Auto Shift
 

Yesterday I went to someones house to pick up a couple donations for the Bike Exchange . There was a run of the mill mtn bike and this, A Land Rider Auto Shift. The bike is a tank, oversized tubing that should be Alu but is steel . I could barely lift it over the side of my pickup bed to take it home .

When I took a closer look at the shabby looking bike I saw this, an Auto Shift automatically shifting rear derailleur. It looked cheaply made of stamped steel and I figured it didn't work but , lo and behold, when I put it on the stand and spun the cranks it worked as advertised, shifting from it's default large cog through all 7 gears till when pedaling fast it popped onto the small 14 tooth cog. pedaling slower and it shifted back gear by gear till it was back in the default large cog.

I did some research and found that Disraeli Gears had a write up on it .http://www.disraeligears.co.uk/Site/...erailleur.html

I am thinking this little bit of tech might be fun to put on another bike. I have an old Peugeot that I have been having trouble with indexing on the 8 speed rear freewheel and might take it off and swap it with this. A 14-30 tooth freewheel with a 40 tooth single chain ring and an automatic tranny would make this old girl pretty kewel.

One question. Any chance I can find a place to purchase another v belt for it. The one it has works fine but if that fails it's basically a paper weight. If anyone knows of such a thing I would like to know. https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f34e144d1a.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...acdfa0f279.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...0bae1c0aed.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c0d8fc6680.jpg

That's an autoshifter I haven't seen before. Pretty dang cool.

I've seen v-belts like that on some Japanese machinery I work on. I've never tried to source one outside the manufacturer of the machine.

Typically, I can source v-belts at places like industrial supply companies by using the belt's width and overall length, but I've never tried looking for one of those tiny v-belts.

Maybe a sewing machine-v-belt would work?

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...t-setting.html


There are a number of threads on landrider and autobike in C&V

Having sold and serviced more then a few back in the 1990s I suggest you don't suffer more people with this. Does it work? Sure when all is well set up. But the auto principle is still lacking in shifting point control WRT the rider's pedaling pressure and the simple rotational based shift point is biased to the 50 RPM rider.

I might still have a take off in my stash. We changed out to the common cable controlled systems on more then a few of these bikes (GT had their Air Stream versions too). Andy

Had one of these in my shop last year and also wondered about parts, I found some on ebay at that time

A little pricey, but here is one

LandRider-Auto-Shift-Bicycle-Drive-Belt

My extreme thought on this was to remove the auto shift components and add back a rear DER and control in the worse case

Typically they want to appeal to the Mass merchandise store buyer.. so least cost parts are selected..
As shown in pictures..

NuVinci CVR hubs the exception , but they don't auto shift like your car, you do have to turn the shift grip,

hello
have a landrider auto shift,noticed this thread.
what is the C&V ?they might be able to help me.
thanks
john

C&V is another sub forum within the Bike Forum's universe. I believe the letters stand for those two words so over applied by so many new to this stuff, "Classic" and "vintage". Andy

thanks andy,you are right. found it.
if i were to remove and replace with a cable style derailleur, is there a stock or easy one to hang on ?
front deraill works fine, and my riding is mostly on flat terrain in city's not looking for anything complicated.
any suggestions appreciated.
john

People that actually own one will correct me if I'm wrong, but what I've read about that system is that it didn't work particularly well. It's more of a novelty collectors item at this point. Interesting idea that never really worked out. I don't think there are many of them on the road being ridden regularly.

thanks jeff for reply.
used mine a lot for several years, and now cant run and jog like i used to. bike is coming back into play.
i should have left well enough alone but it needed cleaning, but since putting it back on i get it to move from large cog to smallest cog, but after slowing down and stop it wont move back to larger cog as flywheel weights dont want to come back together and close. so some adjustment is out of wack.
nothing seems broken, and springs inside do not seem serviceable,but look intact.
i have origina l manual have read it multiple times
reminds me of an old swisss mechanical cuckoo clock, just neds right adjustments.
if i cant get it to adjust i have thought about taking it off replace with a standard cable deraill,rear wheel, hub,and v pulley should not be an issue i dont think.
john

IIRC the freewheel is compatible with the then current indexing ders and levers. Pretty much any modern 7 speed levers and rear der will work. Note that this era of bikes often have canti brakes so make sure any brake lever changes are also compatible. Andy