Need Visa for Germany

Back in February I ordered a horrendously-expensive new bike.
Made in Germany.
Their only outlet in France is in Paris, so I chose to order it from a dealer in a village near Baden-Baden.

The ordering process seemed to go OK, in a mixture of German, French, English & gestures.
Though I was a little surprised & dubitative when they didn't ask for any deposit or ID at that stage.

So I was relieved when they eventually rang to say it was available & I was again surprised when they suggested I take it for a ride, still with no deposit.
Unfortunately, the German/French/English/gestures had failed to get over the message about the non-standard chainwheel I wanted, resulting in a couple of weeks delay while they found & fitted the right parts.

I went to collect it, finally, this week.
Naturally enough, I pulled out my Mastercard.
And was more than surprised to be told they only accepted Visa!
"In fact, Germans usually pay cash" said the assistant, adding that Visa-only was common in small towns, though I don't know how true that is.

Of course I am aware that, in Germany, low-margin supermarkets often don't accept credit cards, instead usually having convenient cash-dispensers available.
But not high-margin sports goods dealers.
That must be the first time in 30 years I have heard of anybody accepting only one of Mastercard/Visa.

The happy outcome was that I left with the bike, merely promising to transfer the money to their account!

All I need now is their IBAN number & I am still waiting for them to e-mail me that.
I can't imagine such trust in France.

The bike is fine, if depressingly black.
The brightest bits are the tyres & chain.

Parting thot: "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." - Jean Paul Getty

Any colour, so long as it's...

I remember (maybe through rose-tinted glasses?) choosing my first new bike in about 1958.

Drooling in the bike-shop window & pouring over the catalogues.

Bikes then were brightly coloured.

The one I chose was mainly in metallic middle blue, with panels of light blue outlined by fine multicoloured lines.

The bottoms of the forks were chromed, as were all the other steel bits.

The frame joints were elaborate-shaped lugs, outlined for show.

The rest was polished alloy.

With white hand grips & brake-lever covers.

And white-wall tyres.

Jewellery for boys!

All for £17-10s.

I just ordered a new bike.

It is going to cost 60 times as much, which is way more than any inflation data would allow...

For the frame, I had the choice between drab battleship grey & black.

The just-announced 11-speed gear hub (critical factor in this purchase) is light alloy, but black.

The alloy handlebars are - black.

With black grips.

The extra-cost adjustable handlebar stem - black.

Seat pillar - black.

Brakes - black.

Brake levers - you guessed it.

Alloy cranks - yep!

Saddle too.

And rims.

And tyres...

Maybe I can find a red bell?

Of course, I should have expected this.

You only have to sample any crowd to see that 80-90% of people are wearing black, black & black.

So I suppose bike manufacturers are just responding to current taste.

What a waste!

Parting thot: "I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars." - Og Mandino

Hub Gear Update

I noted last year, here:
"I suppose I have to wait until, inevitably, Shimano brings out a smaller, lighter 9 or 10-speed competitor and actually gets it into bikes in shops.
Hope I am not too old to enjoy it then."

Well, things seem to be progressing further & faster than expected.
Although I only noticed it recently, there was a flurry of information on internet around 2 Feb 2010, about Shimano's future 11-speed Alfine hub.

Gears - 11
Total range - 4.09:1
Weight - 1.6kg (less than their 8-speed)
Cost – maybe £350?
Release date – September 2010?

http://road.cc/content/news/13981-shimano-alfine-11-speed-hub-car-park-test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wuXoD9db04
http://hubstripping.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/11-speed-alfine-hub-from-shimano/
I borrowed the heading picture from Hubstripping – Thanks!

Sounds good.
In fact, apart from the £350, it sounds almost perfect!
The proposed trigger operation may be a bit slower than a twistgrip for clicking back down from 11 to 1 for a restart?

By the way – did you see that bit of the Tour de France, where Yellow Jersey missed his derailleur gearchange & his chain came off?
Ho! Ho! Ho!
None of the commentators said anything about needing hub gears though…
They seemed to think the others should have stopped & waited while he put his chain back on.

Parting thot: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

Mystery Photo

In fact, this is the answer to the question posed here.


How, when cycling, to wear a small rucksack in front rather than behind you.


