| Country: | England | Primary Focus: | Hubs / Shifters |
| Years of Operation: | 1902 - Current |
| Best known for the internal geared (planetary gearing) hub, Sturmey Archer is another one of the most recognized brands in cycling. The company has been bought and sold several times since it's origins, and at some time was owned by the same parent company as both Brooks and Raleigh. The company is still in business (well, the name is still in use anyways), and there are still internal geared hubs produced today with the Sturmey Archer name. |
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 |
| Photo Selection from Recently Updated Items |
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| Additional Resources |
| Catalog Name | Source | File Size | Date Added |
| 1959 Strumey Archer Catalog Part 1 | VeloBase | 16,123kB | 7/11/2011 |
| 1959 Sturmey Archer - Price List & Service Docs | VeloBase | 10,307kB | 7/21/2011 |
| Sturmey Archer Hubs - 1980's | VeloBase | 24,043kB | 8/9/2011 |
| Resource Link | Category | Details | |
| Sturmey Archer Heritage | Brand Specific Websites | Amazing list of documents and history of S.A. hubs. |
