Bad Lag

I restored mine to its original 5 speed configuration. It is 14-24T in the rear and 42/52T up front. It has a Regina Oro chain and Nuovo Record derailleurs. It is very functional for me where I typically ride,... and very 70's. :-)

When going to serious mountains, I have a very 1980's Ultra-6 set up I can swap into the drive train. It uses a 13-32 Ultra-6 freewheel and an Ultra-6 chain, a Shimano Deore XT rear derailleur and I switch to 42/45T chain rings. This yields a very nice half-step gearing pattern but I only use it in the mountains. Out west we have elevations of 5, 6, ,7,000 ft and more). When I get back home, I switch back to the 1970's gearing.

C&V gearing is where it's at for me, but your gearing has to SUIT YOU AND YOUR TERRAIN.

Wiel

A few years ago I wrote an Excelfile to calculate the effect of different tire sizes and gearing systems.
It can be downloaded at my website: Velofilie
All bracketgears, gearhubs and derailleursystems of the past 100 years are included.

Greetz, Wiel

USAZorro

Back when I was 18-21 (a fit young adult with a 10 speed), I only used the big ring up front and spent almost all my time on the small (14 tooth) rear sprocket. When I got to a hill (and while generally flat, my hometown of Rochester, NY has a few that are moderately steep), I'd downshift to the 15 tooth cog in the rear. After returning from a 25-ish year hiatus from cycling I found that those two gear combinations only suit me on slight downhills where I have no headwind. Clearly, the laws of physics have changed since 1981 and the world needs more gearing choices than it once did.

gugie 

Chas, I thought that was the purpose of this forum?

uncle uncle

Clearly... as I'm experiencing the same altered outcomes along the same approximate timeline.

3alarmer 

.
...since all my 120 spaced bicycles are friction shifted, I mostly just go with a regular 5 speed freewheel on them. A lot of them are equipped with the sort of derailleurs that seem to work best with a 14/24 or at most 14/26 cog configuration in the back, and it's easier for me to find a gear with a 5 speed freewheel than one of the narrower Ultra 6. I had one last Ultra 6 freewheel I was saving for a special occasion, and I put it on the rear of a Holdsworth Professional. Every time I have to fiddle with it to get it solidly on the cog, I wish I'd just gone with a 5. Most of these are 52/42 in front, but a couple are 52/40, or some Shimano cranks with 52/38. somehow I ended up with a Nervex crank with 52/40 rings. Until then, I never knew such a thing existed.

I pretty much use those KMC X-8.9 series chains on everything. Also, it's pretty flat here, but with a lot of wind at certain times of the year.


The troublesome Holdsworth Ultra 6.

Wogster

I don't think Sheldon would be afraid to update to something more modern. Mind you it really depends on the riding your doing. For some of us, like me, the most vintage part of the bike, is the engine.... Rather then swapping out the freewheel, I would rather run a different chainring, something like a 46/32 or even a 42/30 and leave the rear mechanism the way it is....

OldCoot

For me, gear range, not the number of gears is important. Regardless of gear range, having a low gear is most important to me where I live. Almost any ride longer than 10 miles will include 1000' climbs with pitches in excess of 10%. I have to work hard to find routes that don't have big climbs (other than going around the neighborhood block over and over...).

I have converted 120mm to 130mm a couple of times. Had a local frame builder do it a few times, done it myself as well. If I really like the bike, I let some else do it... Not hard to do. Most converted to get a bigger gear range and lower gears, not to get more gears. Prefer 8spd stuff. Bullet proof, inexpensive and easy to find.

sd5782 

Since this thread has gone off script a bit, I will amend an earlier post about 6 speeds. I had one 13-30 on another bike and recently at the co-op came into a uniglide 13-30 cassette. Numbers for these 13-15-18-21-25-30 seem to come out nicely with common front chainrings. Unfortunately for me, one is on a seldom ridden 27” heliocomatic, and the other on an anodized set that is not my usual style. The numbers work out so well that I will reevaluate my fleet.

base2 

Fun fact with that hub:
When the spec sheet says the biggest cog that can be used is a 34 tooth; What they mean is: "This is a road hub. Since road subcompacts are 50/34, don't run lower than 1:1 drive ratio."

Also fun fact: A Shimano 11 speed mountain cassette fits on a 8,9,10 speed freehub body.

I'm running mine with a 11 speed, 11-42, with a 42 tooth chainring. 20-140 gear inches. All but the 3-4 smallest cogs get used daily. As intended. Small cogs wear quickly.

Sturmey-Archer really created a gem of a hub with the CS-RK(f)3. It's cool to see another one out in the wild.

USAZorro

Ooooh. I will have to start looking out for an appropriate 11 speed cassette to take it all the way to 99. Probably not something to do until the winter.

Mr. Author... note that this is installed on a 1971 Raleigh Super Course that I received as a frame with perished paint. Despite Chas's dire warnings, I detect no alignment issues with this critter. I DO have to get to the bottom of why the rear tire keeps going flat on me, but that's an entirely different issue. Only you can decide what seems right to you, but I sometimes have dreams of showing up at Lake Pepin with this, and that makes me smile. I'll take that over yet another (that would make somewhere between 6 and 13 of them - depending on definition) run of the mill ten-speed restored to near-factory specs.

sd5782 

Blasphemy! Turn in your C&V membership card.

uncle uncle

Rowdy farm dogs, constant winds, gravel roads that surprisingly turn to sand pits (or worse, wet fatty clay), and tornados are all to be expected. Just last night, a tornado formed a mile or so down the road from here, and wiped out a YMCA and some homes. All but the tornados, which I'm not sure can be pedaled away from, are part of my calculations....