The advantages include: better balance, less sweating, protection from cold wind, instant access to pockets without removing bag & even without stopping, visual check of fastenings, etc.
The only problem was that the straps tended to slip off my shoulders, mainly on bumpy going (frequent) & especially if wearing a nylon top (rare).

The answer is a packet of self-adhesive silcone rubber pads, very cheap from a local hardware store.
Fixed to a handy adjustable handle on the shoulder straps, they comfortably provide so much friction that the straps never slip.

The only remaining (& insoluble) problem is the strange looks from those who don't understand the logic (everybody…).
Compounded when riding the Brompton Flying Black Banana.
Definitely not for the image-conscious!

Parting thot: "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." - Budha

Bike, Locks

The Brompton (folding bike) has come into its own this week.
We had a bit of anticyclonic Indian Summer, with no wind, lots of sun, blue skies, colourful trees & pleasant (12°C) temperatures.

Actually, I find even 12°C too cold for "normal" cycling as I sweat going uphill then freeze going back down again.
No doubt there are high-tech clothes which can deal with that, but I don't have them.
On the other hand, I find it simple to wear enough to keep warm on the flat.
Especially wearing my rucksack on the front as a wind-break.
Of course, wearing a rucksack backwards while riding a black banana with tiny wheels does cause some mirth among the natives, notably adolescent ones…

Anyway, that's why I look for flattish places to ride, especially when it's cold.
Which rules out starting & finishing at home, but leaves lots of possible trips along canals & disused railways, cheating by taking the bike there & back by car.

A good ride on Thursday started in Saverne, leaving the car in the free car park opposite the (now out of season, but still picturesque) marina.
When walking, we usually have to leave the car in isolated lay-bys or clearings, which always seems like asking for trouble, but with the bike it is easier to find a near-enough busy car-park.

From there, you can hardly fail to follow the Marne-Rhine canal up to the surprisingly-deep & usually-busy lock in the town centre & westwards to Lutzelbourg (if you come to Strasbourg, you went the wrong way).

There are good views if you climb to Lutzelbourg Castle, which is in ruins but is being extensively tidied up.
I gave them a miss this time on my flat ride.
There were plenty of good views at ground level.
Particularly brightly-coloured boats & trees reflected in calm canal water.

Next stop after Lutzelbourg, on our usual car-tourist-visitor trip, is the famous "Inclined Plane" boat lift at Arzviller.
This is the short-&-sharp method for boats to deal with the Col de Saverne.


But on a bike, you get the option of following the previous (now derelict) canal as it winds gently up through 17 now-gateless locks with 17 mostly-deserted lock-keeper's cottages.
Only 45 metres climb on 4 km of well-surfaced track (important with little Brompton wheels) brings you up to the level of the top of the inclined plane.
Apparently, before the inclined plane was opened in 1969, that used to take all day in a barge.


If you ride along the top canal to the inclined plane, you can look down it, but not walk or ride down beside it, unless you ignore the very large notice telling you not to use the nice little road there…
At the bottom, you are on the canal-side cycle-track back to Saverne again.



And home for tea.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Louis-Arzviller_inclined_plane

http://pistes-cyclables-alsace.chez-alice.fr/marne/marne.html

Parting thot: "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important." – Martin Luther King

Brompton Bits

I managed a 25 km ride on my new Brompton, without scalping my ankles.

But the concentration required, to keep my ankles out all the time & to pre-select then execute all those compound gear-shifts, meant I didn't really see much of the scenery.
OK – I was watching for gravel, pebbles, pot-holes & gullies too.
Honestly, it went much better than you could reasonably expect for a little folder on 16" wheels.

Soon noticed the saddle position was not quite high enough or far enough back, but there was sufficient adjustment available to fix that by inverting the saddle-clamp & sliding the saddle back.
Should be OK now.
While I was under there, I noticed the saddle has real old-fashioned saddle-bag fixing holes.

I think I will try filling-in or padding the little wheels so they are more ankle-friendly.
If that is not enough, then it may be a hacksaw job…

Reading the handbook a bit more, I notice they recommend new handlebars every 5000 miles because of potential metal fatigue in the aluminium.
Hope they are just protecting their *** (U.S.) / **** (U.K.).

