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I used to compete in 26" wheel cycle trials and hub pick-up was absolutely paramount. Shimano used to sell a zero pick up hub which was also quiet called Silent Hub. It was about a third up their group set range and pretty cheap. I don't know why they discontinued it but it was amazing! I later went from Magura rim brakes to Hope disc brakes and started using Hope hubs. The pick up (engagement) was very good on Hope hubs but coming from the Shimano Silent Clutch hub I could still feel a difference. This was around 1998. Now, I have a Kona mountain bike which has a just below mid range groupset, and the hub engagement pains me, especially over hard bumpy ground where I have to keep picking up the slack before I put drive down. An upgrade is needed! Thanks.
The creator of this video is incorrect and outdated. Yo Cecil is right. This is not new. Was running in the 1990s. Shimano's 1990's LX RO-80 "silent clutch" hub was perhaps the most successful roller clutch cassette hub to date. It was heavy by today's standards (over 500g) but the roller clutch withstood significant casual use. Trials riders liked the "instant" engagement enough to make it worth replacing the roller clutch portion every few months. Unfortunately, Shimano stopped selling replacement roller clutches, and the "silent clutch" uses a different spline than other cassette bodies, so a damaged silent clutch cannot be replaced with a conventional ratchet. pardo.net/bike/pic/mobi/d.winners-hub/index.html I still have one. After 27 years of hard daily riding, it is still perfect. These hubs are extremely strong, totally silent, instant and resistant to jamming. Side not, also perform in below freezing conditions. We are re-discovering old tech.
This is not real life situation. In real life, the ratchet teeth in the hub will rotate together with the rear wheel. So it is just a roulette, there are chances the engagement can be fast or quick depending on teeth positions is nearest or furthest to the pawls respectively. For instance, a DT Swiss 18 teeth still can achieve fast engagement when the 2 pieces of the star ratchets are only less than 0.1mm to meet and interlock each other after freewheeling and before starting pedaling. This applies to conventional pawls and teeth systems. So, engagement is just like a roulette depending on which positions are they right now. Then the pawls and ratchet interlock together forever if you pedal forever and there will be no loss. WHEN you are freewheeling and then you start pedaling, it depends on the pawls and ratchet how soon they interlock again. It can be less than 0.001s or takes about 0.005s depends on their meeting positions while the rear hub/rear rim/wheel rotate like a roulette and the stationary freehub body waiting for the rouletting rear hub to meet at various positions.
This is entirely pointless. "Losing power" before engagement does not lose you any power, you're just spinning on empty. It also takes a fraction of a second to engage, and when it does engage, the power you used to spin your legs up goes into the drivetrain and contributes to the acceleration. The only situation where quick-engage freewheels make a sense is trial or acrobatics, and this is all about control, not about friction or power. The pawl system is being used for decades because it is actually a highly efficient system. It produces very little drag (the drag comes from inappropriate bearings, seals or too much grease). The drag they are producing is absolutely negligeable compared to all other drag component in any situation you might be coasting in.These slip-clutch systems are fine when you're demonstrating them using your hands, but they are either limited in the amount of power they can transmit, or they are heavy, and/or they are just too big. Plus they are unproven and might slip or fail exactly when you need all the power you can generate. So whatever marginal gain you might be getting with these things (and I doubt you are getting any at all, rather the opposite seems to be the case), it's all for nothing when you sprint to the finish and the freewheel fails. The pawl system has been in use for 100 years or so, it is as simple as it gets, and it is pretty much bombproof. Use light oil to lubricate it, don't screw up the bearings, assemble it properly, and it. Will. Just. Work. Any money you pay extra for these things over the standard hubs is simply a total waste.
@Pr a loss is when you are generating power which does not go into achieving the desired goal. Since you are not generating power (not much of it anyway) while rotating your cranks before the freehub engages, there can be no power loss during this period. The (little) power you put into spinning your legs up gets stored in the kinetic energy of your legs and propels you forward once the freehub engages. What you mean is probably that you are without power before the freehub engages. Do you think this matters? An absolutely tiny amount of travel and time are necessary for this. The only time I notice any delay whatsoever is at high speeds and cadences - above 70km/h and 130 rpm - and that's due to the speed and requirement for high cadence, a quick-engage hub would help very little. When climbing, which is of necessity at low speed, the engagement is virtually instantaneous. Also, a hub which has, say, 4cm of pedal travel between engagement points and engages after 100 milliseconds at most,does not engage after 4cm and 100ms, it does so on average after 2cm of travel and 50ms. On the whole, all this makes no difference whatsoever, it makes you no faster. Quick-engage hubs are a thing, but as I said, they are useful only for trialists and bike acrobats, which need immediate engagement for purposes of control, not efficiency.
+Pr well, I have climbed 130,000 Metres this year, so I don't exactly think I need to have the physics of climbing explained to me. When I'm climbing my freehub is constantly engaged, as it should be. I think what you mean is climbing out of the saddle and having a powerful stroke propel you faster so that the freehub disengages. If this is what you mean, I'm afraid I have to inform you that you're doing it wrong. When climbing out of the saddle the freehub should NOT disengage. This is a matter of technique. You mustn't stomp on the pedals, you need to support more of your weight on the handlebars (especially if you're a heavy rider like me) and apply backpressure on the pedal upstroke, just enough to keep the freehub constantly engaged. It took me quite a while to learn how to do this properly (and I'm still not done). Even in this situation, you are not "losing" power, you're just unable to apply it during a part of your pedal stroke. Trying to fix this with a quick-engage hub is the wrong solution, you need to work on your technique.
+Pr why are you assuming I'm not riding steep hills? I already told you I have climbed hundred and thirty thousand metres of elevation this year, how do you imagine I did that, by riding in the flat? I rode the Großglockner Hochalpenstraße recently, that's in large parts 12% grade with some flatter spots in between, I rode the Stelvio twice, and I ride local climbs with grades of up to 22%. I ride a climb of at least 8% daily on my way to work, and I sometimes ride one with 14%, just for the fun of it. I know what I'm talking about, trust me. Or at least extend me the basic courtesy of not always assuming I "don't understand". A sinusoidal form means that the value changes from positive to equal negative value. In order to be in "sinusoidal form" the torque would need to go negative half of the time. It doesn't. What it does is that it rises and falls slightly depending on the crank angle. The smoother your pedalling, the flatter it gets. Trust me: if your freewheel disengages and engages constantly while you are climbing, in or out of saddle, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. Or don't trust me and go research it yourself, you'll find I was correct. If instead of always arguing for your misconception you tried to listen, you might actually learn something.
Ok, note this: whenever you are pedalling - uphill or in the flat, in the saddle or standing up, the FREEHUB SHOULD NOT BE ENGAGING/DISENGAGING. If it does, you're doing it wrong. The only time where the freehub may disengage is when you DELIBERATELY stop pedalling for a while. Other than that, whenever you are pedalling, you must pedal so smoothly that the freehub is in constant engagement. You need to: 1) not stomp on the pedals when pressing them down, but control your power; 2) shift into a higher gear so you have more resistance to your more powerful pedal stroke; 3) Support a part of your weight on the handlebars so you don't have to stomp on the pedals to keep yourself up, and 4) provide some backpressure on the upstroke of the pedal so prevent the pedals from turning too quickly. Perhaps watch this video for a better illustration of what you need to do: th-cam.com/video/hTkrnNr39dk/w-d-xo.html What you are describing seems like the mistake most people make in the beginning. You need quite a bit of practice to learn how to do it, primarily because it is somewhat counterintuitive: you must hold back your power exactly when doing something precisely for the purpose of enabling you to produce more power.
I think having too short of a delay in engagement will actually make your acceleration slower in certain situations. I think having a bit of free travel before the engagement let's you gather some power before it's transferred. starting with an instantly engaged freewheel will take more time for you to 'lift off'. might also be a bit uncomfortable (although maybe you could just get used to it).
