I have a SRAM T3 3-speed hub and twist shfiter, but I'd like to use a trigger shifter. I can't find an original SRAM/Sachs/Torpedo trigger anywhere online in the US, so I was wondering if the Sturmey Archer 3-speed trigger shifter will work?

It would probably work (don't actually know though). Brompton use the same shift lever for both their SRAM and SA hub-geared bikes.

Friction shifters would be my preference

Bumping this ancient thread because I have the same question. Anyone?

I have heard that you cannot do this. The gearing is slightly different, and you won't be properly aligned to the right gear if you use a shifter made for a different gear.

Friction shifters have a similar problem. Unlike a derailleur, you can't feel or see when you're solidly in the gear you want, which can leave you sitting right at the transition point, causing excess wear and occasionally dropping you into a dead spot between gears. Not something you want to do when you're applying pressure. And it is unfortunately not simple as all the way down=first gear, all the way up=third gear, and right in the middle=second gear. That may get you there approximately, but the gears are not evenly spaced.

I have certainly found this to be the case, but with other shifters, the situation may be better. I had an old Sturmey-Archer 3 speed with a lever shifter. You could feel the notches where the lever sat best, but either I loosened it up or it had worn enough that those notches felt more like suggestions than places where the lever would actually have to sit. I replaced my hub with an old Fitchel & Sachs (now Sram) hub and tried to use my SA lever friction-style. It worked, but not well. Going from 3 to 2 was fairly easy. 2nd gear seemed to have a wide range. But getting into 1st was not always straightforward. Sometimes it involved multiple attempts to push the lever to it's extreme. Once in 1st (and in 2nd, to a lesser extent), the pressure the hub put on the shift cable would slowly bring the lever up, unexpectedly popping me out of my preferred gear and into the next higher one. A true friction shifter might not have this issue, and that was something I considered trying, but you would still have the problem of not knowing exactly where the gears should be.

A month or two back I grabbed a Sram 3-speed shifter off of eBay, but it wasn't until Sunday that I found a cable to match it (I doubt it's that hard to find. I just hadn't been looking). The past few days have been like riding a new bike. When I want 1st gear, I shift into with no problems, and I stay in it until I shift out. I don't cringe if I decide to stand on the pedals to push up a hill because I don't feel that the cable is slipping at all.

I would recommend getting a shifter to match your hub. It's made a world of difference to me. As far as I know, the actual gear spacing for Sturmey Archer and Sachs/Sram has not changed, so you can probably get away with a shifter/hub combo that aren't from the same time period, but I would try and get a combination where the manufacturers are the same.

I have a buddy who is running a new Sturmey Archer and using the old clicker on his Sulry with no regrets. Not sure how SRAM and Archer relate, so this maybe of no help.

I've heard that about Sturmey and experianced it with Sram: there doesn't seem to be a difference in thenl gear spacing over time, which is convenient, but I wouldn't recommend pairing different manufacterers. Just get a modern Sram shifter for your Sachs hub.

Probably not.

The old SA shifters have a shorter distance from 1st to 2nd than from 2nd to 3rd. While I bet your twist shifters have them equally placed.

I'd be very nervous about it. I think IGHs could SEEM like they were in gear but would actually be only halfway into gear, and you could be causing uneven wear on things, or if you had to stand on it to get up a hill you could suddenly find that you've ripped up the gears because they were only 1/4 of the way engaged.

I shifted my SRAM T3 with a Sturmey classic trigger for around six months with no problems, but, and it's a big but, I concur with the issues ItsJustMe brought up. Low gear is taut cable, and high gear is slack cable, but with the T3 (unlike a Sturmey or Shimano) you don't know where it is that second gear lines up.

I'm sorry that I don't have a T3 shifter here to measure. I have a Sturmey TSS33 twist shifter that pulls around 7.3mm a shift, and a SRAM iM3 twist shifter that pulls around 6.3mm a shift. Note: the iM3 and T3 hubs have completely different internal designs.

tcs

I am about the order a T3 Trigger shifter from the UK, and shipped to me in the USA. Should I be okay so long as it is specifically for the SRAM T3, or do the old T3s different from the new T3s?

https://www.sbrsports.com/1012/428-472263?source=aw

My T3 is dated 08/2005 if that helps any.

I use a friction shifter with my 3-speed IGH. It doesn't take long for you to suss out where the right spots to shift are.

Some people have reported success using modern indexed shifters with older IGH hubs but ideally, you want the matching shifter to match the required cable pull...

Having your bike slip under gear is a bad thing in itself and is hard on the gears but having things slip while you are standing up and mashing up a hill could be hard on other body parts.

All the nay-sayers, please explain how Brompton use the exact same shifter (of their own design) for both SRAM 3 sp and SA 3 sp hubs, without losing the hub warrantees, unless the cable pull is the same. Brompton does have a ex-SA designer on their staff, so they understand hub gears fairly thoroughly.

This company has the parts and will ship to the USA but it will cost you plenty. Here's the link for SRAM shifter parts: https://hollandbikeshop.com/versnelli...3_cid1949.html

I suggest you view in Google Chrome and select the translate option (the original language is Dutch).