Bought & fitted a "Zefal Spin" mirror.
I have a Zefal Cyclop on my normal bike & it has been very satisfactory where lots of other mirrors vibrate too much due to flimsy stems or fittings.
The Spin uses the same solid pivot system but with a smaller head.
That suits the smaller everything else of a Brompton (see illustration) but may prove too small in use.
Time will tell.
The Brompton will be a severe test for anti-vibration qualities!

One curiosity I have noticed is that if I back-pedal even slightly, then I can wheel the bike backwards without the pedals rotating any more…
Is this a cunning piece of design or a pending freewheel disaster?
Certainly it is very convenient to be able to manoeuvre the bike without the pedals moving.
If it had been a deliberate feature, I would have expected it to be mentioned somewhere.
Googling draws a blank.
I would like to know how this works (it sounds impossible) & why they do it without mentioning it.

Parting thot: "When it comes to sports I am not particularly interested. Generally speaking, I look upon them as dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom I share nothing except the right to trial by jury." - Fran Lebowitz

Brompton Spoke

Lots of my posts have concerned old or very old cars, and I now consider their maintenance requirements to be laughably symptomatic of gone-forever "good-old-days".
Who can imagine having to crawl under the car every Saturday morning to attend to 15 grease nipples, or removing the cylinder head for a "de-coke" every six months?
When new cars now only get to see a mechanic every 2 years (surely that's too far in the other direction?).

So it has come as a bit of a shock to read the owner's manual for my new Brompton bike.
Nearly everything needs checking & readjusting "at least once, if not two or three times, during the first few hundred miles of use, when parts are bedding in…"
Especially (heavily underlined) Hub-gear adjustment, pedals & spokes.
Spokes?
Yes, on this new bike, you need to "run in" the spokes & recheck/reset the tension after the first few hours of use, and continue checking, less often, thereafter!
They must be joking!

I actually do have spoke spanners & in my dim & distant past have managed to re-tension several wheels (of old British bikes, naturally) and even sometimes got them running straight again & remembered to file off the now-protruding ends to avoid punctures.
But I can't imagine having to do all that to an expensive new commuter bike.
Two or three times in the first few hundred miles.

I feel like I have gone to sleep & woken up in 1950.
I shall be finding pools of oil on the garage floor soon!

Parting thot: "Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon." - Doug Larson

Brompton Ankles

Way back in June (18th) I mentioned I had ordered a Brompton folding bike.
It was in Brussels by the end of August, but I only managed to get it to Strasbourg last week.

First impressions are positive, as you might have hoped, considering the price!
It folds very neatly & that should be a good party piece after a bit more practice.
The way it parks itself with the back wheel tucked underneath is handy, if not exactly elegant, but who can walk away from a casually-parked 760€ bike these days?
I have not investigated, but I suppose one collateral benefit is that you can lock up the frame & both wheels with one small lock, if you fold everything completely first.

It doesn't feel as wobbly as other folders I have tried, though the stability is not enough to encourage any "no-hands" stuff yet.
A good surprise is the easy, efficient way it rolls on smooth surfaces – no doubt a direct result of the 90psi in the tyres.
Wobbliness & inefficiency were my main fears, so it's off to a good start.

The down side of the tyre pressures, and of the small wheels, is the "high-fidelity" ride quality – no detail of the road surface is lost in transmission!
Already, I am paying a lot more attention to even smallish pebbles & absolute attention to transverse gullies, the consequences of which are only too easy to imagine.
Obviously, mud, sand & gravel are out of the question.

The strange gears (very wide ratio Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub & close-ratio 2-speed derailleur) have an adequate range of 3.0:1 & acceptable (for me) spacing, but I would certainly prefer a decent 7/8/9-speed hub gear.
Or even a cheaper 5 or 6-speed hub with 3.0:1 range if such a thing existed (hint!).
I am getting the hang of compound changes – simultaneously up on the hub & down on the derailleur - but it all requires constant attention & detracts from the idle pleasure of just riding.

What I notice most often, is how vulnerable I feel with no mirror.
That's not a criticism of the bike, but a reminder to myself to get a vibration-free mirror (which won't interfere with folding…) asap.

