Wartung von Sturmey-Archer Vier-, Fünf- und Sieben-Gang-Naben: Unterschied zwischen den Versionen

Unlike recent hubs -- and like the old version of the AW 3-speed -- all of the 4-speed and 5-speed hubs in this series could "walk" out of high gear position into the intermediate (neutral) gear during a hard sprint -- see comments by Jobst Brandt. The more common cause of gear disengagement, though, was misadjustment of a shifter cable. With these hubs, there is a "neutral" gear between engagement of the sun gears as well as the one between middle and top ranges.

The weak point of the 2-cable 5-speed hubs was the shift control units. The S5 required a taut cable to prevent the primary sun gear from disengaging from the axle in first gear. Sturmey-Archer went through a number of top-tube mounted shift levers, which were never very satisfactory mechanically. The left-side cable needed to be very carefully adjusted, and the actual mechanics of the click stops in the two-lever controls were too weak, so they were quite unreliable, even though there was no real problem with the hubs.