Converting a single speed to SA 5-speed? Info and pics please.
 

I'm thinking of converting my Rivendell Quickbeam to a five speed. I love the bike and it works for 80% of my fast or fun riding needs but I can't quite get it out of town for a long country ride, and I don't have a geared road bike right now. Indianapolis is FLAT and I have it set up for faster riding which makes rolling, hilly country riding less fun. It does have the 2 or 4-speed manual shift option but the hills here are usually short and steep and far apart so I'd rather have real shifting ability. I'm considering buying a LHT or cross-check for these longer rides but 1000+ is a lot to spend right now, plus I love the way the Rivendell rides, and I'd rather have another, but it will be a couple of years before I can save up for a geared version (their basic geared version with cantilevers runs $2500+)

I have a late-80s mountain bike set up with north road bars, racks and baskets for utility and my short commute (2 miles each way) so this would be mostly for my fast rides which I do 4-5 days a week in good weather at 20-30 miles (if you can call rides "fast" on a single speed with 40mm tires, platform pedals and normal clothes!) and longer rides with a packed lunch out on the gravel roads.

I'm worried that it will be clunky or that it will radically change the feel of the bike. I don't want to sacrifice the feel of the rRvendell's ride too much.

I'm thinking of the 5-speed (118 width) with the 5-speed bar end shifter. Does anyone know about how much the conversion would cost assuming a quality, strong rim (I'm 200+) and build? I can install it myself.

Any comments or suggestions are appreciated, and especially pictures!

I ride the Mercier Kilo WT5 from bikesdirect and am pleased with it. I haven't seen the hub available, either laced up to a rim or on it's own. If you are unable to source the hub would you consider getting a WT5?

Get the WT5, swap parts as wanted, go from there. Then you got two bikes, or I bet you could recoup a lot of your cost selling the rest of the bike.

Extra bonus points? Get a Torker The Graduate and go drum brake on the Quickbeam.

Fivespeed hub, decent rim, wheelbuild and barend shifter would probably be in the $200-250 range at a bikeshop.

I've seen the WT5 and I have to say I was impressed that they are getting smart with the design of those bikes. I also like that twin top tube path racer. I'd like them better with silver components. There is a thread in C and V about a Velo Orange build with the 5-speed and the shifter so they should be available. I'll look again at the Mercier.

These guys can get the hub for you:
http://smartbikeparts.com/search1.ph...Sturmey-Archer

I think you'll like the SA five speed.

Folks have been adding multi-gear hubs to single speed bikes for a long time. In my experience it won't be at all "clunky" and the only change to feel to the bike will be for the better.

Is that NOS on the old ball locking XRF5 Summit 5-speed (225%) or the new, current production XRF5(W) (256%)? The Sturmey blog guy said the new 5(W) hubs have different cable pulls than S-A's several older 5-speed designs and the new bar end/thumb/downtube shifters won't work with the old hubs.

Persons-Majestic claims to still have NOS Summit 5-speeds and NOS on the even older Sprinter design 5-speeds.

Some drum and coaster brake models of the current production (W) hub are in stock at Sturmey distributor UBS and any LBS can order from them. Among other net retailers, Biketoolsetc.com has these available.

UK net retailer Old Bike Trader catalogs several different current production Sturmey 5-speed hubs. Not cheap.

SJS Cycles in the UK claims to even have inventory of the old StAr 5-speeds, Sturmey's shortest lived design ever!

The very nice SRAM P5 hub is widely available in N.A. but they only offer a twist shifter for it - this can be placed on a Hubbub bar end adaptor.

Of course Sturmey 3-speed hubs are widely available, with a smorgasbord of shifter choices.

The other narrow ( <120mm OLD) multigear hub is the Sturmey XRF8(W) (example). Jtek offers a drop-bar end shifter for this hub. You'd probably need the companion FCS80 crankset Sturmey makes for this hub - it's not expensive.

HTH,
tcs

I converted a old Kon Humu cruiser to Sturmey Archer 5 speed using a NOS S5-2 Alloy hub I picked up on the Geared Hub Bikes Yahoo group. This is a old dual shift cable hub and it is currently being shifted using a friction thumb shifter for the left side cable and a standard SA trigger shifter for the right side cable though the right side shifting will probably be converted to the new SA 3 speed thumb shifter.

I like it in part due to the hub being old enough so it is oil lubricated rather than greased and IMO this is preferable.

I understand it's the newer (w) version, they order them as needed.

This sucks, I have an older 5 speed drum from 2003, I better buy another thumb shifter.

I stand corrected. A member of the Yahoo Group for Geared_hub_bikes posted the following:

Link to Yahoo group post here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Geared...s/message/3903
Tip of the hat to Dan for the info.

Thanks for all the information. I've seen conversions before but it was only after they offered a shifter that will work well with drop bars that I've been thinking seriously about it. That twist shift on the end of drop bars always looked too funny for me. I like the idea of the 8-speed but I'm confused about why I'd have to buy a crank. The Rivendell has a really cool OEM crank that I'd hate to lose in the process. I'll track down these links now...

Riders have been pairing the classic Sturmey trigger with drop bars since before the war. The Great War. :) FWIW, here's my Capo w/ brifter shifted SRAM T3.

The S-A 8s are 1:1 in first gear. Unless you use a v. small chainwheel you wind up with HIGH gears.

tcs