parris001

So last year I had purchased for a beach trip a Schwinn Suburban. I liked the bike okay, and the price was good. Everything about the bike appealed to me but when I got to the beach and went to use it I found that I just didn't need 10 speeds and the complexity took away from enjoying the overall experience. I like a good 10 speed. But I got used to Shimano STI on my Gardin road bike so the old friction shifters were too big of a step back for me.


The Schwinn is for sale and this year I'll be heading down to the beach with my Raleigh 3 Speed Sport. I'll admit I wish I had done a little more research before buying the Raleigh. It's a great bike and it promises to do everything I want it to do. But I wasn't aware that there were Taiwan made Raleighs that to the untrained eye looks pretty much like English made Raleighs. So I got an Asian bike. Not the end of the world. Its very well kept. Still has the original front tire on it in almost perfect shape. I don't think this bike was ridden much at all. Slight adjustment to the three speed and it's MINT!


I hated the Viscount seat that came with the bike (looked like a Walmart seat for old ladies with fat butts) so I bought an older vintage Viscount and put it on.


Here's my question: I want to swap out the front sprocket to gear the bike a little bit lower. Third gear is going to be so high it will almost be for downhill only. There may be a way to change the gear sets in the rear hub but I'm not aware. I figured the easiest way would be to swap front sprockets and take a few links out of the chain.


Tell me the best way to go about this

jamesj

Its really easy to swap out the cog on the stormy archer hub. I also used to have a twain made Raleigh it was a really well made bike.

Look here at this thread

markk900

BigChief 

Changing the cog on the Sturmey Archer hub is the way to go. True, you would need a longer chain rather than shorter, but I think in the long run it would be cheaper to use a new chain than swapping out the crank. Here's the type of cog you would need. A dished, three splined 1/8" with your choice of teeth. They call it coaster, but they also work on AW hubs. There's a circlip on the hub you need to pry off with a small screwdriver. Getting it back on is a pest. It's one of those things you just have to fight with until you win. Let us know how it goes.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sturmey-Arc...IAAOSwsZJaWKe1

parris001

Does my Taiwan bike have a Sturmey Archer hub? I was under the impression that the Asian bikes had an inferior rear hub on them. Educate me, please.

dedhed

Most of the commonly seen 3 speed hubs all use the same 3 spline rear cog.

Cute Boy Horse

Okay I'll start

Raleigh is English

BigChief 

Not this one. It's one of these.

Fidbloke

If the rear hub is Sturmey Archer, it should say so on the hub itself.
Since the bike was built in Taiwan, it's possible that you may have a three-speed Shimano hub on the back, but I think they use a similar sprocket fitting as the Sturmey Archers. It slides onto a round hub and has three locating lugs which fit into grooves on that hub. The sprocket is then held in place with a round circlip.
Either way, the first thing you need to do, is to see what you have on your bike. Check what hub you have and see what size rear sprocket you have (how many teeth). Then you can start deciding what bits you need to bring the gearing down.

wahoonc

Well based on the shadow in the picture of the shifter it has the SA hub. Shimano shifters of that era were round and flat.

Aaron