Patent ID: 7846048

Claim:
A multi-speed sprocket assembly for engaging a shifting chain having chain links that are formed by inner links with inner link plates and outer links with outer link plates and having link connections having chain rollers between the chain links with a distance between the axes of immediately consecutive link connections that establishes a chain pitch, the multi-speed sprocket assembly comprising: at least one larger sprocket and at least one smaller sprocket, each having teeth arranged one after the other at a distance corresponding to the chain pitch and single spacewidths formed between consecutive teeth, the two sprockets having at least one common upshift transitional region in which, when the chain is displaced from the smaller sprocket to the larger sprocket for the purpose of shifting gears, the chain leaves the smaller sprocket with a trailing tooth of the smaller sprocket being last to engage between the link plates of a trailing chain link of the chain and running onto the larger sprocket, with a leading tooth of the larger sprocket being one of first to engage between the outer link plates of a leading chain link and being located adjacent to the inner link plates of a leading chain link, at least the larger sprocket having in its upshift transitional region a double spacewidth created by the omission of a tooth, which is immediately followed by the leading tooth, only one chain link crossing from the smaller sprocket to the larger sprocket located between the trailing chain link on the smaller sprocket and the leading chain link on the larger sprocket, the chain roller of the link connection between the crossing chain link and the trailing chain link being located directly across from a rear tooth flank of the trailing tooth of the smaller sprocket, when the leading chain link is an outer link, the leading tooth then being in contact with the inner surface of an outer link plate of the leading chain link and, with its front tooth flank, cooperating with a circumferential surface of an inner link plate of the crossing chain link, when the leading chain link is an inner link, the leading tooth then being in contact with an outer side of an inner link plate of the leading chain link and, with its front tooth flank, cooperating with a circumferential surface of an outer link plate of the crossing chain link, the double spacewidth of the larger sprocket configured such that the crossing chain link contacts the larger sprocket only at the leading tooth.