sp00ki

if you're on a road bike and the guys you're riding with start to attack, you jump to the big ring (or at least a few cogs smaller) and sprint with them. on a fixed gear, the magic is that you have to increase your cadence with no mechanical assistance. that is what i meant by "responsible for every ounce of velocity".

really though, didn't want a dispute; just curious about what something like this brings to the table that derailleurs doesn't. it really strikes me as contradictiary in so many ways. certain, almost arbitrary aspects of variable gears AND a fixed gear while excluding so many of the benefits of both.

old scratch

i guess so. i think the answer to your original question is that some folks enjoy the lack of coasting, regardless of the the fact that the gear may or may not be able to change. like for instance if i ride a bike that coasts, i think to myself "this feels floppy and imprecise and non-fun".

personally i would like an easier gear occasionally for riding up hills, but i still do not want to coast. i do not like to coast.

old scratch

also to further answer your question, i think derailleurs are a kludgy solution, i dont like them, the chain is really long and anoying and all those parts move around and annoy me and make me sad. hub internal gearing seems cool and interesting to me, i want it.

JohnDThompson 

Cool and interesting, yes, but they do have more internal friction and mass than a chain/derailleur system.

That said, I'm still looking forward to trying one of the SA fixed 3-speeds.

old scratch

yes, i am kinda worried that the thing might be really heavy. still will buy one, just to check it out.

kwena

Yes, geared, fixed-wheel bikes I think the term "Fixed Gear" is rather unfortunate. (In the UK its known as "Fixed Wheel") It doesn't mean "one gear only" it means the sprocket and wheel turn in unison as opposed to free wheel where the sprocket and wheel turn independantly.

Of course the fact that on this forum SS and FG are lumped together contributes to the confusion some have with the two.

Yellowbeard

No offense dude, but this is like when people say "Oh, the whole point of a fixed is that you take off your brakes...because...duh!" Of course they combine arbitrary aspects of variable gears and a fixed gear, that's the whole point. In fact, that IS the whole point! "Variable gears" and "fixed gear." Fixed gear means you don't coast and variable gears means variable gears, there's no interdependence whatsoever between those two concepts. Hell, the only reason derailleur drivetrains freewheel as a hard and fast rule is that they can only handle chain tension in one direction.

There are actually very few benefits truly lost because it's a compromise. You get a lot of the robustness and simplicity of a single speed, since you don't have any exposed derailleurs and you adjust your body to each gear rather than fine-tuning the ratio, but now you can get real speed on downhills and efficiency on uphills (not to mention carrying heavy loads or murderous headwinds) without changing wheels or indeed bikes. Derailleurs are about fine tuning your ratio, a three-speed pares that down to one gear for going up, one gear for going down, and one gear for going neither up nor down.

Besides which, neither variable gears nor freewheels mean you're not responsible for all of your velocity. Torque times rotation over time = power, no matter what your transmission is.

And:

Huh? Seriously, what? A fixed gear means a gear without freewheel. You mean, or rather you should mean, the whole point of a single speed is having one gear. The whole point of a fixed gear is no more to have one gear than it is to put Tektro out of business. I mean, if this is why YOU converted your road bike to a fixed gear then that's fine, it's one of the reasons I did the same thing (the singlespeed thing, not putting Tektro out of business), but the point of a three-speed fixed hub is to have three speeds and not coast.

Oh, and I secretly want to ride a carbon fiber, 20 speed bike across France. But I don't want to race while I'm doing it, and I definitely don't want to pay for it. So my non-secret compromise is to ride a flip-flop Steelwool Tweed across Canada, using pickled herring as fuel for the freewheel side.

darksiderising

I'm not really sure what I was trying to do, but thanks! Maybe the whole point of riding a fixed gear for you is to have one gear. Don't try to project your reasons onto others. I won't even mention the the difference between fixed gear and single speed, as others have already attempted to informed you.

I do ride a geared bike. In fact, I ride a very nice geared bike. But, I also love riding my fixed gear. In fact, last week, I rode around 150 miles in three days on the fixed gear, and it was a lot of fun. I am glad I did those miles on the fixed gear, rather than the geared bike.

Perhaps what I am getting at is that you don't understand our motivations.

