What the ? Lancer of japan?

[baldwooky]

Ok so. Spotted the on the local bike pedaler's anonymous listings(craigs)

Immediately saw the shape and 3 speed with suicide shifter. Figured it to be an english racer of some kind with a sturmey archer. Called the guy, who said he thought it was a raliegh lancer. My google skills came up with there actually being a lancer by raleigh, but this sure isn't it.

couple really cool things on this bike. Turns out its made by a Lancer, out of japan. The 3speed is actually a shimano that freewheels(id never seen this before)

Does anyone have any clue on this, approximate age, who made frames for lancer? I cant find any info about this on the web.

Overall a pretty cool score, not sure what i wanna do with it yet.

 

[baldwooky]

pic of bb serial. Doesnt look to follow bridgestone pattern. Appears to have a c i ? On headtube logo badge and sticker and on stamping by #. Concord rebrand? Honestly, after tsking it for a ride after just getting it, i like it more than a nexus 7 or sturmey 3 speed, for the hub and shifter i definately made out.

How early was shimano making internal geared hubs?

 

[deorman]

Free wheeling Shimano w/right side shift is (was) actually the most common type, but not especially sturdy, and hard to fix. Perhaps that's why you haven't seen any. I've seen plenty, usually on department store bikes.

 

[Nagant]

According to info on the Sheldon Brown Shimano page they began manufacturing the 333 hubs in 1957. Scroll a little past half way in the link to the Shimano 333 section.

http://sheldonbrown.com/shimano333.html

I have a 1980's Huffy with a Shimano 3S hub that is a free wheel type hub. The hub has worked very well for me although the bike looks to have seen very little use in its life and I don't use it often.

 

[Bicycle808]

Tsunoda Bicycle, Japan. Best known for building Lotus bicycles.

HTH

 

[mikeeebikey]

I don't feel the 3s is hard to rebuild! It's a great hub, but it's got little tiny gearsets, like any internal hub! They are all delicate pieces, riding(pedaling) within the hubs limits is the problem!
I would have that hub out of that wheel before you could say weinersnitzal!

 

[Bicycle808]

But not before we could spell it properly:
Wiener Schnitzel
The thing about IGHs is, until Rohloff* came along, they were never meant to be rode hard. I know "hard" means a lot of things to different ppl, and most IGHs were meant to lead a hard life in terms of long miles, long intervals between service, and a hard dose of neglect. But, they're not meant for high-torque situations; standing and hammering may lead to hub failure; lower than 2:1 front/rear ratios may lead to failure. Even newer hubs, some of which were designed with competition riding in mind, tend to require 2:1 (Rohloff, Shimano, SRAM, most Sturmey-Archer) or maybe 1.8:1(NuVinci) ratios to prevent the guacamole effect. An exception would be the 8 speed Sturmey, b/c it's got a direct and all overdrive planets beyond that, so there's no gears lower than whatever the direct is.

In short, that Shimano may well run forever if you lube it, keep it in-tune, and ride it the way a Japanese "Sports" knock off is meant to be ridden. If you start doing sprints on it, or run a low ratio (not really a worry; only a fool would try to swap out the front sprocket on your machine...although, TBH, I think I'm foolish enough to try...), you may well blow it up.

-rob

**Yes, I realize that Sturmey-Archer offered close-ratio 3 speeds WBITD for racing applications, but derailers won the whole racing drivetrain battle; the greater range and the improved reliability of the derailer system outweighed the benefits of the IGH, at least as far as races went.