the chart at the top of the page. Under
"Custom Cassette" just enter the number of teeth on the single rear cog in the first box... then select your FW hub in the last box under
"Internal Hub" and then click
"Calculate" The window which pops up will show you the exact gear for each click of the trigger selector. You can figure your gear inches for each pedal rotation, or see how fast in MPH you are traveling at a given pedaling cadence. Big Fun!
Keep us posted! Would love to hear your impressions of the bike. Definitely a cut above the basic Raleigh and most other Roadster style bikes we are mostly familiar with on this side of The Pond!