Valuable thoughts, thanks a lot. On my opinion, one essential thing is missing in this "engagement speed" material. Ex. 52 points of engagement requires 3,5 deg of travel to engage only while bike is standing still. Depending on bike speed, chosen gear ratio and cadence engagement travel is much larger when riding because hub must catch rotating wheel. For instance with 52 points hub on speed 40 kph and gear ratio 3.2 it takes ~65 deg for hub to engage and ~20 deg for cranks. I think this is main reason to have more engagement points on hub.
That's fascinating. The momentum of the engagement does carry through into the movement of the hub. the ideal angle of power transfer on the bike is fairly crucial too, because the pedal should be far from vertical, hope that version gets very well produced and compared because it's kinda cool. I'm all for simplicity, safety, power, reliability, and easy of maintenance. they are my priorities on a bike.
Technically the power is not lost, it's just applied with latency. You've probably imagined time as x-axis, and have had a plan/goal (road topography) in mind as something like "must accelerate at (absolute) time t_1 to t_2". Then yes, in that interval the power would be lost indeed because the topography would've changed and delayed application were pointless (descent, or blocked by other riders).
It's funny and interesting to watch 5 years later. Just installed an i9 Hydra hub that has 690 points of engagement :O .. And nowadays DT swiss has a 52T rachet upgrade for their hubs as well, after a 36T rachet kit
They're just not worth it. If you're coasting, you're probably not trying to go fast (unless in aero tuck on long straight descent). And the engagement delay is effectively much reduced by the bikes gearing. People should stop wasting their time on these hubs in my opinion!
What about turning? Or going down a hill steep enough you can't pedal anyways. Not pedaling isn't the same as braking and unless you are braking you aren't really trying to slow down.
You ever race? You squeeze ever inch you can coast when tucked in behind other riders. It is a brilliant idea to have zero friction when coasting, and there have been many complaints over the years about loud nosy rear hubs when free wheeling. I love to have a zero ratchet friction hub.
The other alternates out there (same problem described) is replacing the pawls with a roller clutch instead. Then a cammed part in the middle wedges the roller against the outer hub when the pedaling force is applied. Nothing to ratchet, it's just a friction surface. (I guess only one or two companies do them right now, as others would have to wait for the patents to expire. It's really KISS when you look at it though.) Edit -- Ok it's covered, but not until past the 12:18 mark. Again, I'd bet everyone will be doing it once the patent expires in regards to the bicycle application. It's as cheap and simple as the pawl system in terms of manufacturing it.
You might be interested in checking out the freewheels for trial bikes. The simpler ones start at 72 engagements, standard is around 108 and they go up to 135 engagement points. Most of them sit on the crank arm rather than the hub though.
I just installed 54T in my DT Swiss so there’s definitely more engagement points available. Also there’s less drag because the pawl springs are compressed less between teeth. And it sounds like a box of angry 🐝! I want my hub loud. It’s better than yelling or dinging a bell at pedestrians.
I'm surprised by all the negative comments about this. These hubs are amazing and make a tremendous difference! They've obviously never tried them. Instant engagement means instant torque when you apply pressure to the pedal.
@@carlos.5290 obviously, the faster you are going, the fast engagement will not be AS noticeable, but will be, and appreciated. However, the main benefit is during slow speeds, when rolling over roots and rocks. Having instant engagement makes a difference when keeping your balance and momentum. Definitely give them a try if you get the opportunity.
I ride about 3 hours a day, and I use a Shimano RS81 c24 wheelset. I thought your video was extremely interesting because as far as my particular exercise routine is concerned, I find myself in a scenario where i'm pedaling with easy gearing (34t front 19t rear) because I'm aiming at being able to sustain my effort 6 days a week, and also I want to encourage a high cadence and very often I find myself briefly and abruptly interrupting my high cadence pedaling to absorb variations/shocks caused by the gravel type of terrain I'm riding on and I'm wishing that my power transfer would engage faster than the way it currently behaves, if anything it's more of a comfort annoyance than anything else from my point of view, but in absolute terms there definitely is room for improvement in that sector, and I feel it every day. As far as performance goes all in all I think it's a non issue for people that are not in the competitive scene, however again from a comfort standpoint it's a luxury sure, but it's a luxury that can be felt and appreciated if the hub is really nicely engineered, so it's a no-brainer to go with the flow of the better designs moving forward indeed!
Love the Onyx hub on the rear for MTB - I've had one for about 18 months. Nice to know the friction is low, but I doubt that's at all signficant. The main advantage to me - it's silent!! I love love this. Second, it does engage "instantly." I can may feel a small difference vs. standard ratchet when riding, but that's swamped by the constant adjustments to avoid pedal strikes, and my marginal technique. One criticism of the video: the freewheel friction is not, I believe, as significant as they claim. E.g., the main reason there's a difference between road and trackstand is *air resistance*. A very tiny change in your drag profile will swamp the tiny power losses at the freewheel. I believe this is well documented.
@Maciej Jan Długosz Any speed above 5 mph, air resistance swamps that of any hub on any bike. Published research dating to the 70's (?). As for hubs, rapid engagement is more important when mountain biking.
@Maciej Jan Długosz Forgot this: tunedintocycling.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/watts-and-wind-resistence_-function-type.jpg Just a bizarre thought that hubs matter for resistance *if* you're talking mountain biking. Tires utterly dominate, and where hubs may actually cause more drag than air (*not* 16 mph! - see link), the level of drag is unimportant. In 20 years I've never heard this even brought up in mountain biking.
The amount of time it takes to accelerate the crank from 0 to whatever it takes to catch up the wheel speed is going to be far greater than the pawl engagement time for ANY of these hubs. The difference would be completely undetectable, guaranteed.
Great video, I remember when that Chosen hub came out as I was planning on building a wheel with that hub, but it never materialized. I wonder if they had patent issues, because their design was set for manufacture.
FYI. The "sprag" clutch has been around for decades and can be useful until there are long durations of freewheel time. On these systems, if the "rolling elements" happen to not roll--happens a lot-- they will develop tiny flat spots. When these flat spots occur, the roller will never roll again, nor will it properly catch causing slippage; a serious no-no if the rider plans to produce offspring. Anyone who has been involved with nitro or gas R/C cars knows how long the little pull starters last.
Remy Gambit i fitted one of these to my mtb years ago, it was amazing until it broke but it lasted over two years which was above average for the two pawl shimano offerings at the time. It just needed a little more radial strength as I remember it was the outer bearing surface for the rollers that cracked due to the high radial forces involved. But maybe too heavy and hard to upsell back then
Had Shimano silent clutch rear hub on my mountain bike from 1997. Never a single issue with it in 10 years of riding. Gave the bike to my father two years ago after it sat in the basement for a few years. He now uses it as "go to grocery shop" bike. That bloody hub still works a charm.
Same here. Have it on my bike, that has been rebuilt onto a new frame (and seen more glorious days in my youth ;) ), not a single issue for YEARS, some rather intense usage.
I have a Stealth Hub with instantaneous engagement. They started in the BMX world and branched out to MTB. I think they've been around longer than Onyx.
I play a tuba in a band. Because of its size it takes a short time for the sound to appear. So I always have to start the note a small fraction ahead of the beat. Perfectly normal. All it takes is knowing your system.
talk about marginal gains, this is right up there w ceramicspeed pulley wheels and aero speedplay pedals, most mid to highend dtswiss hubbed wheels use the 36t ratchet so not sure why all the focus is on the 18t variation, they also have a 54t upgrade is that is your thing, and ractchet systems cant be directly compared to pawl systems in terms of engagement
Keep in mind that springs lose their tension, while most RE magnets will hold their energy long past the expected service life of the hub, or even the bike for that matter. This is a great advantage to bring into hub manufacturing. The military has been looking into using magnetic magazine-followers for that very reason. Standard practice for a normal spring mag-follower is to load your mags 2-3 rounds shy of its indicated capacity in order to extend the life of the springs to a degree, and most mags come with the recommendation that you long-term store them empty, or else the springs will be "dead" when you go to use them. Magnetic followers would fix that particular pickle.
