Originally Posted by
silver_ghost
The other thing I wonder about is the cog retention system. Does Sturmey Archer have a proprietary spline that is consistant across all of their hubs? I know SA has a great reputation for long term serviceability and parts availability, should I expect to be able to find replacement cogs ten years from now?
The traditional three spline pattern interface on Sturmey hubs for the last hundred years is the same, and the same as most coaster hubs, and the same as all other three-, four-, five-, seven-, and eight-speed internal gear hubs from Shimano, SRAM and Sachs, and even the same as SRAM's new Torpedo fixed/free hub. These cogs are cheap and common, available black or chrome, flat/dished/deep dished, from 13T to 23T, and made by Sturmey, Shimano, SRAM, Velosteel, KT, etc.
However, there are reports that the new S3X will use the nine tooth spline pattern of Shimano freehub cogs. However however, the only picture released of the S3X without a cog on it showed a "double-three" spline pattern on the driver, which would accept the traditional Sturmey cogs and also accept theoretically stronger ones using six splines.
I think the cog thing won't be an issue, but I'm not sure at this point what the final configuration of the S3X driver will be.
HTH,
tcs