Sturmey-Archer has manufactured many 4- and 5-speed hub models over the years, and six 7-speed models. Another article on this site covers topics common to many Sturmey-Archer hubs. Please read that article to learn about

• Cable replacement
• Cable adjustment
• Cone Adjustment
• Anti-rotation washers
• Axle length
• Lubrication

There are also articles on this site covering

• Internal-gear hubs, in general
• Sturmey-Archer hub models
• Disassembly of Sturmey-Archer hubs
• Special alignment and adjustment (Sturmey-Archer Dynohubs, hub brakes, shifter parts)
• Use and maintenance of Sturmey-Archer hubs
• Parts and names (older Sturmey-Archer hubs)
• Sturmey-Archer corporate history
• Sturmey-Archer date and model identification

Except for a 4-speed new as of 2015 and about which no information is as yet available, Sturmey-Archer 4-, 5- and 7-speed hubs all are of a similar basic design using compound planetary gearing. They have two or three sun gears, and only one of them is locked to the axle at any time. The planet gears are stepped gears (two or three gears of different sizes, side by side, in a single piece so they all turn at the same rate). The large end of the planet gears engages the small sun gear, and the small end of the planet gears (middle section on the 7-speeds) engages another, larger sun gear and the gear ring. These hubs have a middle, direct drive ratio, and a choice of wider or narrower ranges depending on which sun gear is locked to the axle.

These hubs have a "neutral" position when shifting the sun gears, because engaging two sun gears at a time would cause the hub to lock up. A sluggish or misadjusted shifter cable can allow the hub to freewheel or lurch forward. The older hubs also have a "neutral" between direct drive and the higher gears.

These hubs work best if the second-highest gear is the level-ground gear, around 70 gear inches (5.2 gain ratio, 5.5 meters development) The top gear is used for downhill and downwind riding. With a 7-speed. you might want to set the gear range a bit higher, as the steps between gears are smaller. If the terrain is all up and down, you might want to set the gear range lower. There is more detailed information on sprockets and on setting the gear range on another page.

Sturmey-Archer introduced a series of 4-speed hubs in 2015. These hubs are not yet widely available in the USA. Product page for the 4-speed hubs.

Ratios for these hubs are

As the lowest ratio is 1:1, these hubs are especially suitable for small-wheel bicycles. The 4-speed hubs use common 3-lug sprockets.

Sturmey-Archer introduced a new series of rotary-shifting 5-speed hubs as of late 2013; overall range 244%. Product page for the current 5-speed hubs:

Ratios for these hubs are:

Note: the rotary-shifting 5-speed hubs take a sprocket with 6 lugs and a 50mm center hole, not the same as for most other internal-gear hubs. Fittings, 5-speed rotary-shifting hubs

Sturmey-Archer's previous 5-speed hubs, with model names ending in (W) for "wide", use the common 3-lug sprocket, shift with a pullchain and have a wider range, as follows:

The steps between the three middle gears of the (W) hubs are the same as for Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs. The outer steps are narrower than the inner ones. That is desirable so that the step from the fourth gear to the top gear is not too large, but it reduces the step at the lower end of the range, not so desirable.

The SL-S50 shifter for the (W) hubs (black bezel) can overshift on downshifts and stick between gears, and wears, leading to slippage in 2nd and 4th gears. The newer version with a spot on the bezel has reduced backlash. The sun-gear selector key inside the hub can wear, also leading to trouble with shifting. The screw which holds the selector-key spring in place needs to be secured with threadlock compound, or it may come out of the axle.

The table below includes links to technical information about these hubs, from the Sturmey-Archer Web site's listing of hubs, Sturmey-Archer catalogs, and a Web search. Rows in green are for hubs listed in the 2017 catalog. All except the tricycle and quadracycle hubs have rotary shifting. Rows in white are for hubs no longer listed.

Model codes for hubs made in 1991 and later follow the pattern X-RD5, where the initial letter indicates the type of hub, R indicates rear, D a drum brake and 5 the number of gears.

Now we move back earlier in time -- 1991-2009 hubs had ratios as in the table below:

The 1991-2009 hubs were never very common, are no longer sold and can be tricky or impossible to repair, due to parts un-availability. But who knows, you might have a couple of these lying around so you can cannibalize and keep one going.