Great stuff. I've been running the Onyx hubs for more than a year now and absolutely LOVE them. Not only are they instant engagement but when freewheeling, they are 100% silent... and who really wants to hear that stupidly annoying bumblebee noise?!
I think with the point of riders spending 20% if their time free wheeling, it's interesting to see how much of that time is actually spent braking, something that would be hurt by the more efficient hub
I was just about to suggest this, just pedal forward while coasting. doesn't have to be fast enough to engage the drive, but in theory should be enough to overcome some of the lost. Or just get in your best aero position. Or do both if comfortable enough :)
Yeah, Luke, you forgot about DH. Where, most of your time on the track is spent going over and down stuff and cannot pedal over or down. That is when freehub drag is a REALLY big concern for DH and enduro mountain bike racers.
Shimano already made a silent hub in the 90s. In 1999 I bought a second-hand mountain bike with a Shimano Silent Clutch for $150. That was the price for the whole bike, including the silent clutch. I loved the silence and the instant engagement. I don't know why Shimano stopped making those hubs.
Sorry I’ve not read all the comments but I do ask, who remembers shimano deore LX silent clutch ???? I still have one of those running around. Not new,yap! Heavy?? How yes. But so relaxing...
If you compare the 22% of freewheeling time you mention against the percentage of slowing down/braking time, you shouldn't be surprised that they are the same. I was part of a team that tested all kinds of 'road specific' hubs over a 2 year period and all seem to have their advantages and disadvantages. In the sweet-spot between best power transfer and least drag was a hub that had 4 pawls and 26 points of contact.
Be patient , accent slows your absorption , but beyond all the numbers recited this is an excellant review of the concepts and choices of the freewheel mechanism's evolution from ratchet pawls and their associated "slip delay" between coasting and pedaling to a roller "sprag clutch" mechanism way to connect the rotating wheel hub to the driving sprocket hub / freewheel
I-9 has worked on this with their rear hubs offering 6 paws slightly offset and offers 3 degrees of engagement. 3 paws engaged at one time and the other 3 paws in a half tooth position
I love all the comments by the people who have not ridden one of these hubs. All the my 400 hub is just great. Having broken Shimano hubs regularly and regularly snapped chains the onyx tear hub is a game changer. On a big wheel engagement degrees are huge. The torque curve the drive train takes when power drops in to one of the pawls is quite large. This doesn't happen on these hubs. Climbing technical terrain is so much better. Rapid application of power as well. I don't have to think about my rear hub any more. I don't hear my hub. I just hear the tires in the trail. Sure on some light weight road bike this many not be required. If you weigh 150lbs and spin though everything sure. If you never coast sure. But from my first ride on a used hub the acceleration down hill was clearly higher. Just go ride some. If not enjoy your noise makers with thier lovely clunk. To each his own. The down side is you hear everything else.
The problem with permanent magnets in the system is shocks. Permanent magnets lose magnetic strength when they get a shock.* The location of the system does feel shocks all the time. *Permanent magnets are many aligned magnetic atoms, think of many arrows that represent these atoms all pointing in the same direction. If there is a shock, some atoms will point in a different direction. After many shocks, this pointing direction becomes random, and the magnet has lost all its power.
Not sure this is true... See: tinyurl.com/y7hd5cbm "Other factors such as SHOCK and VIBRATION have very little effect on today’s permanent magnet materials."
@Maciej Jan Długosz That’s remarkable! I would not have expected such a noticeable difference to occur. Most people are worrying about instant engagement when they should be thinking more about how much friction is imparted by the pawls inside the freehub. Fascinating! Thanks for sharing your observations.
Can u make a video about upgrading our front & rear hub road bike to Full Ceramic bearing over the metal Hybrid or partial ceramic bearing that comes sealed on the bike from vendor.
When you're pedalling your accelerating or inputting power to maintain speed, when you're freewheeling you are usually wanting to slow down. Sprag clutch and high POE hubs make no difference for competitive road and TT, they do for MTB XC and trials where instantaneous uptake might be important for traction control.
to almost every fisherman, the roller clutch bearing has been a part their reels forever. Well, everyone except the oldest senior citizen fishermen :) i'm surprised it didn't get into bike wheels sooner.
I run Kappius KH1 hubs on my road bike race wheels and my tandem. Once you use them, it is difficult to ride on anything else. The engagement is actually dramatically different. If you like a cool freewheel sound there isn't anything else like them. Going downhill at speed sounds like you are being followed by a swarm of giant angry bees.
I'm sold on the total disengagement and instant engagement concept. I"m looking for an affordable road wheel with that hub type. Looking at light bicycle for a custom build but wondering if there are other option with an alloy brake track instead of the light bicycle all carbon.
The wizzing sound of a freewheel is shedding power in various losses. The question that wasn't answered in the analysis is how much power. If one were to upgrade from an old school Shimano freehub to a new clutch freehub, what is the reduction in drag if one were descending a mountain at 40? The win is that you might be able to descend faster. But, how much faster? Feels like that's important because the cost to make that reduction is real (and not small). Thoughts? As road cyclist, I'm coasting because at that moment I'm in a bunch and adjusting my speed to that of others (gently). When I'm crossing from trying to decelerate to trying to accelerate, it should be smooth. That is, when the zero-cross of power is occurring, the derivative of power with respect to time is typically how. So, whether the freehub engagement is in 4 cm or 0.5 cm very rarely matters as the power small and slowing increasing. Thoughts?
I like the clicking sound, bit like a noisy exhaust!
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Thanks for the info. I'm riding a touring bike with a Pinion gearbox system with a carbon drive strap. In this transmission system, a lot of strength is lost. Also, traveling long distances requires a low-maintenance and easy-to-repair bushing, which is why I call this technology the tencion. Traveling with saddlebags you need wheels with many spokes, about 34 or 36 spokes. Do you know any brand for 34 or 36 radios with this technology? thank you.
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There is the... very old ball bearing style freewheel.The Trapped Roller Clutch. With two, three or more balls kept with springs. There is the needle rollers style too with more contact area. Noiseless and enough for the beefiest cyclist...
This is a much bigger factor for MTB compared to road for two reasons. First road cycling, you pedal consistently on the power for long periods between corners (or traffic lights). MTBing you start and stop pedaling for corners and objects all the time. I find DT barely acceptable for road, but wouldn't like it on single track. Also with MTB you are in much lower gears, so the crank angle for engagement is much larger, so you have to accelerate you pedals a lot more to start engaging - can be a bit hard on the knees. Our hubs have I think 56 points with a set of 3 pawls for good strength. that comes down to about 6.5degmax for engagement. Great for road and ok for MTB. In the future I might look at 2x3 sets of pawls to get that engagement down close to 3deg for MTB cassette bodies. But this adds weight, so many not carry it to road where weight is more of a factor than engagement angle
hm, one thing you didn't go over - powermeter hub sets. for example powertap g3 - I'm assuming those have their own internal mechanism for engaging torque (and therefore measuring it) do you happen to know what they use?
"You can't trust us with a fucking square component lasting for 1000 kilometers. Please trust us with the quality and longevity of this 100 piece 240 steps ratchetting mechanism"
I use a 54t star ratchet hub on my DT Swiss hub but certainly not for the reasons mentioned here as I think they are not the reasons these exist. On a MTB on technical terrain it makes a big difference what kind of point-of-engagement you have as you need the most direct transfer of power from crank to hub to get over tricky sections uphill. Even more so on trial bikes. I went from 18t to 54t and loved it right away. On road bikes I don't really see how it matters...
I would argue that it is better to have the momentum of the leg driven foot accelerating the crank in order to 'impact' the paw for a more immediate thrust forward as compared to over coming an immediate load on the leg to obtain forward motion by first overcoming 'starting friction'.