And yes, you are correct, I do want to ride a multi-geared fixed gear sometimes, which is why I am very excited about the S3X hub. If you don't understand it or like it, cool. But shut your I-don't-want-to-ride-a-multi-geared-bike-therefore-I-am-holier-than-thou trap.

sp00ki

wait until you need to service it...

old scratch

i dunno how often that will be.

with regard to the internal 3 speed sturmey archer hubs, sheldon says:

"The AW hub is the most reliable gear shifting mechanism ever made, and rarely needs anything more than a bit of medium weight oil every so often. 95 percent of shifting problems on 3-speeds are related to the control cable or the handlebar trigger unit."

i am aware that sturmey archer is not the same company anymore, but it is just rebranded stuff from sunrace, and the s3x shouldnt be expected to be as reliable as a time tested sturmey archer design. but i think that because the gearing is internal, shielded from the elements, it might be pretty reliable and long lasting.

i look forward to when mine breaks down so i can take it apart and be fascinated by it.

sp00ki

nope. no contradictions whatsoever.

old scratch

i like how you presume to know what annoys me personally, and what i am fascinated by, and you understand it so well that you can describe it as contradictory. dont ever change, guy.

lots of exposed gears, floppy chains, mechanisms moving around, getting dirty, getting grease on me, this annoys me.

if the s3x breaks down and i take it apart, i do not intend to service it. i intend to be fascinated by it, be unable to fix it, then buy another, or not if i hated it. i expect this will be a long time from now, if ever.

Dan The Man

Really, you like that? I would hate it if somebody presumed to know what annoys me, although they would probably presume correctly. I presume that people who point out your failures are what annoy you personally.

old scratch

yes, my terrible failures. my status of being annoyed by one thing and fascinated by another. so inconsistent. why do i have these failures. most people take vaguely related emotions and apply them to various items to an extent more pleasing to dorks on the internet!

Dan The Man

nope. no contradictions whatsoever.

old scratch

of course!

(to be honest i dont know what you are talking about, but i assume that is what you guys do here)

darksiderising

Come on guys, operator and I cannot argue with all of this noise.

Yellowbeard

I just took one of these apart yesterday (for the first time) to clean the 30 year-old oil out of it. People aren't kidding, there really isn't much that can go wrong with these that wouldn't go wrong with a single-speed freewheel (and that's the element that a fixed version won't have, the pawls). I've been waiting to tear into it since summer, but couldn't get the ball ring unscrewed until I laced it into a wheel.

captsven

I think the biggest draw of theses hubs is the mystique. Almost no one has one but everyone talks about them and how awesome they are.

I will probably get one just to see if they live up to their rep. I am curious!

My biggest concerns are:
1) is it made well enough to ride like a traditional FG and not crap out
2) is the efficiency going to equal a traditional FG.

shecky

You're just chicken. Really. Have you ever serviced an old SA three speed? It isn't hard. And after doing it, I realized it probably didn't even need to be done, despite it's grimy looks on the outside.

No. The whole point of riding fixed gear is having fixed gears. Having more than one easily shifted fixed gear ratio on the same bike is icing on the cake.

sp00ki

nope.
if i want variable gears, i'm not going to do it by using archaic hundred year old technology.
the idea of using a heavy drivetrain that hampers my wheel's ability to turn with constant friction isn't appealing to me...

Yellowbeard

So you'd prefer hundred year-young technology?

"A functional derailleur was made by Paul de Vivie of France in 1905. It was sold under the Velocio mark, and shifted among four gears mounted on the crank."



Couldn't possibly be as efficient, mechanically, but is efficiency really what standard fixed gears are about?

jakerock

Perfect. Thankyou.

meter998

Two months ago, I took a ride on my fixed gear bike through countryside after works. During the ride, one guy on a motorcycle rode to my side and asked me whether I was riding a fixed gear bike. Turns out he was an engineer in Sturmey-Archer whose factory is just 10 km away from my office (yes, I live in Taiwan). Since fixie riders are few in Taiwan, he was interested in finding someone to test ride the three-speed fixed gear hub. Although I did not get to test-ride it in the end, I believe that this is an indication that the hub is close to ready for sell.

HandsomeRyan

I think the S3X is going to become the "Wii @ Christmas time" of the cycling world when it's released. Everyone who can get one will purchase one with the hopes of reselling it on ebay at a much inflated price. There will be approximately 6 people worldwide actually riding them while everyone else treats them like stocks and buys 4 of them to store in a closet someplace and resell later (in hopes that the new ones will become rare/valuable like the old ones).

I hope this isn't true, but I have very little faith in humanity and I really want one for personal use.