The first of these hubs was the "5-Star" (5-Speed Sturmey-Archer), introduced in 1991. The 5-Star had cantilevered planet-gear axles, that is, the axles were supported at only one end, a Bad Idea. These hubs were shifted by dual pullchains: the one on the right for high, middle and low, and the one on the left for a wider and narrower range.

"Sprinter" hubs, introduced in 1993, had single-cable control and a sturdier planet cage.

Later versions of single-cable 5-speed hubs, sometimes called the Summit series, included a patented "ball locking" mechanism for the sun gears. Some of these hubs continued to be made, or sold out of remaining inventory, until SunRace/Sturmey Archer rolled out a new wide-range series of 5-speed hubs in 2009. The hub really needed 7mm or more of cable travel for the 1-2 and 4-5 shifts, but the plastic trigger shifter provided with these hubs provides only 6.5mm of travel for these shifts. The ball-locking mechanism was reportedly unreliable in the 7-speed hubs. Please also see comments on the 7-speed ball-locking hubs below, which probably also apply to the 5-speed hubs.

These hubs were supplied with an aluminum alloy shell, unless steel is indicated in the table below.

The hubs are listed in order of the year they were introduced.

Now we go even deeper into the past. The FM medium-ratio four speed hub was introduced in 1939, and the FW wide-ratio four-speed hub, in 1945. It had all but the top gear shown (in gray) in the table below thisi paragraph. Additional four-speed hubs were added in the late 1940s. In 1967, Sturmey-Archer began making the S5 hub, which offered all 5 gears and was an easy upgrade from the FW.

This site now hosts Sutherland's Handbook of Coaster Brake and Internal Gear Hubs, with excellent rebuilding information on most of the hubs in this series. Italicized items in the table below are on this site. Other information linked below is mostly from the Sturmey-Archer Heritage site and Tony Hadland's Web site.

The hubs in the table below are listed in order of the year they were introduced.

The FW four-speed hub used the wide-range sun-gear setting to provide only a "super low" gear. The shift from normal "low" to "super low" ("2" to "1") required a very strong pull on the gear cable to overcome the spring that controlled the sun gears. This hub used a two-part indicator spindle whose adjustment is described here.

The right side of this hub was identical to that of the AW hub, and the internals would fit into an AW shell. The planet cage and axle assemblies were different.

Generator and drum-brake versions followed in 1946 and 1949. They used a narrower planet cage and plunger-type low-gear pawls, to make room for the generator or brake.

Many cyclists converted the FW four-speed into a five-speed by adding a separate shifter for the sun gears. This was a hot ticket for a club-riding bicycle, back around 1950.

Sturmey-Archer also made other four-speed hubs with narrower ratios, to appeal to club cyclists and racers. You may read more about them on Tony Hadland's site and the Sturmey-Archer Heritage site, and in John Allen's documentation of gear ratios. John Forester's writeup about these hubs is now on this site.

The S5 5-speed hub worked like the converted FW hubs. Most of the internal parts were the same as for the FW, and the right side including the gear ring remained the same as for the AW. The S5 used two cables:

• The one on the right side worked as for a normal 3-speed.
• The second cable on the left side shifted the sun pinions.

The original 5-speed hubs used a bellcrank to push a rod inward to accomplish the sun-pinion shift.

Best type of Sturmey-Archer bellcrank, with 2 7/16" stock pushrod

The S5 was sold with three different types of bellcrank, reminiscent of the story of the Three Little Pigs. One type of bellcrank was made partly of plastic and failed quickly. A second type used a flimsy steel stamping, and bent easily. Only the sturdy, forged type with internal threads is reliable, but it is rare. I've had some success modifying Shimano bellcranks to fit. I did this by re-threading them to fit the Sturmey-Archer axle. Taps for this purpose are not readily available, so I made a tap out of an old axle.