This is why MAMIS (Middle-aged men in spandex) spend $20k on a bike. I like the fact these new sprags are silent, I have wondered in the past why they didn't use more sophisticated sprag bearings rather than the noisy PALL system, but the engagement time has to be such an unimportant detail. If you're freewheeling, you're obviously not trying to add power, and it's easy for the rider to pre-empt any lag when they start pedalling. Unrelated: 1 vote here for fixies. They are pretty dangerous compared to a freewheeler but the workout is all-round, and the feeling of being directly connected to the ground is incomparable. I commuted 20k a day on mine and wouldn't go back to a freewheeler for that ride. Unfortunately I now live on the top of an extremely steep hill. It's rare to see any type of cyclist up here, and the fixie is gathering dust :(
A over-designed solution to a non existing problem no one had. This will not come to mass market unless it is way cheaper to manufacture then the older systems. The time to engagement and power "spent" to do so on the "older system" is so insignificant no one cares. You could even agree that the little t to engagement allows for your legs and paddle stroke to accelerate beforehand allowing for a higher torque application from the beginning. If the system engages instantaneously every time you start again from free-wheeling it might wrack your legs. To give an example compare breaking a door open by starting a few meters away from it and running to starting leaned against it from the very beginning
It matters in mtb and trials where you want to precisely position your cranks when suddenly accelerating. It's also much more significant there because the gear ratio is much smaller (12 deg of freehub play on a 32-16 gear ratio is 6deg at the crankset compared to 3.6deg with a ratio of 50-15). Industry9 actually made their name filling this niche. Equivalently, those riders generally care less about efficiency. I know some peoples like quiet wheels so the clutch mechanisms work for them.
It actually doesn't matter in any way. Not only is the degree of freedom before engagement small in a rachet mechanism but the most movement is related to matching wheel-speed and cassette speed. This would be the same in a clutch mechanism. No advantage whatsoever in comparison. Get you mechanical engineering right. For quiet wheels its effectively true.
I showed my math and I know you're wrong. I'm also quoting martyn ashton, a former world champion trials rider about the need for more points of engagement. I think you misunderstood what I was talking about with the drivetrain. There is a gear ratio between the cassette and crankset which changes the amount of free movement that the crankset sees compared to the cassette. Because MTBs are generally geared lower than road bikes, for the same ratchet mechanism it translates to more crankset motion on a MTB than a road bike. 6 deg of free motion of the pedals translates to a maximum of 18.3mm change in height on 175mm cranks, easily enough to be the difference between getting a rock strike or not. Just because you don't care doesn't mean no-one does.
Since when is quoting superseding physics? There is still a difference between stand still engagement whilst having a spinning wheel. And knowing that i'm wrong doesn't make yours right. And a former world champion has slightly different needs on his material then an everyday casual rider. Get some sense in your arguments. Goooosssh. Spend 2 K on your clutch mechanism. i'm still going to beat you with standard ratchet any time.
You just said that I'm wrong and didn't support it at all. Both quoting and physics (which I gave) supersede slander (which you gave). I agree it isn't very significant but there is still a difference which some peoples are looking for. "so insignificant no one cares" is simply factually incorrect. "Get some sense in your arguments. Goooosssh." You don't need to be personally offended either, this isn't that important.
How many mlles so far? I do worry with the normal hubs that smaller pawls and more engagement points will mean they wear out more quickly. I'm game for spending more on a hub, but don't want to get significantly less durability as a result.
I recently upgraded from DT 18 to DT 54 there is a perceptable difference in pedal responce; I may be wrong about this but shifting also seems quicker.
The first thing I thought, while watching the ratchet designs, was, "Why not just use a one-way bearing clutch?". and then, there they were. They should be much cheaper than that, though. We have used them in industrial applications for a looooong time. Speaking as a long-time industrial maintenance man who is not a bike rider, just my humble opinion.
How do the magnets cause pawls to be engaged or not. With a spring I can understand that it's always pushing the pawl upwards, but for the magnetic system, is it pulling the pawl?
Gravity Zero had their Zero Lag magnetic clutch style hubs years ago. They were great when they worked but suffered with reliability issues, were prone to chain suck and terrible customer service. I had mine fail up a mountain so was left with a 2 way freewheel.
I hear a two way freewheel can be problematic to ride with. It’s great to have a reduction in friction, but that sounds like too much of a reduction! 😉
Ryan is freewheeling 22% of the time because he's riding in a massive peloton and being pulled along by little air resistance. Average Joe who rides solo will be pedaling a lot more having to break their own wind.
Thanks for the feedback! The loss of 200-400g in climbing is minimal and overcome by aero if you are going above 15kph (ave). see th-cam.com/video/HlglnUNnAnY/w-d-xo.html
Roller bearing clutch rollers aren't forced out by centrifugal force, they are pushed into the wedge shaped space by the springs. When freewheeling, the rollers rest against the outer hub and the inner "sprocket" with minimal friction, when power is applied, the rollers simply jam in the wedge space and transmit power with virtually no free movement. If you're going to talk "technical", best to get it all correct (just sayin')
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Apologies this video in quite in depth.....easily bored? Go direct to 16:10 😂
NOT boring... Just TOTALLY.... " NOT REQUIRED AT A DISTANCE COVERED OF OVER 0.011 MILES " or less.
Thanks its good.
My only point of advice is to fix the acoustics. The reverb is quite prevalent and can, at times, make it difficult to understand.
I like it very much because it explain things in depth, without distracting stupid music and without trying to sell a product like most video does.
Not boring at all!
Alex, I have to say, you are working your tail off researching, recording, editing, and then moderating this channel. You work much harder than most other youtubers. We really appreciate your content. Thank you!
That's a very kind comment; thank you++ Its a labour of love right now.
I used to compete in 26" wheel cycle trials and hub pick-up was absolutely paramount. Shimano used to sell a zero pick up hub which was also quiet called Silent Hub. It was about a third up their group set range and pretty cheap. I don't know why they discontinued it but it was amazing! I later went from Magura rim brakes to Hope disc brakes and started using Hope hubs. The pick up (engagement) was very good on Hope hubs but coming from the Shimano Silent Clutch hub I could still feel a difference. This was around 1998.
Now, I have a Kona mountain bike which has a just below mid range groupset, and the hub engagement pains me, especially over hard bumpy ground where I have to keep picking up the slack before I put drive down. An upgrade is needed! Thanks.
The creator of this video is incorrect and outdated. Yo Cecil is right. This is not new. Was running in the 1990s.
Shimano's 1990's LX RO-80 "silent clutch" hub was perhaps the most successful roller clutch cassette hub to date. It was heavy by today's standards (over 500g) but the roller clutch withstood significant casual use. Trials riders liked the "instant" engagement enough to make it worth replacing the roller clutch portion every few months. Unfortunately, Shimano stopped selling replacement roller clutches, and the "silent clutch" uses a different spline than other cassette bodies, so a damaged silent clutch cannot be replaced with a conventional ratchet.
pardo.net/bike/pic/mobi/d.winners-hub/index.html
I still have one. After 27 years of hard daily riding, it is still perfect. These hubs are extremely strong, totally silent, instant and resistant to jamming. Side not, also perform in below freezing conditions.
We are re-discovering old tech.
This is not real life situation. In real life, the ratchet teeth in the hub will rotate together with the rear wheel. So it is just a roulette, there are chances the engagement can be fast or quick depending on teeth positions is nearest or furthest to the pawls respectively. For instance, a DT Swiss 18 teeth still can achieve fast engagement when the 2 pieces of the star ratchets are only less than 0.1mm to meet and interlock each other after freewheeling and before starting pedaling. This applies to conventional pawls and teeth systems. So, engagement is just like a roulette depending on which positions are they right now. Then the pawls and ratchet interlock together forever if you pedal forever and there will be no loss. WHEN you are freewheeling and then you start pedaling, it depends on the pawls and ratchet how soon they interlock again. It can be less than 0.001s or takes about 0.005s depends on their meeting positions while the rear hub/rear rim/wheel rotate like a roulette and the stationary freehub body waiting for the rouletting rear hub to meet at various positions.