What I notice most acutely, is the severe pain & bleeding in both ankles!
Caused by inevitable & predictable collisions with the stupid little parking wheels, cunningly positioned to be exactly where your ankles pass on every turn of the cranks.
I find this absolutely incredible.
How can you produce, for over 20 years, an expensive device which unfailingly, painfully, injures its owner?
It's not just me – try Googling "brompton ankles"…

Parting thot: "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." – Winston Churchill

Wot! No Helmet?

Found this charming monument in Bar-le-Duc.

From "the Grateful Cyclists of France" to Pierre & Ernest Michaux "Inventors of the Velocipede with Pedals".

Modern historians could probably find prior art somewhere, but the Michaux do seem to have been at least early users of the pedal & crank for propelling what then amounts to a bike in the 1860s.
One of their employees has a US patent for a pedal-powered boneshaker in 1866.
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbicycle.htm
http://bicycling.about.com/od/thebikelife/ss/History_3.htm

Presumably early cyclists, even in France, were better equipped than the chubby chappie on the monument.

In an unusual reversal of history, a modern bicycle maker has just removed the pedals from a beginner kid's bike to recreate the boneshaker, but with soft tyres & saddle.
The idea is that kids can learn steering & balance without all the hassle & injury potential of pedals.
Safer & more comfortable than a scooter.
Sounds plausible.
See Ridgeback Scoot.

Parting thot: "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." – Albert Einstein

Parallel Uni-verse

The trouble with Internet browsing is that one thing leads to another.

When looking for a bike rack for my car, I got side-tracked into folding bikes.

Folding bikes took me to Brompton in UK.

Brompton led to Schlumpf in Switzerland.
http://www.schlumpf.ch/schlumpf_engl.htm
There, I was intrigued, but not tempted, by the many 2-speed epicyclic bottom-bracket gearsets on display.
Including one for belt-drive bikes with Shimano 8-speed hubs.
Wonder how big that market is?

Even more intriguing was the section on Unicycle Hubs.
Had you ever imagined a multi-speed unicycle?
Me neither.
But they look real, Swiss & beautifully made.
Is somebody making a living from this ultra-niche market?
There is hope for the world yet.

And the KH version, for heavy-duty off-road use, including jumps up to 1.5 meters?
Oh sure, it does include a warning of possible death if you don't get your high-speed monocycling gearshift quite right…

Well, I must have led a pretty sheltered existence for the last 65 years.
Nowhere in my universe have I seen, read about, or even imagined, heavy-duty, off-road, 2-speed unicycles.

In fact, I have been back to the site several times, to make sure it is still there & to check it is not some kind of joke.
But no, it's quite serious though that is maybe not the best word.
With links to, for instance, the International Unicycling Federation:
http://www.unicycling.org/

And forums:
http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/local_links.php
Where you can feel gripped by the plight of one unicyclist asking for help because his unike keeps turning right & he has to get 4 miles to work every day.

The real trouble is that I am beginning to feel a familiar itch.

Not for a heavy-duty off-road 2-speed unicycle, of course.
That would be pretty silly.
But maybe just a little flat, smooth, 1-speed job?

I hope it wears off soon.

Parting thot: "When you're finished changing, you're finished." - Benjamin Franklin

Bikes On or In Cars

From my frequent but unadventurous bike rides, I am beginning to feel I know every inch of the local back-roads & cycle tracks.
And I usually regret, at the end of each ride, that our village is at the top of lots of more-or-less-steep hills.

So, for some time, I have been thinking of using the car to move my biking start/finish points to other places.
Partly for variety & partly to avoid the last uphill grind.

I see most people manage to hang a bike or two on the back of their car easily enough.
The simplest racks strap on to the boot or hatch door & support bikes under a horizontal(ish) cross-bar.
My bike has a very sloping cross-bar but no rack of this type is recommended for my (1999 Suzuki) car anyway.
Probably the hatch door & plastic bumper are too flimsy.
More elaborate racks support bikes under the wheels but then become too big & heavy to strap on & usually end up needing a tow-bar & ball-hitch to stand on.
Suzuki didn't recommend tow-bars when the car was new, so now it is a rusty 10-year-old…

Another approach to this problem is via folding bikes.
We have had a couple of cheap second-hand folders but they have been shaky, creaky, inefficient devices, not attractive for more than very short, flat, smooth trips.
And not that small when folded either.

