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Theft was how I lost my Sears Automatic Five as a kid. Riding it was kinda/sorta like driving a car with an automatic transmission.
It had a 5 speed external rear gear cluster, changing gears manually with a conventional selector lever, on a Shimano internal automatic 2 speed (direct and overdrive) hub. As the bike was ridden, an internal sensor changed the freewheel from direct to overdrive. There was a speed selector dial on the spoke protector, with five sensitivity positions, adjusted by turning the protector plate. That provided a range of RPMs over which to set the 2 speed hub to change automatically. The 5 speed rear gear cluster in conjunction with the automatic 2 speed hub gave 10 different gear ratios with a single chain wheel. On the cap in the center of the rear gear cluster, where the axle came through, it said "Automatic Five." Losing that came as a hard blow at the time.
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