This is entirely pointless. "Losing power" before engagement does not lose you any power, you're just spinning on empty. It also takes a fraction of a second to engage, and when it does engage, the power you used to spin your legs up goes into the drivetrain and contributes to the acceleration. The only situation where quick-engage freewheels make a sense is trial or acrobatics, and this is all about control, not about friction or power.
The pawl system is being used for decades because it is actually a highly efficient system. It produces very little drag (the drag comes from inappropriate bearings, seals or too much grease). The drag they are producing is absolutely negligeable compared to all other drag component in any situation you might be coasting in.These slip-clutch systems are fine when you're demonstrating them using your hands, but they are either limited in the amount of power they can transmit, or they are heavy, and/or they are just too big. Plus they are unproven and might slip or fail exactly when you need all the power you can generate. So whatever marginal gain you might be getting with these things (and I doubt you are getting any at all, rather the opposite seems to be the case), it's all for nothing when you sprint to the finish and the freewheel fails.
The pawl system has been in use for 100 years or so, it is as simple as it gets, and it is pretty much bombproof. Use light oil to lubricate it, don't screw up the bearings, assemble it properly, and it. Will. Just. Work. Any money you pay extra for these things over the standard hubs is simply a total waste.
100% agree.
@Pr a loss is when you are generating power which does not go into achieving the desired goal. Since you are not generating power (not much of it anyway) while rotating your cranks before the freehub engages, there can be no power loss during this period. The (little) power you put into spinning your legs up gets stored in the kinetic energy of your legs and propels you forward once the freehub engages.
What you mean is probably that you are without power before the freehub engages. Do you think this matters? An absolutely tiny amount of travel and time are necessary for this. The only time I notice any delay whatsoever is at high speeds and cadences - above 70km/h and 130 rpm - and that's due to the speed and requirement for high cadence, a quick-engage hub would help very little. When climbing, which is of necessity at low speed, the engagement is virtually instantaneous.
Also, a hub which has, say, 4cm of pedal travel between engagement points and engages after 100 milliseconds at most,does not engage after 4cm and 100ms, it does so on average after 2cm of travel and 50ms.
On the whole, all this makes no difference whatsoever, it makes you no faster. Quick-engage hubs are a thing, but as I said, they are useful only for trialists and bike acrobats, which need immediate engagement for purposes of control, not efficiency.
+Pr well, I have climbed 130,000 Metres this year, so I don't exactly think I need to have the physics of climbing explained to me. When I'm climbing my freehub is constantly engaged, as it should be. I think what you mean is climbing out of the saddle and having a powerful stroke propel you faster so that the freehub disengages. If this is what you mean, I'm afraid I have to inform you that you're doing it wrong. When climbing out of the saddle the freehub should NOT disengage. This is a matter of technique. You mustn't stomp on the pedals, you need to support more of your weight on the handlebars (especially if you're a heavy rider like me) and apply backpressure on the pedal upstroke, just enough to keep the freehub constantly engaged. It took me quite a while to learn how to do this properly (and I'm still not done).
Even in this situation, you are not "losing" power, you're just unable to apply it during a part of your pedal stroke. Trying to fix this with a quick-engage hub is the wrong solution, you need to work on your technique.
+Pr why are you assuming I'm not riding steep hills? I already told you I have climbed hundred and thirty thousand metres of elevation this year, how do you imagine I did that, by riding in the flat? I rode the Großglockner Hochalpenstraße recently, that's in large parts 12% grade with some flatter spots in between, I rode the Stelvio twice, and I ride local climbs with grades of up to 22%. I ride a climb of at least 8% daily on my way to work, and I sometimes ride one with 14%, just for the fun of it. I know what I'm talking about, trust me. Or at least extend me the basic courtesy of not always assuming I "don't understand".
A sinusoidal form means that the value changes from positive to equal negative value. In order to be in "sinusoidal form" the torque would need to go negative half of the time. It doesn't. What it does is that it rises and falls slightly depending on the crank angle. The smoother your pedalling, the flatter it gets.
Trust me: if your freewheel disengages and engages constantly while you are climbing, in or out of saddle, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. Or don't trust me and go research it yourself, you'll find I was correct. If instead of always arguing for your misconception you tried to listen, you might actually learn something.
Ok, note this: whenever you are pedalling - uphill or in the flat, in the saddle or standing up, the FREEHUB SHOULD NOT BE ENGAGING/DISENGAGING. If it does, you're doing it wrong. The only time where the freehub may disengage is when you DELIBERATELY stop pedalling for a while. Other than that, whenever you are pedalling, you must pedal so smoothly that the freehub is in constant engagement. You need to: 1) not stomp on the pedals when pressing them down, but control your power; 2) shift into a higher gear so you have more resistance to your more powerful pedal stroke; 3) Support a part of your weight on the handlebars so you don't have to stomp on the pedals to keep yourself up, and 4) provide some backpressure on the upstroke of the pedal so prevent the pedals from turning too quickly. Perhaps watch this video for a better illustration of what you need to do: th-cam.com/video/hTkrnNr39dk/w-d-xo.html
What you are describing seems like the mistake most people make in the beginning. You need quite a bit of practice to learn how to do it, primarily because it is somewhat counterintuitive: you must hold back your power exactly when doing something precisely for the purpose of enabling you to produce more power.
Shimano had a silent clutch hub way back in the 90s, police bikes were often specced with them. FH-R080
can we still get them ?
I think having too short of a delay in engagement will actually make your acceleration slower in certain situations. I think having a bit of free travel before the engagement let's you gather some power before it's transferred. starting with an instantly engaged freewheel will take more time for you to 'lift off'. might also be a bit uncomfortable (although maybe you could just get used to it).
interesting idea
Great. Something I have desired in mountain-biking for years. An excellent upgrade for going up grades :)
270 grams is a little heavy, 268 grams is not too bad, 289 grams is pretty good.
Go figure.
Haha I guess its what you get for those grams that's determines it's real world value
Valuable thoughts, thanks a lot.
On my opinion, one essential thing is missing in this "engagement speed" material.
Ex. 52 points of engagement requires 3,5 deg of travel to engage only while bike is standing still.
Depending on bike speed, chosen gear ratio and cadence engagement travel is much larger when riding because hub must catch rotating wheel.
For instance with 52 points hub on speed 40 kph and gear ratio 3.2 it takes ~65 deg for hub to engage and ~20 deg for cranks.
I think this is main reason to have more engagement points on hub.
That's fascinating. The momentum of the engagement does carry through into the movement of the hub. the ideal angle of power transfer on the bike is fairly crucial too, because the pedal should be far from vertical, hope that version gets very well produced and compared because it's kinda cool. I'm all for simplicity, safety, power, reliability, and easy of maintenance. they are my priorities on a bike.
Onyx Hubs are the best. I'll never go back. Onyx I highly recommend.
I agree I used them for BMX racing I can’t go back to anything else 😂
This is why I come to TH-cam. Great video. You all should do an update!!
Technically the power is not lost, it's just applied with latency. You've probably imagined time as x-axis, and have had a plan/goal (road topography) in mind as something like "must accelerate at (absolute) time t_1 to t_2". Then yes, in that interval the power would be lost indeed because the topography would've changed and delayed application were pointless (descent, or blocked by other riders).
It's funny and interesting to watch 5 years later. Just installed an i9 Hydra hub that has 690 points of engagement :O ..
And nowadays DT swiss has a 52T rachet upgrade for their hubs as well, after a 36T rachet kit
They're just not worth it. If you're coasting, you're probably not trying to go fast (unless in aero tuck on long straight descent). And the engagement delay is effectively much reduced by the bikes gearing. People should stop wasting their time on these hubs in my opinion!
Yup. Higher gear, faster engagement.
If your pumping, you'd be coasting and you'd want as little drag as possible.
What about turning? Or going down a hill steep enough you can't pedal anyways. Not pedaling isn't the same as braking and unless you are braking you aren't really trying to slow down.
LOL. I guess we should all just "get off your lawn" while we're at it. #changeIsInevitable
You ever race? You squeeze ever inch you can coast when tucked in behind other riders. It is a brilliant idea to have zero friction when coasting, and there have been many complaints over the years about loud nosy rear hubs when free wheeling. I love to have a zero ratchet friction hub.
