| The VeloBase.com History of Sturmey Archer |
The Sturmey-Archer Story
Bicycle internal hub gears like the Sturmey Archer "AW" are based upon the epicyclic gear principle.
In the late 19th century, Frank Bowden, of Raleigh fame, had purchased a bicycle company initially located in Raleigh Street, Nottingham, England and his engineers worked with ideas from Henry Sturmey and James Archer resulting in the first Sturmey-Archer 3-speed bicycle gear hub patent in 1902. This is all described in much more detail in “The Sturmey-Archer Story”, a book by Tony Hadland, from 1987.
From: http://www.sturmey-archerheritage.com/index.php
The early 20th century history of Sturmey Archer is described on Sheldon Brown's web site. Sturmey-Archer hub gears and dynamo hubs were the mainstay of the British three-speed Roadster type bicycles of the 1950s to 1970s.
See: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/sa50/page5.html
In 2001, 99 years after invention of the first Sturmey-Archer gear and 98 after formal establishment of Sturmey-Archer as The Three-Speed Gear Syndicate, the company passed out of British ownership. It entered a new era as a Taiwanese-owned enterprise, with a European base in The Netherlands.
From: http://www.hadland.me.uk/page10.html |
