What I want is a quieter freehub. After 30 years with a Regina freewheel (on a Campy hub) that had a very subtle buzz, my new bike with a Shimano freehub just makes such a racket! Part of that may be the amplification of the noise through the CF frame, but really... Great video as usual!
I hate my disk brake bike ... I’m Holding onto my 5 emonda rim disk frames and bikes. The pawls just fall out hub on disk hub assembly. And cassette comes off. Could anyone let me know how to tighten the slack up now I’ve pushed the pawls into the hub. Then it’s off on eBay
@@elijahkwon422 Yes, they can be monsters... ...you use similar tactics with clocks as you might with STI shifters. Now hub gears can be harder, and I have yet to master some of them...
STI shifters? I'd like to see a teardown of some Di2's! In any case, this guy has a great video for a set of old, old STI shifters. There's going to be some differences with the modern stuff (eg. with both brake and shifter cables going under the bar tape), but it at least gives you the gist of it. ua-cam.com/video/xkGNN_2CfCY/v-deo.html
I'd really like to see a deep dive into derailleurs! Please discuss topics like derailleur pull geometry, touch on why certain gear levers only work with certain derailleur, and any cross compatibility hacks with derailleurs/cassette options!!
"Free Hub Sound Test"...love it!!! Bike geeks love the sound of free hubs. Love this video and this channel. Keep it up with the amazing stuff. I've learned so much from watching GCN!
Believe it or not you can get Chris Kings freehub buzz as a ring tone. I have a set of Chris King MTB hubs, but I'll never take them apart as they look more complected than the Shimano hubs. The detailed explanations are greatly appreciated. This is one I'll have to watch more than once. Thanks.
I was helping someone on my saturday ride because their free hub jammed. Thankfully it wasnt the hub, just the plastic cassette guard getting mangled. Could tell they didn't ride often so I'm glad I could help :) great video as always
You load your videos with so much information that I often have to watch it again later to get what I missed the first time. Thanks for the education and all the experience.
Awesome video, thanks. I'm currently learning on a job to be a technician, this video does a great job of explaining how different technology's and brands of hubs work.
7:35 I don't understand that bit about "more power transfer". Surely, unless the freehub is slipping, power transfer should be 100% when engaged. The only difference would be how quickly the engagement occurs when you start pedalling.
I think what you're thinking of is different than the losses they're talking about. 1 revolution of the chain ring forward would indeed result in 1 revolution of the hub body. But the losses are in the fact that the parts have flex and friction which turns a percentage of the force into heat. The more of those exist the more power you have to put in from your legs to overcome them and rotate the wheel. If the friction is reduced or some of it is eliminated then you can move forward the same amount by using slightly less energy.
@ I'd argue if you're a sprinter or just racing cars the flex in components can become more significant, though if you're on a casual ride it may not matter
@@JonCannings Better reliability, perhaps. The only advantage I see is the *quicker engagement* of, say, a 54 or 36 tooth DT Swiss Hub over a 25, assuming the mechanism can engage that fast (just 6.6 deg or 10 deg of rotation vs 14.4 degrees).
That is the actual efficiency a freehub can do. Material flex does cause some loss in power transfer though as little as they are on smaller components can, in fact, affecting the transfer.
JT... aside from performance, it is all about the sound! Loved the sound of the mavic hubs on my '75 Raleigh Competition, until I heard the silky silence of Rolf on my '80's Conalgo Sarroni...weaving silently through neighborhood at night is a sacred pleaser that really is more akin to flying than cycling. Love it. Thank you for this expose.
@joncannings, You’ve forgotten to mention that one benefit of having more points of engagement is less lag from coasting to pedaling. This is especially important for XC and technical Trail riding since mountain bikers are often riding in situations where a complete revolution of the crank is not possible due to rocks and other obstacles thus requiring the rider to propel the bicycle by “jogging” the cranks. It for this reason that wheels built with Chris King hubs have become something of a holy grail for many mountain bike enthusiasts. It is also the reason that many other manufacturers have recently been upping the pawl or tooth count in an attempt to swipe a little bit of that hardcore mtb business.
Phew! I have a DT Swiss 350 rear hub on my tourer and the freehub came off when I was trying to remove a jammed on cassette! Now that I understand how it works, I'm happy that I've put it back together correctly!