How about an updated version on this topic? Grazie
The other alternates out there (same problem described) is replacing the pawls with a roller clutch instead. Then a cammed part in the middle wedges the roller against the outer hub when the pedaling force is applied. Nothing to ratchet, it's just a friction surface. (I guess only one or two companies do them right now, as others would have to wait for the patents to expire. It's really KISS when you look at it though.)
Edit -- Ok it's covered, but not until past the 12:18 mark.
Again, I'd bet everyone will be doing it once the patent expires in regards to the bicycle application. It's as cheap and simple as the pawl system in terms of manufacturing it.
i was just about to comment the 321 hubs, then it popped up on my screen. dope video
Sprag Clutch, instant engagement low friction. Done. Lol... wrote this before the end of the video.
The happiest cycling which I have ever done, was always with Sturmey Archer hubs and gears. Completely reliable and care-free.
You might be interested in checking out the freewheels for trial bikes.
The simpler ones start at 72 engagements, standard is around 108 and they go up to 135 engagement points.
Most of them sit on the crank arm rather than the hub though.
GT graduate and active cyclist. Loved this video
I just installed 54T in my DT Swiss so there’s definitely more engagement points available. Also there’s less drag because the pawl springs are compressed less between teeth. And it sounds like a box of angry 🐝! I want my hub loud. It’s better than yelling or dinging a bell at pedestrians.
Make sure to inspect and regrease the ratchets every few rides on those.
@@countspokeula539 I check it every 500 miles or so. 👍
I'm surprised by all the negative comments about this. These hubs are amazing and make a tremendous difference! They've obviously never tried them. Instant engagement means instant torque when you apply pressure to the pedal.
But if you are already on the go speeding at 30/40 km per hour does quick engage make any difference? Positive difference
@@carlos.5290 obviously, the faster you are going, the fast engagement will not be AS noticeable, but will be, and appreciated. However, the main benefit is during slow speeds, when rolling over roots and rocks. Having instant engagement makes a difference when keeping your balance and momentum. Definitely give them a try if you get the opportunity.
I can not believe it that this is already there !!!!!
I ride about 3 hours a day, and I use a Shimano RS81 c24 wheelset. I thought your video was extremely interesting because as far as my particular exercise routine is concerned, I find myself in a scenario where i'm pedaling with easy gearing (34t front 19t rear) because I'm aiming at being able to sustain my effort 6 days a week, and also I want to encourage a high cadence and very often I find myself briefly and abruptly interrupting my high cadence pedaling to absorb variations/shocks caused by the gravel type of terrain I'm riding on and I'm wishing that my power transfer would engage faster than the way it currently behaves, if anything it's more of a comfort annoyance than anything else from my point of view, but in absolute terms there definitely is room for improvement in that sector, and I feel it every day. As far as performance goes all in all I think it's a non issue for people that are not in the competitive scene, however again from a comfort standpoint it's a luxury sure, but it's a luxury that can be felt and appreciated if the hub is really nicely engineered, so it's a no-brainer to go with the flow of the better designs moving forward indeed!
I have a profile mini for bmx. I feel that engagement noise. I think the elite is such a cool hub.
Love the Onyx hub on the rear for MTB - I've had one for about 18 months. Nice to know the friction is low, but I doubt that's at all signficant. The main advantage to me - it's silent!! I love love this. Second, it does engage "instantly." I can may feel a small difference vs. standard ratchet when riding, but that's swamped by the constant adjustments to avoid pedal strikes, and my marginal technique.
One criticism of the video: the freewheel friction is not, I believe, as significant as they claim. E.g., the main reason there's a difference between road and trackstand is *air resistance*. A very tiny change in your drag profile will swamp the tiny power losses at the freewheel. I believe this is well documented.
@Maciej Jan Długosz Any speed above 5 mph, air resistance swamps that of any hub on any bike. Published research dating to the 70's (?). As for hubs, rapid engagement is more important when mountain biking.
@Maciej Jan Długosz Saying I live in a theory world is quite an ironic statement!
@Maciej Jan Długosz Forgot this: tunedintocycling.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/watts-and-wind-resistence_-function-type.jpg
Just a bizarre thought that hubs matter for resistance *if* you're talking mountain biking. Tires utterly dominate, and where hubs may actually cause more drag than air (*not* 16 mph! - see link), the level of drag is unimportant. In 20 years I've never heard this even brought up in mountain biking.
It seems that a fixie is the way to go. Absolute zero engagement angle. :D
Not zero. There is still some play on the chain, however small it may seem. Those 1.5° hubs will feel instantaneous to be honest.
I was joking about the fixie. Most people other than hipsters grow out of fixies once they graduate from their first trike to an actual bike.
Alan H fixies are fun
Oh and it's a pretty good training tool because you have to pedal if you're clipped in
With belt you can reduce the "engagement time" even further. And fixies are good training tools.
track cyclists? :P
The amount of time it takes to accelerate the crank from 0 to whatever it takes to catch up the wheel speed is going to be far greater than the pawl engagement time for ANY of these hubs. The difference would be completely undetectable, guaranteed.
yep agreed, and dont forget your own feet/legs dont accelerated for free.
Not when riding up a steep, and/or rocky incline on a mountain bike
Great video, I remember when that Chosen hub came out as I was planning on building a wheel with that hub, but it never materialized. I wonder if they had patent issues, because their design was set for manufacture.
FYI. The "sprag" clutch has been around for decades and can be useful until there are long durations of freewheel time. On these systems, if the "rolling elements" happen to not roll--happens a lot-- they will develop tiny flat spots. When these flat spots occur, the roller will never roll again, nor will it properly catch causing slippage; a serious no-no if the rider plans to produce offspring. Anyone who has been involved with nitro or gas R/C cars knows how long the little pull starters last.
I just wish they could combine a silent onyx hub with the nuvinci cvt system and a belt drive for a super smooth and quiet bike.
Shimano Silent Clutch (fh-r080) 8speed era
I bought a used bike for my g/f and it turned out it had exactly this hub, which I had no idea even existed! She didn't understand my excitement.
we even used it in the bike trial (with some hub body reinforcement)! :D
Remy Gambit i fitted one of these to my mtb years ago, it was amazing until it broke but it lasted over two years which was above average for the two pawl shimano offerings at the time. It just needed a little more radial strength as I remember it was the outer bearing surface for the rollers that cracked due to the high radial forces involved. But maybe too heavy and hard to upsell back then
Had Shimano silent clutch rear hub on my mountain bike from 1997. Never a single issue with it in 10 years of riding. Gave the bike to my father two years ago after it sat in the basement for a few years. He now uses it as "go to grocery shop" bike. That bloody hub still works a charm.
Same here. Have it on my bike, that has been rebuilt onto a new frame (and seen more glorious days in my youth ;) ), not a single issue for YEARS, some rather intense usage.
I have a Stealth Hub with instantaneous engagement. They started in the BMX world and branched out to MTB. I think they've been around longer than Onyx.
Yeah I think trueprecision has been around for decades.
I play a tuba in a band. Because of its size it takes a short time for the sound to appear. So I always have to start the note a small fraction ahead of the beat. Perfectly normal. All it takes is knowing your system.
thanks for this video!
talk about marginal gains, this is right up there w ceramicspeed pulley wheels and aero speedplay pedals, most mid to highend dtswiss hubbed wheels use the 36t ratchet so not sure why all the focus is on the 18t variation, they also have a 54t upgrade is that is your thing, and ractchet systems cant be directly compared to pawl systems in terms of engagement
The bearing clutch could actually be very cheap to make. It would be a benefit to really any rider. Also a quite hub would be interesting too.
Keep in mind that springs lose their tension, while most RE magnets will hold their energy long past the expected service life of the hub, or even the bike for that matter. This is a great advantage to bring into hub manufacturing. The military has been looking into using magnetic magazine-followers for that very reason.