Of course, there has been progress since those old bikes & you can now find all manner of folders from pocket-size to 28" wheeled, from single-speed to 27-speed, with advanced suspension, disc brakes & even recumbent 3-wheelers.
http://www.faltraeder.com/

One manufacturer alone – Dahon – makes a bigger range of folders than you would think possible, including a couple of very neat jobs with 8-speed Shimano hub gears (Dahon Mu XL Sport & Curve XL).
http://www.dahon.com/index.htm
I have not seen any locally & they don't fold that small.
They do look good on the websites though.

In the end, I let myself be influenced by numerous articles, forums & blogs suggesting that Brompton folders are a class above the others.
I have heard them described as the Rolls-Royce of folders, but the ones I have seen have looked more like the Morgan of folders.
I would never have considered one based on a visual inspection.
The first thing you notice is the front forks are just pinched together at the wheel spindle, like a very cheap kid's bike.
And all the brakes & fittings look anything but Rolls Royce.
OK, they do fold very neatly.
Stupidly, I have ordered one, without even a test-drive.

Brompton only do one model, though with some minor variations.
The biggest option is a £420 Titanium frame, but even I am reasonable enough to avoid that one.
And you can specify mudguards, carriers, bags & lights, which I don't want.
And lots of bright expensive colours, but I am having cheap black.

Then there is a choice of 1/2/3/6/12 gears, but none of those choices is any good really.
Even the 1-gear has a derailleur-like chain tensioner, because the folding mechanism alters the chain-wheel spacing..
The 2-speed uses this tensioner like a normal derailleur but with only 2 cogs.
The 3-speed has a hub gear, like an old Sturmey-Archer, but by SRAM.
The 6-speed uses a special very wide ratio Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub as well as the 2-speed derailleur, with one shifter for each hand.
The 12-speed is the 6-speed plus an expensive Swiss 2-speed hub gear in the bottom bracket, operated by kicking the pedal spindle with one foot for up & the other foot for down.
http://www.schlumpf.ch/schlumpf_engl.htm
Not sure how you pedal & steer while using both hands & both feet to change gear - should be interesting to watch.

I am getting the 6-speed, against my better judgement.
It does offer a reasonable 3:1 ratio range, like an 8-speed hub, but sounds anything but convenient to use.
I wrote to Brompton & asked why they don't just fit an 8-speed hub, which is the obvious answer & which lots of forums & even the Wikipedia article suggest.
They say the Shimano hub is too wide for their frame & sent me the address of somebody in Scotland
http://www.kinetics.org.uk/html/8-speed.shtml
who installs 8-speed Sturmey Archer hubs for £200 or sends kits for £300.
I gave up a ordered the 6-speed.

Actually I have ordered it from Brussels as they sell at about UK prices, whereas French & German dealers have more than 200€ extra mark-up.
Fortunately we have kind friends who work in Brussels & have a house in Strasbourg & are willing to do the delivery.
Otherwise it would still have been worth collecting it ourselves from Brussels.

Need to wait a couple of months for delivery, so no comments until then.

Some Brompton-ish sites:
http://www.brompton.co.uk/index.asp
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brompton_Bicycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brompton_Bicycle
http://www.lamaisonduvelo.be/fr/index.html
http://www.foldsoc.co.uk/
http://www.kinetics.org.uk/html/brompton.shtml
http://www.kinetics-online.co.uk/blog/
http://cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog/bikes/brompton-world-championships-photos/
http://weefoldingbike.blogspot.com/

Parting thot: "A bicycle for the mind (Apple computer)" – Steve Jobs

Remember Saddlebags?

Once upon a time, all bikes had saddlebags.

Either little ones, just for puncture outfits with tyre levers, patches, rubber solution, chalk, glass-paper and tiny little rubber tubes for the olden-days tyre valves.
And the bronze, dumbbell, 10-way spanner.
Or big ones for capes, leggings, sou'wester, thermos, ham sandwiches, ferrets or whatever.

When I recently bought my first new bike for decades, it didn't have a saddlebag.
It was only then that I noticed that no bikes have saddlebags now.
Apart from anything else, it is much more difficult to lean your bike against a wall without a big saddlebag.

