Hubstripping site is for sale

The Hubstripping site is a great resource for learning about internal gear hubs, and connecting with people who can actually help you get one back on the road.

It was a great resource for rebuilding the Sachs Automatic I bought on eBay. Through the comments section, I met very helpful people. One fellow had scanned the original maintenance poster and put it on Flickr, and Jens at Scheunenfun.de sold me a replacement driving ring after I broke the original. Where else can you get something like that?

Apparently Marco has moved on to other things, and has put the site up for sale. I hope the new owners maintain and expand it. I wonder how much a site with 15,000 visitors a month goes for?

What is a Torpedo Automatic hub anyway?

Ha.

We’re glad you asked.

Fichtel & Sachs Torpedo Automatic "blue" hub

A Sachs (Fichtel & Sachs, or F&S) Torpedo Automatic is a two-speed internally geared hub. It’s like a Bendix kick-back, but German, and you don’t have to kick back. It changes gears automatically at a preset speed.

At a certain speed, governed by a tiny spring, centrifugal force kicks out two brass “wings” inside the hub, and they engage the overdrive. About halfway across an intersection (7 to 10 mph), the high gear will kick in by itself, and you’ll suddenly be pedaling harder and going faster. It’s pretty perfect.

The hub is incredibly cool, incredibly heavy, and really fun to ride. For me, the only downside is the coaster brake.

The low gear is the direct drive (1:1), which means that when you’re cranking up a hill, you aren’t running through the gears. Everything’s locked together and you aren’t wasting any power on the transmission.

The 1:1 low gear is why Bendix Blue-band kickback hubs are the most desirable ones. The Red and Yellow band Bendix hubs have high-gear as the direct drive. The Sachs hubs are regarded as better-built, more durable, and with a better coaster brake than the Bendix hubs.

Speaking of which, similar hubs are the aforementioned Bendix kickbacks, Sachs Duomatic kick back hubs (like this Automatic, but you backpedal to change gears), and the new Sturmey-Archer (Sunrace) S2C. The SA S2C is the bargain deal, since you can get one for ~$65 brand new, and these Torpedos cost ~$160 shipped from Germany.

As far as I know, the Sachs Automatic is the only two-speed hub ever invented that will shift for you.

Sprockets are the widely available three-notch ones used on Shimano and Sturmey-Archer hub gears for the last million years. New ones run $8-$15, and can be ordered from your local bike shop.

For more information on this, and internal gear hubs in general, visit the Hubstripping site. If you have a Duomatic or Automatic that needs parts, email hansen auf scheunenfun.de. He provided a replacement driving ring for this hub.

Gear ratios for Torpedo 2-speed hubs

Figuring your gears is a little tricky with a two-speed hub that shifts by itself. The low gear is 1:1, the high gear is 1:1.36.

The low gear is direct-drive. There’s no fussing; the gear you calculate on Sheldon’s gear calculator is the actual low gear. It is the 1:1 gear.

The high gear is 36% larger. I plugged in larger cog sizes until I got ones about exactly 36% larger. I just noticed that Sheldon’s calculator will let you add fractional cogs!

I’m a double idiot – I just noticed that Sheldon’s gear calculator lets you choose a “Sachs Duomatic / Automatic” hub in the Internal Gears dropdown. This way is a little easier to read, though.

I have a 19t sprocket, and a 22t sprocket. I also have 39, 40 and 42 tooth chainrings I think might work for this project.

The “high gear equivalent” for the 19t is 13.97 (let’s call it a 14). The “high gear equivalent” for the 22t sprocket is 16.18. Again, 16 is plenty close.

With a 19t cog and a 39t chainring, I get a low gear of 56″ and a high of 76″

39
40
42
19t low
56.1 57.5 60.4
36.0 %
high 76.3 78.2 82.1

With a 22t cog and a 42t ring, I get my ideal setup:  52″ low and 71″ high gear.

39 2.6 % 40 5.0 % 42
22t low 48.4 49.7 52.2
36.0 %
high 65.9 67.5 70.9

The Sachs Torpedo 2-speed gives a slightly wider ratio than my double fixed setups that use a 17/21 Surly dingle cog and a four-tooth chainring difference.

New F&S Driving Ring!

A new driving ring for my Sachs Automatic hub!

Last year I tried to get one of these to replace the one I broke. I contacted Jens Hansen at Scheunenfun.de, and got another ring, but it had 10-knobs, instead of 9. That was the first either of us knew that there were two styles.

So… last week I emailed him again, to see if he’d encountered any 9-knob rings, and he had one. He was also willing to take Paypal, which is 10x cheaper than Moneygrams.

Today the part arrived! I was so excited I went ahead and took the hub internals apart and replaced the broken piece. I’ll put up a post about the process in the next couple of days.

So far it looks good – I’m just checking gear inches.