Sturmey-Archer
Sturmey-Archer is the name of a former British company based in Nottingham that manufactured hubs for bicycles and gearboxes and motors for motorcycles . In the 1990s, the company ran into economic difficulties and had to file for bankruptcy. The Taiwanese company Sunrace took over the name and products of Sturmey-Archer in 2000, and production was relocated from Nottingham to Taiwan.
Company history
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The company's name goes back to James Archer (1854–1920) and Henry Sturmey (1857–1930). Both founded Sturmey-Archer to exploit the invention of the three-speed gear hub by William Reilly (1866–1950). Reilly was unable to apply for a patent for his invention because he was prevented from doing so due to contractual ties with previous clients. Sturmey-Archer did it for him, some time later he was pushed out of the company and he was not paid any royalties for his invention. This gear hub was initially marketed for motorcycles. With the further development of motorcycle technology, conventional transmissions for motorcycles were also produced. Sturmey-Archer transmissions were used by a number of motorcycle manufacturers such as Matchless , Royal Enfield , DKW and Triumph .
In the 1990s, the company ran into economic difficulties and had to file for bankruptcy. The Taiwanese company Sunrace took over the name and products of Sturmey-Archer in 2000, and production was relocated from Nottingham to Taiwan.
Products
Sturmey-Archer has long been the world's largest manufacturer of bicycle hubs. The company was known for its idiosyncratic products, some of which were way ahead of their time. Hub dynamos and accumulators for lighting bicycles were manufactured as early as the 1930s . His gear hubs also showed a considerable range of variations. So three were and four-speed hub gears with different basic translations produced in combination with drum and pedal brakes , and with built-in hub dynamos. By far the most successful three-speed gear hub was the AW model, which was manufactured virtually unchanged for over 70 years.
The three-speed freewheel hubs of the TCW series (TCW Mark I - TCW Mark IV) were unreliable, had construction errors and were replaced in 1988 by the AWC model, which has been built since 1991 in an improved form as the AWC II.
In 1966, the 5-speed S5 gear hub was launched based on a patent that the company had owned since the mid-1920s. Production of the model continued unchanged until 1976 and was not replaced by the S5 / 1 until 1977.
In 1984 the production of hub dynamos was stopped and only resumed in 2006 under the leadership of Sunrace with the model X-FDD (drum brake hub with dynamo).
The first seven-speed gear hub S7 was offered from 1997, but its production was discontinued after three years when the location was relocated to Taiwan. It was not until 2004 that Sunrace replaced this with the introduction of an 8-speed gear hub with an integrated X-RD8 drum brake.
Web links
- Web site Sturmey-Archer (english)
- Sturmey-Archer history (English)
- German paper about Sturmey-Archer engines
- Sunrace website