So I decided to put my perfectly good 40-year-old, canvas-leather-&-wood, H.W. Carradice saddlebag on.
But it's impossible – saddles don't have saddle-bag fixing-loops any more.

I found a rigid plastic box with lid which can fit on a carrier, but it is the wrong shape for the space available under the saddle, so will only fit perched on the back of the carrier where it is unstable & insecure.

I notice most people seem to use rucksacks, so I tried that, but didn't like it at all.
It feels unstable.
Your back & the rucksack get terribly sweaty.
Every time you want anything out of the rucksack, you need to stop, take the rucksack off, hold it with one hand while holding the bike between your knees, take out the, say, camera, put the rucksack back on, take a ,say, photograph, then go through the whole procedure again to put the camera back.

So I tried wearing the rucksack on the front…
Strange looks guaranteed.
It feels more stable though.
Your back stays cool & dry.
Your front does not get sweaty as the rucksack hangs clear, allowing air circulation.
In fact it acts as a welcome windbreak so back & front stay about the same temperature.
Taking a photograph is a simple, quick, one-handed job, as is getting out a map or Mars bar, without stopping if need be.
You can see whether you have left any zips open.

On bumpy going, the straps can tend to slip forwards off your shoulders, so this is one still-open development item.
Any obvious solutions like cross-straps would make fitting & removal a pain, so I don't want that.
I think high-friction rubber pads, like ping-pong-bat rubbers, might be enough.
Bright idea required…

Or a saddle with loops!

Parting thot: "A new idea is often the result of two old ideas meeting for the first time." - AEP advert

Japan: Parking

Well, can you think of a more efficient way to stack boats, with land at Tokyo prices?



As for bikes, well, you start by packing them pretty closely.







Then introduce another layer.









Then stack them in an automated silo - which can go a very long way up & a very long way down.







Parting thot: "You show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder" - Janet Napolitano

World's Worst Invention?

No - actually I was thinking of Bicycle Derailleur Gears!



Of course I understand derailleur gears are the lightest & most efficient way yet discovered for transmitting pedal power with a wide range of gear ratios & a fine-grained separation between available ratios.
They are the ideal solution for racing bikes.

But they are totally unsuitable for cycling's man-in-the-street.
Even more so for man-in-the-street's wife & children.

Especially when they are the usual 27-gear sort, with 3 chainwheels & 9 pinions to manoeuvre.
Especially when man-in-the-street has to try to explain about keeping the chain straight & not using the big wheels with the big pinions or the little wheels with the little pinions.
Especially when you need to explain that you can only change gear when pedalling forwards, so you always need to change gear before you need to change gear…
…Especially before you stop.
Especially when they are controlled by 2 push-pull selectors, where you need to pull the right one to change 'up' with the pinions but push the left one to change 'up' with the chainwheels.
Especially when, to get fine-grained progression, if you change up one chainwheel, you need to simultaneously change down 2 pinions.
Especially when you shouldn't do both simultaneously anyway, according to the instructions.
Especially when, every time you back-pedal, the chain comes off.
Especially when, every time your kid's bike falls over (Oh! They do that?) you have to spend an afternoon trying to straighten brackets & readjust selectors, but it never works quite the same again.
Especially when, whenever you try to ride through long grass, your 27-speed gearbox ties itself into an inextricable oily string ball.

If we had grown up with hub gears & somebody had come along with derailleur gears as his latest & greatest idea, we would have treated him with the derision he deserved.
But it didn't happen like that.

Good hub gears have existed at least since Sturmey Archer's 3-speed patent in 1902!
That 1902 hub gear would not cause raised eyebrows if presented today and looks less of an antique, except for the selector, than any contemporary bicycle, car, aeroplane or domestic appliance.
http://www.sturmey-archerheritage.com/detail.php?id=4

So what happened?
I don't know, but it looks as though the industry, like some sleeping beauty, just went to sleep for a century.
And Prince Charming failed to show up…

Admittedly, by 1938 (…) there was a 4-speed version and the unbeatably ergonomic (for few ratios) finger-flick selector.
Admittedly, rain stopped play for the next 5 or 6 years.
But even so…

My first new bike (Dawes Double Blue) in 1955 had a 4-speed wide ratio (1.90:1 range) hub, which was still "state of the art" half a century after the first patent.
And provided exemplary trouble-free service.
Slick instant shifts any time – from standing still to under load (just click as pedals pass top-dead-center).
Never needed any attention or adjustment (except never-fails, no-tools, 10-second, visual-aided resetting after punctures or chain adjustment).

