Originally Posted by Tzigane
That's a cool looking bike. Did you say that you built the frame too? That's just levels of constructions I'm not going to get to. Why does the bike still have a derailluer on the back? And it looks like the tires are skinny, if I wanted to learn to live with skinny tires it looks like I could lace the 3-speed hub into the wheel on the Fuji I have.
It was my first frame, back in '79 when there were no good, fatter tires. Would definitely go with 37mm or 40mm skins today. We were younger then and still liked the drop bar position, so the angles are steeper than I'd use now. Skinny tires are OK on the 3 Speed Tour, as the roads around Lake Pepin are smoother than a politicians lies.
BTW if you use 700 rims, you can get tires in any width from 19mm to 60mm. Most English 3 speeds were 37mm.
The chain tensioner is gone now, moved to her recumbent where it is needed to keep the chain from fouling the rear brake. I'd installed it for the 3 speed tour, so I could manually move her chain to a smaller chainring for the 2.5 mile Bay City hill. Turns out that on the larger ring she was never using 3rd gear, so when we got home I removed the big ring and the tensioner.
Originally Posted by Tzigane
I suppose I could have a six speed if I kept the front derailluer and didn't change out the crank. Something to think about, would it work? Is there something I'm not thinking about?
A better way to get 6 speeds is to put 2 cogs on the hub. The standard setup is one 1/8" cog, and two 1/16" spacers. Larger cogs are dished so if you put them back to back you can use two of them. Use a 22t Shimano cog (The 22t Sturmey cog will skip if used with a derailleur) and a 19t Shimano or Sturmey cog and you will exactly split the gears in the hub, giving 6 evenly spaced ratios. You will need an older rear derailleur in order to adjust the travel short enough for only 2 cogs.
Because of nearly flush rivets and thinner sideplates, SRAM 1/8" chain is actually narrower than older 3/32" derailleur chains, so should work OK with a derailleur. (I haven't actually tried this. Back when I ran this type of setup I used older 3 speed chain and put thin washers on either side of the derailleur pulleys to allow for the extra chain width.)