Standard practice for a normal spring mag-follower is to load your mags 2-3 rounds shy of its indicated capacity in order to extend the life of the springs to a degree, and most mags come with the recommendation that you long-term store them empty, or else the springs will be "dead" when you go to use them. Magnetic followers would fix that particular pickle.
Great stuff. I've been running the Onyx hubs for more than a year now and absolutely LOVE them. Not only are they instant engagement but when freewheeling, they are 100% silent... and who really wants to hear that stupidly annoying bumblebee noise?!
Thank you much for this Information. =)
I think with the point of riders spending 20% if their time free wheeling, it's interesting to see how much of that time is actually spent braking, something that would be hurt by the more efficient hub
If you're worried about drag on your freewheel hub, pedal!
I was just about to suggest this, just pedal forward while coasting. doesn't have to be fast enough to engage the drive, but in theory should be enough to overcome some of the lost. Or just get in your best aero position. Or do both if comfortable enough :)
Your not taking into account all cycling disciplines. Try pedalling through a BMX rhythm section at full speed.
@@tink6212 fuck bmx
@@tink6212 And mountain biking. It would be silly to have to constantly pedal on an MTB.
Yeah, Luke, you forgot about DH. Where, most of your time on the track is spent going over and down stuff and cannot pedal over or down. That is when freehub drag is a REALLY big concern for DH and enduro mountain bike racers.
Shimano already made a silent hub in the 90s. In 1999 I bought a second-hand mountain bike with a Shimano Silent Clutch for $150. That was the price for the whole bike, including the silent clutch. I loved the silence and the instant engagement. I don't know why Shimano stopped making those hubs.
Sorry I’ve not read all the comments but I do ask, who remembers shimano deore LX silent clutch ????
I still have one of those running around.
Not new,yap! Heavy?? How yes. But so relaxing...
If you compare the 22% of freewheeling time you mention against the percentage of slowing down/braking time, you shouldn't be surprised that they are the same. I was part of a team that tested all kinds of 'road specific' hubs over a 2 year period and all seem to have their advantages and disadvantages. In the sweet-spot between best power transfer and least drag was a hub that had 4 pawls and 26 points of contact.
wow that's valuable information, thank you! I wasn't aware anyone had actually compared them in the field.
Really good video. Worth to mention that absolute black is the same hub as Soul-Kozak.
Be patient , accent slows your absorption , but beyond all the numbers recited this is an excellant review of the concepts and choices of the freewheel mechanism's evolution from ratchet pawls and their associated "slip delay" between coasting and pedaling to a roller "sprag clutch" mechanism way to connect the rotating wheel hub to the driving sprocket hub / freewheel
I-9 has worked on this with their rear hubs offering 6 paws slightly offset and offers 3 degrees of engagement. 3 paws engaged at one time and the other 3 paws in a half tooth position
I love all the comments by the people who have not ridden one of these hubs. All the my 400 hub is just great. Having broken Shimano hubs regularly and regularly snapped chains the onyx tear hub is a game changer. On a big wheel engagement degrees are huge. The torque curve the drive train takes when power drops in to one of the pawls is quite large. This doesn't happen on these hubs. Climbing technical terrain is so much better. Rapid application of power as well. I don't have to think about my rear hub any more. I don't hear my hub. I just hear the tires in the trail. Sure on some light weight road bike this many not be required. If you weigh 150lbs and spin though everything sure. If you never coast sure. But from my first ride on a used hub the acceleration down hill was clearly higher. Just go ride some. If not enjoy your noise makers with thier lovely clunk. To each his own. The down side is you hear everything else.
Chris Schafer nice to hear your real world feedback!
The problem with permanent magnets in the system is shocks. Permanent magnets lose magnetic strength when they get a shock.* The location of the system does feel shocks all the time.
*Permanent magnets are many aligned magnetic atoms, think of many arrows that represent these atoms all pointing in the same direction. If there is a shock, some atoms will point in a different direction. After many shocks, this pointing direction becomes random, and the magnet has lost all its power.
Not sure this is true... See: tinyurl.com/y7hd5cbm "Other factors such as SHOCK and VIBRATION have very little effect on today’s permanent magnet materials."
Have Onyx Hubs on both Mountain and Fat bikes. Look forward to building a set for the road bike.
72 points of engagement with Chris King hubs, it's all you need.
Those still produce a lot of friction and noise though.
@Maciej Jan Długosz
That’s remarkable! I would not have expected such a noticeable difference to occur. Most people are worrying about instant engagement when they should be thinking more about how much friction is imparted by the pawls inside the freehub. Fascinating! Thanks for sharing your observations.
Can u make a video about upgrading our front & rear hub road bike to Full Ceramic bearing over the metal Hybrid or partial ceramic bearing that comes sealed on the bike from vendor.
this one? th-cam.com/video/A4-39TuvOCs/w-d-xo.html
When you're pedalling your accelerating or inputting power to maintain speed, when you're freewheeling you are usually wanting to slow down. Sprag clutch and high POE hubs make no difference for competitive road and TT, they do for MTB XC and trials where instantaneous uptake might be important for traction control.
Nice work, cheers.
yes we have the data, just need time to make the video!
to almost every fisherman, the roller clutch bearing has been a part their reels forever. Well, everyone except the oldest senior citizen fishermen :) i'm surprised it didn't get into bike wheels sooner.
DT Swiss has three ratchets, 18, 36 and 54. Just to note. I got the 54t ratchet from Jensen for about $100, nice and strong, great engagement.
I have Chris king hubs . That is all you will ever need!
Its really cool great idea
I think there was an earlier clutch hub than chosen, it was called stealth true precision, not sure if they're still around though.
interesting thanks!
I run Kappius KH1 hubs on my road bike race wheels and my tandem. Once you use them, it is difficult to ride on anything else. The engagement is actually dramatically different. If you like a cool freewheel sound there isn't anything else like them. Going downhill at speed sounds like you are being followed by a swarm of giant angry bees.
I'm sold on the total disengagement and instant engagement concept. I"m looking for an affordable road wheel with that hub type. Looking at light bicycle for a custom build but wondering if there are other option with an alloy brake track instead of the light bicycle all carbon.
The wizzing sound of a freewheel is shedding power in various losses. The question that wasn't answered in the analysis is how much power. If one were to upgrade from an old school Shimano freehub to a new clutch freehub, what is the reduction in drag if one were descending a mountain at 40? The win is that you might be able to descend faster. But, how much faster? Feels like that's important because the cost to make that reduction is real (and not small). Thoughts? As road cyclist, I'm coasting because at that moment I'm in a bunch and adjusting my speed to that of others (gently). When I'm crossing from trying to decelerate to trying to accelerate, it should be smooth. That is, when the zero-cross of power is occurring, the derivative of power with respect to time is typically how. So, whether the freehub engagement is in 4 cm or 0.5 cm very rarely matters as the power small and slowing increasing. Thoughts?
yes, losses in watts, I'd like to know that too
Great video :D
I like the clicking sound, bit like a noisy exhaust!
Thanks for the info. I'm riding a touring bike with a Pinion gearbox system with a carbon drive strap. In this transmission system, a lot of strength is lost. Also, traveling long distances requires a low-maintenance and easy-to-repair bushing, which is why I call this technology the tencion. Traveling with saddlebags you need wheels with many spokes, about 34 or 36 spokes. Do you know any brand for 34 or 36 radios with this technology? thank you.
There is the... very old ball bearing style freewheel.The Trapped Roller Clutch. With two, three or more balls kept with springs. There is the needle rollers style too with more contact area.
Noiseless and enough for the beefiest cyclist...
