Pushing hard against the pedals puts a tremendous amount of force on that tensioner. I guess if you only brake gingerly with the coaster hub you might be fine but I’m pretty confident it will get mangled if you stomp the pedals.
Intuitively I’d say a sprung tensioner would be better than a fixed one. It would only flop around instead of breaking. My first choice would be a magic gear for sure.
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Funny I just picked up a (used, already built into a wheel) Sturmey-Archer S2C, which is 2-speed kickback with coaster brake.
Word on the street is the early ones had a manufacturing issues, and that in general it’s a good idea to open them up, make sure there isn’t any metal floating around in the grease, clean, regrease, check pawl tension.
So that’s what I’m going to do, and I’d imagine it wouldn’t hurt with your SRAM one either.
Definitely not using a tensioner, but mine will be the only brake on the bike.
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Cheers. Yeah i did a bit of research on them about 10 years ago, the various types, but couldnt justify the cost. For 50$ NOS it was too good to pass on. The sturmey archer always sounded like real fun.
I have a bin of random Sturmey Archer small parts in the cabinet of small parts I got when Harris Cyclery closed. Let me know if you need anything for your rehab project.
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