Sturmey Archer hub gears (possible new bike opportunity)

[NbyNW]

So what you are saying is that you can get a bike with a rear internal hub and multiple chainrings up front? I didn't know that. Hmmmm.

Not quite. The multiple chainrings are still mounted on the rear wheel. There is a single chainring up front.

Here is the spec sheet for the current year equivalent of my bike. If you click on the picture of the bike, it will enlarge. You'll see the single ring up front, multiple in back.

Look for a tiny, horizontal black rectangle right where the skewer is sitting in the dropouts, and there is a little barrel adjuster to the right of it. That's the clickbox I mentioned. It's about the size of a matchbox. Basically this is what you get with the SRAM DualDrive instead of a front derailleur. Oh, I just thought of another thing about it, it interferes with panniers on these small-wheeled bikes, but it's only on one side. Again, probably not a factor on a Pashley.

Like I said, I don't know if Sturmey Archer hubs use a clickbox or some other mechanism to get your cables to talk to your hub, but however they do, I know if I were to buy one, I'd ask the salesperson to provide me with at least a rudimentary understanding of how they operate.

Oh, wait. Here's a video that shows you how to adjust a Sturmey Archer hub. This is pretty much the Sturmey Archer equivalent of what I was talking about with the fiddly SRAM clickbox.