This is a much bigger factor for MTB compared to road for two reasons. First road cycling, you pedal consistently on the power for long periods between corners (or traffic lights). MTBing you start and stop pedaling for corners and objects all the time. I find DT barely acceptable for road, but wouldn't like it on single track. Also with MTB you are in much lower gears, so the crank angle for engagement is much larger, so you have to accelerate you pedals a lot more to start engaging - can be a bit hard on the knees. Our hubs have I think 56 points with a set of 3 pawls for good strength. that comes down to about 6.5degmax for engagement. Great for road and ok for MTB. In the future I might look at 2x3 sets of pawls to get that engagement down close to 3deg for MTB cassette bodies. But this adds weight, so many not carry it to road where weight is more of a factor than engagement angle
Do you have the hub comparison chart available to share?
When will bmx versions of these be available?
Project 321 hubs and Profile Racing hubs have already an insane amount of engagement points. PR are loud, P321 offer a quiet version.
Any testing to back-up the claimed benefit of less friction like coast down test?
the next big thing in cycling would really be you managing to record the audio without clipping
hm, one thing you didn't go over - powermeter hub sets. for example powertap g3 - I'm assuming those have their own internal mechanism for engaging torque (and therefore measuring it) do you happen to know what they use?
conventional freehub with 3 pawls I believe......I should remember because I swapped a freehub from 10 to 11 on a powertap but it was a while ago!
"You can't trust us with a fucking square component lasting for 1000 kilometers. Please trust us with the quality and longevity of this 100 piece 240 steps ratchetting mechanism"
I use a 54t star ratchet hub on my DT Swiss hub but certainly not for the reasons mentioned here as I think they are not the reasons these exist. On a MTB on technical terrain it makes a big difference what kind of point-of-engagement you have as you need the most direct transfer of power from crank to hub to get over tricky sections uphill. Even more so on trial bikes. I went from 18t to 54t and loved it right away. On road bikes I don't really see how it matters...
TRIaLS riders need it most
what are those stats in upper right corner on the video at 5:20?
its a plug in for chrome, tubebuddy, free version
I would argue that it is better to have the momentum of the leg driven foot accelerating the crank in order to 'impact' the paw for a more immediate thrust forward as compared to over coming an immediate load on the leg to obtain forward motion by first overcoming 'starting friction'.
This is why MAMIS (Middle-aged men in spandex) spend $20k on a bike. I like the fact these new sprags are silent, I have wondered in the past why they didn't use more sophisticated sprag bearings rather than the noisy PALL system, but the engagement time has to be such an unimportant detail. If you're freewheeling, you're obviously not trying to add power, and it's easy for the rider to pre-empt any lag when they start pedalling. Unrelated: 1 vote here for fixies. They are pretty dangerous compared to a freewheeler but the workout is all-round, and the feeling of being directly connected to the ground is incomparable. I commuted 20k a day on mine and wouldn't go back to a freewheeler for that ride. Unfortunately I now live on the top of an extremely steep hill. It's rare to see any type of cyclist up here, and the fixie is gathering dust :(
is a one way needle roller bearing not usable somehow?
A over-designed solution to a non existing problem no one had. This will not come to mass market unless it is way cheaper to manufacture then the older systems.
The time to engagement and power "spent" to do so on the "older system" is so insignificant no one cares. You could even agree that the little t to engagement allows for your legs and paddle stroke to accelerate beforehand allowing for a higher torque application from the beginning. If the system engages instantaneously every time you start again from free-wheeling it might wrack your legs. To give an example compare breaking a door open by starting a few meters away from it and running to starting leaned against it from the very beginning
It matters in mtb and trials where you want to precisely position your cranks when suddenly accelerating. It's also much more significant there because the gear ratio is much smaller (12 deg of freehub play on a 32-16 gear ratio is 6deg at the crankset compared to 3.6deg with a ratio of 50-15). Industry9 actually made their name filling this niche. Equivalently, those riders generally care less about efficiency.
I know some peoples like quiet wheels so the clutch mechanisms work for them.
It actually doesn't matter in any way. Not only is the degree of freedom before engagement small in a rachet mechanism but the most movement is related to matching wheel-speed and cassette speed. This would be the same in a clutch mechanism. No advantage whatsoever in comparison. Get you mechanical engineering right. For quiet wheels its effectively true.
I showed my math and I know you're wrong. I'm also quoting martyn ashton, a former world champion trials rider about the need for more points of engagement.
I think you misunderstood what I was talking about with the drivetrain. There is a gear ratio between the cassette and crankset which changes the amount of free movement that the crankset sees compared to the cassette. Because MTBs are generally geared lower than road bikes, for the same ratchet mechanism it translates to more crankset motion on a MTB than a road bike.
6 deg of free motion of the pedals translates to a maximum of 18.3mm change in height on 175mm cranks, easily enough to be the difference between getting a rock strike or not. Just because you don't care doesn't mean no-one does.
Since when is quoting superseding physics? There is still a difference between stand still engagement whilst having a spinning wheel. And knowing that i'm wrong doesn't make yours right. And a former world champion has slightly different needs on his material then an everyday casual rider. Get some sense in your arguments. Goooosssh. Spend 2 K on your clutch mechanism. i'm still going to beat you with standard ratchet any time.
You just said that I'm wrong and didn't support it at all. Both quoting and physics (which I gave) supersede slander (which you gave). I agree it isn't very significant but there is still a difference which some peoples are looking for.
"so insignificant no one cares" is simply factually incorrect.
"Get some sense in your arguments. Goooosssh." You don't need to be personally offended either, this isn't that important.
Could these be incorporated into in hub electric motors to improve their operating parameters?
Any data on Watt savings betwen a standard BB/wheel bearings vs Ceramic or high end bearings? what about dirty vs clean bearings?
The onyx hubs sound really interesting.
macmurfy2jka They don't sound at all, they are silent :)
I love mine. Worth every penny.
Running two sets, they are excellent.
Best you can buy.
How many mlles so far? I do worry with the normal hubs that smaller pawls and more engagement points will mean they wear out more quickly. I'm game for spending more on a hub, but don't want to get significantly less durability as a result.
I think you forgot to mention that DT has 54 engagement points ratchets that can upgrade the standard 18T
LBS
I recently upgraded from DT 18 to DT 54 there is a perceptable difference in pedal responce; I may be wrong about this but shifting also seems quicker.
The first thing I thought, while watching the ratchet designs, was, "Why not just use a one-way bearing clutch?". and then, there they were. They should be much cheaper than that, though. We have used them in industrial applications for a looooong time. Speaking as a long-time industrial maintenance man who is not a bike rider, just my humble opinion.
Good Video
How do the magnets cause pawls to be engaged or not. With a spring I can understand that it's always pushing the pawl upwards, but for the magnetic system, is it pulling the pawl?
I would imagine it's probably pulling the other end of a pawl lever arm like a see saw. One end is pulled in, the other end comes down to engage
isnt the shimano alfine series a more aero option than havin a hub, casset and rear deralium in a bike?
which one is the best ratio btw price, slient and engagement ? your sheet is interessting but i d like to see also price, and Decibel for each
thanks
Gravity Zero had their Zero Lag magnetic clutch style hubs years ago. They were great when they worked but suffered with reliability issues, were prone to chain suck and terrible customer service. I had mine fail up a mountain so was left with a 2 way freewheel.
I hear a two way freewheel can be problematic to ride with. It’s great to have a reduction in friction, but that sounds like too much of a reduction! 😉
Love Hubs
Ryan is freewheeling 22% of the time because he's riding in a massive peloton and being pulled along by little
air resistance. Average Joe who rides solo will be pedaling a lot more having to break their own wind.
break their own wind lol
Thank you so much for your amazing videos.What would be the loss having a heavier hub say climbing ?
Thanks for the feedback! The loss of 200-400g in climbing is minimal and overcome by aero if you are going above 15kph (ave). see th-cam.com/video/HlglnUNnAnY/w-d-xo.html
So is it lighter than geared hub being made now?
i love the rachet sound though
Roller bearing clutch rollers aren't forced out by centrifugal force, they are pushed into the wedge shaped space by the springs. When freewheeling, the rollers rest against the outer hub and the inner "sprocket" with minimal friction, when power is applied, the rollers simply jam in the wedge space and transmit power with virtually no free movement. If you're going to talk "technical", best to get it all correct (just sayin')