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11-29-20, 09:19 PM

#1190

tallbikeman

Senior Member

Join Date: Jun 2013

Location: Yolo County, West Sacramento CA

Posts: 517

Bikes: Modified 26 inch frame Schwinn Varsity with 700c wheels and 10 speed cassette hub. Ryan Vanguard recumbent. 67cm 27"x1 1/4" Schwinn Sports Tourer from the 1980's. 1980's 68cm Nishiki Sebring with 700c aero wheels, 30 speeds, flat bar bicycle.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by DesmoDog

Here is my Sanctuary 7 in stock form.

I've always wanted a bike with an internally geared hub though, so when the time came to address a few shortcomings I added a Sturmey 5 speed with drum brake, cantilever brakes up front to go with the short throw Sturmey levers that matched the rear hub, and added a QR front hub too since I was already changing the rims to get away from the painted ones that came on it stock. I got some alloy bars for it but they likely won't get installed because they are a little narrower than I was imagining. The alloy seatpost got installed but may not make the cut either, with the seat tube angle on a cruiser it is at the limit of it's adjustment, and I'm not sure if that's enough.

All of this started with the intent to get rid of a very persistant brake squeal. Things may have gotten out of hand.

I had to keep a derailleur on it since it has vertical dropouts and the tensioner I bought doesn't have enough reach to match the chainline, but I've since ditched the stock plasticy one for an older all metal number with a short cage. Forgive the red pulleys, it was used, I'll make them black or silver eventually.

I oriented the shifter and brake arm along the seat stays instead of the chain stays so I could use the stock braze ons for the cables. I'm kinda bummed it has vertical dropouts but the whole bike was something of an experiment anyway. If the right vintage bike comes along I may move all these parts over to that frame and ditch the derailleur. Yes, I did consider adapting an eccentric bottom bracket to it but come on, you have to draw the line somewhere. This bike was under $200 delivered to my door after all.

I've only ridden it once since finishing it.

The front brake still squeals.

I haven't done any further adjustments to the new cantilevers to eliminate it yet but I'm starting to wonder if maybe the cheap fork lets the arms vibrate on the mounts...

Going down the squealing brake list of possible suspects, first the pads, sometimes pads are squealers. Second the brake arms on a big box store bikes can be cheaper knock offs. The metal may not be as good or there may not be enough of it to do the job or some sort of engineering crippled the design. Better quality brake arms might quell the squeal. These rims look clean and unpainted so I would look at pads and the brake arms themselves. There are plenty of good quality cantilever brakesets out there. I buy used a lot of the time and save money. At one point in my Internal Geared Hub fantasy I bought a Sturmey Archer 5 speed hub and used it. It had a thumb trigger, old school, and the gear changing chain going into the axle from the drive side. Yours looks to be the model that has a rotary shifter. I had an issue with first gear slipping when power was applied to it. Couldn't use the gear to go uphill. It would slip out of gear no matter how I adjusted it. Tried it for a year and gave up. It sits in a box at my house. I finally gave up on Internal Gear Hubs after my Shimano Alfine 11 speed debacle. That hub had nothing but problems and no mechanics to fix it. Leaked oil from day one, slowly got harder and harder to pedal********** I changed the oil on schedule with Shimano Alfine oil and it slowly turned into a horror story anyway. That one sits in a box too. Back to derailleurs and cassettes. Much better. I still own a 3 speed Sturmey Archer hub on my Worksman LGB cycle truck and it works great. Hard to put derailleurs on Worksman bicycles. But the siren song for Internal Geared Hubs doesn't call to me anymore.

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