(not my video)

USAZorro

I watched the weather channel for a bit this morning and saw reports on this. I was actually hoping I hadn't jinxed you, and that you were ok.

uncle uncle

You didn't jinx me... lots of locals just shrug when the local news warns them about tornados and such, but I've had enough close calls that we (my family and I) take them seriously.

tcs

SRAM Eagle 12-

bikemig 

I'm surprised no one has suggested one of these for Kansas. They have a good track record of dealing with tornados unless a house were to fall on the rider . . .

base2 

Now we're just getting into crazy talk.

branko_76 

5 speed FW for me.

If climbing is part of your routine, think about the frame. A well built, tight frame will climb better than a floppy frame.

dddd

I found that in order to have a Shimano "ultra-width" 6s freewheel that I had to start with a 7s Dura-Ace freewheel, remove the small cog and then force a modified plastic shield in from a 600 6s freewheel in order to eliminate the huge gap that left the bearings exposed.
I've also used an O-ring to close off the opening left by removing the smallest externally-threaded cog from a Shimano Dura-Ace or Sante 7s freewheel.

Was yours also a modified 7s unit, or did you perhaps mean ...Suntour?

For hubs like certain vintages of Phil Wood where the (fixed) 5s axle spacing may not allow even an Ultra-6 freewheel to quite fit in the space, I built a 13-24t five-speed Uniglide freewheel to allow tight-enough ratios and sufficient range for spirited riding here in the foothills.
Combined with a 52-36t chainset, it achieves the same low gear ratio as 42-28t and has a decent 52-13t top gear (shown below).

On most 5s-era bikes, I have no trouble re-spacing the axle to 122m to accomodate a standard-spaced 6s freewheel. Atom/Normandy hubs in particular need only the slightest of spacer width changes to accommodate standard 6s Shimano freewheels, as long as the frame isn't one with inwardly-protruding seatstay ends (though going from a 14t to 13t top cog really improves the clearance there).

Clearance for inwardly-protruding axle stop or claw hanger hardware can usually be achieved using a Dremel where needed (on bikes without screw adjusters and/or without integral derailer hangers). Single axle stops are best moved to the left dropout (only one is really needed) and claw mounts serve as an axle stop (so no discreet stop is needed).

Road Fan

John, I notice you do not have any 28 tooth big cogs on the Capos, nor any Simplex Prestige. I'm working on a 1970s bike trying to use a Simplex Prestige rear mech on its own claw, which is not "asploded," with that 14/28. It seems like the Prestige body (black with a red nameplate on the parallellogram) is just not long enough to accommodate the 28 teeth. Have you tried those derailleurs on your bikes? it seems like the dividing line might even be 24 teeth! The pivots seem sluggish, but I don't think that's the whole problem.

Any experience with this size on standard-cage derailleurs?

Road Fan

I think I saw a newsreel where the bike and rider flew in a tornado ... no sorry that was the movie!! lol

Road Fan

I think Sheldon was mostly an opportunistic preserver of bikes as tools, often beautiful tools such as his Raleigh International. He certainly wasn't a cheapskate utilitarian, nor an historical preservationist. As well as his genius, he had the practicality of a bike mechanic. So if the best available solution to getting a bike back into durable service (bolt on that He-Man saddle!) was to modernize aspects of the drivetrain (or rider interface! lol), he would make it so.

JohnDThompson 

Adding more sprockets to the cluster doesn't necessarily broaden the gear range; that is determined by the tooth count of the sprockets. 5-speed freewheels could be had with up to 38T, not that far from the 42T sprockets now found on many off-road bikes.

More sprockets means closer spacing between available gears, allowing you to keep your pedal RPM within a narrower range of cadences.

John E

The only time I did anything with Simplex Prestige was when I worked at a Peugeot-Nishiki dealership in the early 1970s. The AO-8s and UO-8s came through with various gear combinations, including 50-36 / 14-26 and 52-40 / 14-28. We were able to make the latter work, but the chain length had to be just right, and the wheel needed to be all the way back in the derailleur claw.

My own UO-8 has a short cage SunTour Cyclone II, the Bianchi has its original (short-cage) Campag. NR, and the Capos have various short-cage Campags. I know the Cyclone II won't go beyond 26T, and the 1980 NR has to be set up "just right" to hit 28, which is why I have always self-limited to 26T with it. When I had the Cyclone on my now-deceased (cracked chainstay) UO-8 commuter, I ran 52-42 up front, because that's what I had on hand, with 16-18-21-24-26 (again, no 28) in back. That's when I learned that, although I am not at all into really high top gears, I do want something above 90 gear-inches -- I wound out in traffic too many times with 52/16 = 88 gear inches. That extra 5 to 10 percent to the mid-90s is exactly what I need.

I did have very good luck with a lowly short-cage SunTour V-Luxe on a 52-42 / 14-16-18-21-24-28 setup, which adds a nice 40-gear-inch low to the classic 52-42/14-24 road racing setup.

I am currently hoping against hope that I can somehow get my "keep it original-ish" 1960 Capo Sieger's OEM Campag. GS to work with 49-45 / 14-17-20-24-28. If not, I'll tighten up to 14-16-19-23-26.