Sturmey-Archer freewheels?

[3narf]

They are a couple of quid dearer than Dicta ones but are they any better quality, or are they just cheap tat cashing in on a classic British name?

 

[midlife]

Didn't Sunrace buy the Sturmey Archer tooling many years ago?.... Or something along those lines

 

[oldstrath]

Think they are Taiwanese now ( not a criticism!) I've run one for a couple of years without problem, although probably 60% of my mileage is fixed wheel.

 

[gom]

The story as I recal reading it (memory and original source not verified at all) was that some sort of holding company bought SA and proceeded to take money out and pour debt in. The local managers got some sort of court order to save what they could, and Sun Race rescued them, but at the cost of moving all the production equipment to Taiwan. I got my T5 Brompton ~1998 and was quite interested in their gears for a time. Brompton’s change to only 3-speed happened as as result (again my memory only).
Definitely owned by Sun Race though (wiki - so must be true)