The bellcrank had to face forward to connect with the cable, and so it could not be tightened to secure the axle in the dropout. A separate axle nut was needed. The bellcrank works best with a 6 1/4" axle. Grinding a recess in the side of the axle to secure the Shimano bellcrank's grub screw and drilling out that bellcrank to fit over the threads also might work. A bellcrank could be fabricated from the flared axle nut used with a Sturmey-Archer indicator spindle. With the bellcrank, the S5 was reliable and a fine choice for urban cycling. I [John Allen] still use an S5 hub, and you may be lucky enough to find one in an old wheel.

5 3/4" and 6" axles also were sold, but they are not long enough when used with the good bellcrank if there is any spacing washer under the left-side locknut. The 6" axle is longer only on the right side. A pushrod for the good bellcrank can be made from a ten-penny nail by cutting it to 2 15/16" long (or 2 11/16" for the shorter axles) and grinding down its head to fit inside the bellcrank.

With these hubs, as already mentioned, there is a "neutral" gear between engagement of the sun gears as well as the one between middle and top ranges.Unlike recent hubs -- and like the old version of the AW 3-speed -- all of the 4-speed and 5-speed hubs in this series could "walk" out of high gear position into the intermediate (neutral) gear during a hard sprint -- see comments by Jobst Brandt. The more common cause of gear disengagement, though, was misadjustment of a shifter cable.

The weak point of the 2-cable 5-speed hubs was the shift control units. The S5 required a taut cable to prevent the primary sun gear from disengaging from the axle in first gear. Sturmey-Archer went through a number of top-tube mounted shift levers, which were never very satisfactory mechanically. The left-side cable needed to be very carefully adjusted, and the actual mechanics of the click stops in the two-lever controls were too weak, so they were quite unreliable, even though there was no real problem with the hubs.

Also, unsophisticated cyclists had trouble mastering the shift sequence of the two separate levers. It could also be confusing that the S5 must be pedaled forward at more than first-gear speed when shifting from second to first.

Later 2-cable versions reversed the spring loading on the sun gears, and used a conventional indicator spindle/chain to shift thms. The first of these versions, the S5/1, would not reliably stay in gear. The last version of the S5 hub, the S5/2 II, was also sold as the S5 Alloy and with a drum brake as the AT5. It was reliable, and it would shift into all gears without pedaling forward, but the problem with the shifters remained.

Sturmey-Archer eventually made a large and very complicated single-trigger control that would operate the two cables, but it was also very temperamental and required a lot of force to operate. The best control arrangement for a 2-cable 5-speed hub is a standard 3-speed trigger for the right cable, and a friction-type derailer shift lever for the left cable. The use of the friction shifter on the left gets around the problem of critical adjustment of the left cable, since you just pull it until it stops.

[I use a trigger on the left, in the 2nd and 3rd gear positions. Its latching in the 2nd gear position holds the cable taut. The cable does need adjusting occasionally. I have used the original S5, and the S5/2 II, each for years, and had no problems with them except when the cable is misadjusted -- John Allen.]

Newer 5-speeds (described earlier in this article) use a single cable, and rather different internals.

Around 1995, Sturmey-Archer introduced three models of "Sprinter 7" 7-speed hubs -- brakeless, or with a drum brake or coaster brake. These were the first production Sturmey-Archer hubs with rotary shifting (Pulley concentric with the axle). These hubsare relatively rare. Ratios were as follows:

Information below is from the Sturmey-Archer Heritage site and Tony Hadland's Web site.

7-speed hubs were also produced in the "Summit" series, with a ball locking mechanism for the sun gears, under different model numbers, in 1999 and 2000. The 7-speed hubs did not remain in production after Sturmey-Archer's move to Taiwan.

These hubs were installed on some Moulton bicycles, and may have been reliable enough with the low-torque conditions of a small-wheel bicycle, but a cyclist who used them for heavier service in a hilly city reports:

The Sturmey-Archer official site has some information on newer hubs not included here. The Sturmey-Archer Heritage Web site has a wealth of historical and technical information, very helpful for older hubs not covered on this site. Tony Hadland's Web site includes an exploded drawing and parts list for nearly every Sturmey-Archer hub ever made up through the 1980s, as well as rebuilding information for many older hubs. The service manuals include general information (such as how to replace pawls) not covered in the rebuilding information for individual hubs.