Sturmey Drum Brakes

[swizz69]

Has anyone considered using Sturmey Archer drum brakes? (as fitted to Windcheetah & ICE trikes)

Just been browsing ICEs website where they list a pair of drum brake front wheels for $127. This includes tyres too, though I am only presuming that the drum brakes come complete - would have thought so though as they form the hub.

I'm not from the US so am unfamiliar with prices over your side of the pond, but having read of $50 for the formula hubs, if buying new bits then adding the discs/calipers/rims/spokes/tyres then $127 sounds not's'bad :thinking:

[trikeman]

I've considered using them, but never have. Looking at ICE's price sheet it is not clear to me whether they would sell just the brakes and wheels for that price, since it is under a section that talks about being purchased with a new frame set. For a full wheel with tires that is a good price. The site below offers just the brakes and hubs for that price:

http://www.gottrikes.com/parts.htm

[TheKid]

I have SA drum brakes on my tadpole. I like them a lot. If that price of $127 is correct, it's a fantastic deal. The hubs alone, with 10mm axles, go for $50-$70 each. The gottrikes site trikeman posted also has a good price for the hubs alone, which are set up for left and right sides, and come with 12mm axles. I'm using very hard 12mm axles with my wheels, and have not had a problem, despite weighing 250 lbs.

[kevinp]

I read this as the price as well BUT if you carry on down their price list you will see the complete wheels listed again for £107.00 or $176.00 each. I also thought the first price was pretty good and was about to order until I spotted the other price.

[25hz]

I wasn't using the SA drum hubs before because I couldn't get them at what I considered a reasonable price compared to disc hub, and definitely way more than BMX wheels with rim brakes.

After some experimenting and design changes or evolution, I picked up 4 for my next project (1 rear and 3 fronts). The biggest thing that helped make up my mind was the incredible bearings they come with. They are . . . magnificent, especially considering the cost of high grade sealed or even low grade ceramics. The other thing is, for 20mm disc hubs (which can also have fairly nice bearings) the SA drums are no more expensive, (sometimes cheaper) than a combination of a disc hub plus caliper. Also, if one is lucky enough to have a good supplier, SA has a MASSIVE amount of hub options and cool little gizmos and gadgets. They also have 3 and 5 speed hubs with reverse - which adds some handy options as well.

More to the point though, SA has a number of drum hubs that come with 70 or 90mm hubs, and they come with 10mm or 12mm axles. The drum dia is pretty much immaterial, but the bearing size might be/could be. The 12mm axle version is for single side and/or wheel chair use and those are the ones that the trikes and velomobiles use. The ones I've got are 10mm and I'm going to try them with grade 8.8 10mm axles first because I think that will be strong enough. To convert the 10mm IDs to 12mm bearings, the hubs need to be bored out a couple mm to accept the larger ID bearings - which is a pain. If the 10mm axles end up bending, then I can always drill out the axle housings on the trike, and then machine the hubs go the 12mm route after the fact. The 10mm axles aren't even going to see 80lbs each, and I don't hotrod over rough ground/bumps/railroad cracks, so I'm thinking the 10mm bearings should be fine.

[TheKid]

Something I didn't mention was the levers. I noticed that when using cantilever levers, it's harder to stop the bike and I have to pull really hard. I switched to levers for caliper brakes, and it made a world of difference. I noticed the caliper brake levers also seem to work better with disc brakes.