The Helicomatic Hub

Nice idea, didn’t work...

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Bicycle component design tends to work by evolution not revolution. Early fixed rear sprockets were screwed onto a threaded hub, and when the first freewheels arrived at the back end of the 19th century they used the same mounting. The 1920s brought two and then three-speed versions, squeezed in by extending the axle on one side and having a dished wheel rather than symmetrical. All well and good, but as three became four, five, and six, problems began to appear. The drive-side wheel bearing was now a long way inboard of the end of the axle — not ideal from an engineering point of view. The freewheel body became disproportionately heavy. It wasn’t easy to customise ratios without specia