Friction shifter for 3 speed hub, originally uploaded by antbike.
I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but assumed I’d have to fabricate a special mount for the bar-end shifter. I was thinking I’d mount an inch of handlebar side-on to the tube (big hole on one side for the allen key, small hole across for the bolt).
This is an Ant bike, presumably with a downtube shifter brazed onto the seatstay, but according to Pants Pants’ flickr stream, apparently you just need a longer M5 bolt!
The whole story is here on Pants Pants’ photo (he doesn’t didn’t used to allow bloggeration of his pictures). A closeup picture of the seatstay mounted shifter.
His bike is the impetus for me to finally buy the S3X hub I’ve been talking about for years!
Very clean. What a great idea. I’m looking forward to a full report on that hub.
Hey Bike Tinker, I just changed my Flickr licensing to Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs. So post away, if you want to use a pic.
I think it’s great that you reference that ANT bike. That was the first instance I saw of the shifter being placed there, and it was what put me over the top on trying that hub.
It’s a great hub. I ended up selling that bike and hub to fund another build, but now that I look back at it, I regret that move. I’ve since considered the SR duomatic or Kickback hub for another way to solve that problem of riding fixed with big hills or a heavy load. Anthony of Longleaf Cycles advised against that though. Apparently that 2-speed hub has its direct drive in the lower hill-climbing gear and you experience drag (the downside of any internal gear hub [along with weight]) in your cruising gear. Apparently if you can track down a vintage SR 2-speed kick shift hub, it’s reversed. I’d love to have one, but they’re super rare.
You’ve got some serious eye for simplicity and beauti! Congrats! That’s the most beautiful 3-speed I’ve ever seen.
I just did the same install on my bike,
What did you do to keep the whole shifer assembly from moving instead of just the lever?
Hey Pants Pants – thanks for the posting permission! Matthew at Kogswell, and my friend Kiko who has ridden kickback two-speed road bikes for many years, both say that the direct-drive low gear is the better way. They say when you’re cruising, you have power to spare, but when you’re huffing up something steep, you want every last ounce of oomph.
I can go either way, myself. In theory, I’d prefer the direct drive in the gear I spend 90% of my time in, but my Sachs Automatic is low-direct and it feels great. I don’t notice any drag difference.
I don’t know of any fixed-gear kickback hubs; they’re all freewheeling. The thing I dislike about the Automatic hub is the coaster brake, and was seriously considering the new Sturmey S2, since there’s no brake (the S2C has one).
Ian – I have the same question. I just ordered the S3X with the thumbshifter, and I can’t visualize how the whole shifter won’t turn on the bolt.