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Hub gear

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Hub gear systems generally have a long and largely maintenance-free life though some are not suitable for high-stress use in competitions or hilly, off-road conditions. Many commuter or urban cycles such as European city bikes are now commonly fitted with 7-speed gear-hubs and 8-speed systems are becoming increasingly available. Older or less costly utility bicycles often use 3-speed gear-hubs, such as in bicycle sharing systems. Many folding bicycles use 3-speed gear-hubs. Modern developments with up to 18 gear ratios are available.

History

Before epicyclic gears were used in bicycle hubs, they were used on tricycles. Patents for epicyclic hubs date from the mid-1880s. The first patent for a compact epicyclic hub gear was granted in 1895 to the American machinist Seward Thomas Johnson of Noblesville, Indiana, U.S.A. This was a 2-speed but was not commercially successful.

In 1896, William Reilly of Salford, England patented a 2-speed hub which went into production in 1898 as 'The Hub'. It was a great success, remaining in production for a decade. It rapidly established the practicality of compact epicyclic hub gears.

By 1902, Reilly had designed a 3-speed hub gear. He parted company with the manufacturer of 'The Hub' but had signed away to them the intellectual rights to his future gear designs. To circumvent this problem, the patents for Reilly's 3-speed were obtained in the name of his colleague, James Archer. Meanwhile, well-known English journalist and inventor Henry Sturmey had also invented a 3-speed hub. In 1903, Frank Bowden, head of the Raleigh Bicycle Company, formed The Three-Speed Gear Syndicate, having obtained the rights to both the Reilly/Archer and Sturmey 3-speeds. Reilly's hub went into production as the first Sturmey Archer 3-speed.

In 1902, Mikael Pedersen (who also produced the Dursley Pedersen bicycle) patented a 3-speed hub gear and this was produced in 1903. This was said to be based on the "counter shaft" principle but was arguably an unusual epicyclic gear, in which a second sun was used in place of a ring gear. In 1904 the Fichtel & Sachs company (Germany, Schweinfurt) produced a hub gear under license to Wanderer, and by 1909, there were 14 different 3-speed hub gears on the British market.

By the 1930s, hub gears were used on bicycles all over the world. They were particularly popular in the UK, the Netherlands, the German-speaking countries and Scandinavia. Since the 1970s, they have become much less common in English-speaking countries, but in many parts of northern Europe, where bicycles are regularly used as daily transport rather than merely for sport or leisure, hub gears are still widely used. The cheaper and stronger (but less reliable) derailleur systems, which offer a wider gear range, have now started to appear.

By 1987, Sturmey-Archer made only 3- and 5-speed hubs, and Fichtel & Sachs and Shimano made only 2- and 3-speed hubs. In that year, the first book (apart from service manuals) for some 80 years dealing solely with epicyclic bicycle gears was published. Since then, there has been a slow but steady increase in interest in hub gears, reflected in the wider range of products now available.

In 1995, Sachs introduced the Elan, the first hub gear with 12 speeds, and an overall range of 339%. Three years later, Rohloff came out with the Speedhub 500/14, a gear hub with 14 speeds and a range of 526%, comparable to that of a 27 speed derailleur gear system, and also sufficiently robust and lightweight for mountain biking. In 2007, NuVinci started manufacturing continuously variable transmission ("stepless") ∞-speed hubs for commuter bicycles, with an increasing range of about 380% (2016).

As of 2008, Sturmey-Archer makes 3-, 5- and 8-speed hubs, SRAM (successor to Fichtel & Sachs) make 3-, 5-, 7- and 9-speeds and Shimano make 3-, 7- and 8-speeds. In February 2010, Shimano announced the introduction of the Shimano Alfine 700, an 11-speed model.

Though most hub gear systems use one rear sprocket, SRAM's Dual Drive system combines an epicyclic hub with a multi-speed rear derailleur system to provide a wide-ranging drivetrain concentrated at the rear wheel. In 2010, Canyon presented the 1.442-concept, a hybrid hub which uses a similar epicyclical/derailleur combination.

Brompton Bicycle have their own design, with a two-speed derailleur coupled to a special three-speed wide-ratio Sturmey-Archer hub, the "BWR" (Brompton Wide Ratio). The system is useful for folding bicycles (where a multiple front chainset could foul the bike's folding mechanism), in recumbent bicycles, and cargo bikes (where small wheels and/or increased weight require a wider range of gears with smaller steps). Hub gears have in the past also been used on motorcycles, although this is now rare.

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