A 5-speed appeared around 1966 according to Sturmey-Archer History site, but I don't think this was ever very successful. (?)
A 7-speed figured just before the turn of the century & just before production was transferred to Taiwan, but has anybody ever seen one?

Meanwhile, on the 'far' side of the channel, unbeknown to me but detailed on SRAM's website http://www.sram.com/en/about/history.php - Ernst Sachs produced a 2-speed 'Torpedo' hub in 1904 & a 4-speed in 1913 & (under SRAM brand) a 7-speed in 1992.

Out of the blue, in 1996, Rohloff produced their astonishing 14-speed Speedhub, with 5.26:1 range (equivalent to usual 27-speed derailleurs) which is still available today in several versions & would be the answer to any cyclist's prayer but for a slight weight penalty & an insurmountable cost penalty of around 1000£/$/€.
If you can afford one – don't hesitate!
http://www.rohloff.de/en/products/speedhub/index.html
Presumably you need to employ an armed thug to stand by your bike whenever you park it…
Nevertheless, this hub has a deservedly strong following amongst serious trekkers.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, it was left to the Japanese, as usual, to specify, develop & sell a viable more-than-4-speed hub for normal customers.
Shimano, of n-speed derailleur fame, risked shooting themselves in the foot in about 1995 by introducing the Nexus 7-speed hub aimed mainly at town bikes.
I saw them appear gradually in Germany, mainly on old ladies' 30kg shopping bikes.
I vaguely wondered about trying to build one into a light cross-country bike but never got round to it.

Then in 2003, in France (pinch me!) Decathlon offered the visually-challenged "Triban Road 5" bike, which despite its name had the Nexus 7-speed hub in a stripped-down 13 kg bike with solid forks, disc brake, cyclo-cross tyre sizes, no guards & nothing else – just what I was looking for, for my dry-weather, back-roads & not-too-rough-tracks usage.
I promptly bought one for 499.99€ which seemed fair enough & I haven't regretted it.


Except if I had waited another year, they were already on "special offer" for 199€ and were soon withdrawn, as obviously there is no market for out-of-town hub gears in France.
I have never seen another one (the bike) on the road.

Is the hub any good? – yes, unhesitatingly.
Is it perfect? – no.
The 2.44:1 range is not enough for serious hills or paths.
They have a reputation for fragility in heavy use, though mine is still as good as new.

So what now?
Shimano have introduced an 8-speed with 3.05:1 range & nearer bullet-proof durability, though they still warn against using it for "cross country races".
This seems to be the "best buy" today, if you can't afford Rohloff.

SRAM generated a lot of buzz over their upcoming 9-speed i-Motion hub with 3.40:1 range, which I think would be adequate for my needs, but it seems to be hanging at the buzz stage.
Sure, a long time after originally expected, they did get it into production in 2007, but inexplicably only in a ten-ton version with back-pedal brake!
They publicize a lighter freewheel version, but it is still 2.0 kg vs Shimano at 1.5 kg.
Initial reports suggested some quality/fragility concerns, hopefully just teething troubles…
I don't see any unheavy bikes with this hub in shops or on websites.

I suppose I have to wait until, inevitably, Shimano brings out a smaller, lighter 9 or 10-speed competitor and actually gets it into bikes in shops.
Hope I am not too old to enjoy it then.

So why am I beefing about derailleur gears?

Because if nobody had invented derailleur gears, the needs of the marketplace would have forced development of better hub gears many decades ago.
The size of the marketplace would have justified development expenditure.
The volume of production would have reduced costs.
Competition would have reduced prices.
We would all be riding around with cheap, light, reliable 12-speed hubs with 5:1 range.
Nobody would remember the last time a chain came off.
The idea of juggling 2 contradictory shift controls would be laughable.

That's why.
.

.

While we are waiting, here are some hub gear reference sites to look at, with details of even more hubs that have come &, in many cases, gone:
http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=4005
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/hubs-internal.html
http://hubstripping.wordpress.com/


Parting thot: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not more so." – Albert Einstein