Originally Posted by
noglider
Oh, I forgot to post my other fixie. This is a 1975 Viscount that started out as a ten-speed. For a while, I had the Sturmey Archer 3-speed fixed gear hub. That was fun but not all that useful. Now it's a regular one-speed fixie. I'm thinking of converting it to SSFW to make commutes easier.
The handlebar end facing you is is a brass bell.
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Nice bike. I had a Viscount back in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
A Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub is a great thing if set up correctly. The middle gear is direct drive so no additional friction losses. Top gear is middle plus 33% for powering down hill, and bottom gear is middle less 25% for winching up the steeper hills. That means you can ride single speed in middle gear most of the time, but you have options on the hills.
Unfortunately, this ancient wisdom was lost many years ago, and many are set up with the wrong gear range, meaning that you spend most of the time in top, losing efficiency through the planetary gears.