BFisher 

I searched and only found two threads relating. Here's one Two-Speed Kickback Hub w/ Coaster Brake

I've recently realized that my Fichtel & Sachs Duomatic is one of my favorite bicycle parts of all time. It's just so simple, with a nice gearing range and beautiful construction. I never thought I'd like riding my little U folder all that much. But I do, and it's largely due to that hub.

So, if you ride a two speed kickback hub, post it up. Share your experiences. Who knows, there may be another in my future...

BFisher 

Little Hercules as it sits now, with newly installed Cannondale handlebar bag.

JacobLee 

My mom has never stopped talking about the red Schwinn Breeze she rode in the 70’s. She loved that bike.

SamSpade1941 

This thread reminds me one day I want a Pashley

JohnDThompson 

I have a Bendix 2-speed kickback hub I salvaged off a derelict bike. I have yet to overhaul it and build it into a bike, though.

nlerner

I rode one of the newish Sturmey Archer 2-speed kickback hubs w/ coaster brake for a couple of years until I killed it commuting through a Boston winter. Gave it to a BFer who might have brought it back to life. I still have a 2-speed SRAM duomatic hub in one bike in the fleet. Rode that one today, actually.

thinktubes 

I had one on a Stingray BITD.

The low gear was perfect for riding wheelies.

3alarmer 

...
...I think you can still find these for sale online, but SRAM stopped making them when they announced they were getting out of the IGH business.
Good solution for legalizing a track frame for street use without drilling it for brakes. Not a kickback, instead it up-shifts automatically at a certain cadence.

bwilli88 

Not a kick-back but a SRAM automatix. Fun bike setup with 28 1 5\8 ss rims and stainless steel spokes on and old Bridgestone.
https://flic.kr/p/YjxeRQ

https://flic.kr/p/YVE14F

Murray Missile 

Had one in a Schwinn Stingray as a kid. I swapped the crank and chainwheel from a 26" Typhoon. Couldn't pedal around corners but it would fly on the straight. Still had it when I got my license and a friend followed me for 2 bocks with his VW to see how fast I could go. He told me I hit 27MPH. Now that I think about it he's the one I got it from originally.

I thought it was cool to hit the upshift hard to make the tire skid briefly for "2nd gear scratch". As a result I got pretty good at tearing it apart and putting it back together LOL.

I have 3 of the 36 hole hubs, I may lace one of them into a 700c one of these days. I may just have the perfect frame to put it in.

BFisher 

Was it just the one winter that toasted it, or did it survive year round until then? Just curious.

BFisher 

@3alarmer, and @bwilli88, I've wondered what those hubs were like in hilly situations. Is it just an automatic downshift as you slow?

eeuuugh

I've built two bikes with SRAM automatix hubs, one with a coaster brake and one without, and I loved them. Wish I hadn't sold them on since the hubs are harder to find and generally more expensive now!

I just worked on my first kickback hub two months ago, a Sachs, rehabbing an old folding bike for a friend. I'd been curious about kickback shifting with a coaster brake, and sceptical, but I loved it. Overhauled the hub and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of construction too. Now I find myself seriously considering an S2C for my cruiser.

If anyone has an unused 2-speed hub with coaster brake they'd be willing to get rid of, PM me! 36 hole drilling preferred.

Jmpierce

This bike is built with a two speed kick-back. I'm not sure of the gearing. I got the wheels from Bicycle Wheel warehouse.

Moe Zhoost

Had one (SA S2, the one without coaster brake) on my commuting bike for a few years. Rebuilt it into a narrow rim and rode it with a road frame for a few more years. Now, I am contemplating building into a different wheel to replace a single speed hub on one of my bikes. I really like the simplicity of the thing, though it takes a few hundred miles to become proficient with reliable shifting (i.e. learning the angle of the kick-back), and learning how to be in the right gear when starting from a stop.

bwilli88 

No. When you are riding along and reach a certain speed centrifugal force causes a weight to move against a spring and that weight attached to a lever swings out and move the shift point to the higher gear. It stays in that higher gear until you coast a bit or back pedal a bit. If you are going slower than the shift speed it will downshift but if you are still going faster than the shift speed it will sometimes down shift and then immediately upshift.

nlerner

I believe it was one snowy Boston winter that did it in.

Reynolds 531 

Kickback ≠ Automatix

BFisher 

Interesting.
Thanks for the explanation.

BFisher 

Good to know.

3alarmer 

...you can adjust the cadence at which it shifts by bending the springs inside the hub. You need to open it up to do so. Otherwise, as already stated.

nlerner

Having ridden both, I prefer the Automatix. Far less fiddly than the kickback, particularly the kickback with a coaster brake.

dddd

I had the Bendix blue-band "Overdrive" on my Schwinn during my youth, and when some of the older kids around town showed up with their 5-speed "Crate"-style bikes, I soon realized that the 2-speed was better at dragracing because it shifted more consistently than their Stick-controlled Allvits (which ran the chain over a French freewheel).
The self-contained hub made the bike a real "sleeper" and I used it to put those older kids in their place you could say!
Since I ran mine from an early age in the late-60's, it suffered a couple of failures of the indexing spring, which today is a very hard-to-find part that an Ebay seller might want real money for. The tiny tines on this sort of sheet-metal sleeve would break off, preventing the hub from shifting (I remember having to ask my Dad to take me to the Schwinn dealer in a bigger city to buy one).
And there were the array of radial cracks around the left-side bearing race area of the hubshell, but which never managed to stop mine from working as a good hub.
I finally re-painted and sold the bike not too long after this photo was shot, I must have ridden that bike for all of eight years! The longer fork was swiped from a 3-speed "Racer" model, it gave better ground clearance and surprised me with better off-road handling.
A final modification before sale would have been the pair of Goodyear Eagle BMX knobbies that I procured during a vacation to California, I still remember carrying them onto the plane (along with a used racing exhaust for my Yamaha 60 that must have looked like a bazooka, try that today!).

BFisher 

That's a great picture, @dddd.

For this thread, bring on your kickbacks and your Automatix. If you're rockin' a deuce let's see it. This is all about the simple wonders of the cable-free two speed IGH.

That Carabela is cool!

clubman 

[QUOTE=BFisher;21253074
So, if you ride a two speed kickback hub, post it up. Share your experiences. Who knows, there may be another in my future...[/QUOTE]


Big fan. Both my wife and I use F&S 36 hole Duomatics for our townies and they've been posted ,more than a few times. Hers is the Eatons/Hercules roadster and mine has lived on a Sakai and a Raleigh Sports. Great hubs and great brakes.