I have tested various lubricants for the dt star ratchet, besides the original special grease. any grease wether thin or thick is inappropriate to reduce wear of the teeth as it quickly gets displaced and does not return. Additionally, the stiction created by grease impairs the mobility of the ratchet in the drive ring, which is crucial to prevent misengagement and damage to the teeth. the best lubricant hands down is transmission oil (75W/90), maybe hypoid gear oil (85W) is better for hot weather. This oil is thick but thin enough to flow arount, yet does not leak through the seal. it's excellent anti wear property effectively reduces wear by friction which is visible as black "dirty" grease after a short amount of time using grease. I've done my testing on a powerful ebike (750W mid drive motor), making the ratchet's life very hard.
A really helpful video from the point of view of know what goes on in a freehub but do have a feeling that you have gone into some detail like this when you have gone through the process of servicing a freehub. I am very fortunate to not have to really look at my freehub all that much since the small parts inside bring me out in a cold sweat! Please can we have a video going into the crazy world of headsets... so many different types and ways to install. Would be really useful. Thanks once again Jon!
Thanks for featuring our exploded Supadrive hub guys! :) We find that high engagement offers the ability to build in a bigger surface area between the pawls and drive ring, as well as offering near instant pick up for those all important sprints. Sometimes split seconds make all the difference.
I took my bike in for a full overhaul and my rear wheel came back much, much quieter than when I dropped it off. Having said that, it also feels more smooth and picks up more quickly when I go from freewheeling to putting in power. So while I do miss the noise it made, I feel like it's faster and more responsive now.
Very thank you to Jon and the GCN Tech's backroom boys so much，since I buy my new Cervelo S5 with DT Swiss wheel very loud freehub sound，so I'm very curious how the freehub looks like and how to they works so long for such massive mileage，then I search anywhere from Google to UA-cam for any freehub explain but there's nothing，until GCN Tech unveil this video，I think it is the first video that talk about freehubs so detailed，and take each brands compare about how insane are the technology，I think this is why GCN makes the world's biggest education program，should you guys get some awards？😝
I have a bike with a freewheel from 1971. It works great. I was not able to break it down for cleaning but did use WD-40 to clean out old grease and any dirt by spraying it in one side and draining out the other. Afterwards using good penetrating oil in the same manner. It makes a very faint clicking sound, for all intensive purposes it doesn't make a clicking sound at all. I kinda wish it did as I like the sound. A loud free hub means or could mean it's not lubricated or at least not very well which of course leads to a short free hub life.
Great explanation of each type of freehub but how can I service them? Do I just clean all the old grease away and reapply some fresh? Any areas I must avoid grease etc?
Hi Jon, I hope you stay on with GCN, seems like others are moving you to the background ala Matt and Emma. In any case, I do really enjoy your competent videos. Cheers!
To make your freehub louder, I suggest holding a swap card onto your stays with a clothes peg so it hits your spokes. That's how we did it on our Malvern Stars.
cool walk through, personally the only time I want a loud pawl and click sound is when a steelhead grabs my fly and takes a run, on my bike I think that sounds cheap and plastic like. Not precise DT Swiss for the win on that.
Hi Jon love the show, you have explained how free hubs work but how do you know which is the right hub to change it from a 10 to 11 speed as there are a lot of people selling good second hand quality wheels that are 10 speed at bargain prices but when looking for an 11 speed hub there are several of the same make so how do you know which is the right one?
Fascinating video. I love seeing how things work and why things are slightly different. Levers would be interesting with STI/Doubletap/ergoshift differences. Derailleurs too as that would help me understand them better for indexing!
Hi John, great and informative as usual. However, you missed out Onxy sprag hubs, which I have on my MTB and CX bikes. I'm sure everyone will be fascinated to see how they work, including me!
Thoroughly enjoyed that! Have no intentions of depriving the cycle mechanic the joys of servicing & looking after my bike, or indeed of giving him more work due to me "touching" it with tools. Would actually like to see something about chain rings, as I swapped to absoluteBLACK sub-compact oval. Much better for my knees!
I've ordered a ribble R872 with basic mavic wheels, hopefully they are not too loud, they seem the softest in the video anyway. I don't recall my MTB wheel hub making noise, I'll try it tomorrow.
With all the craze surrounding freehub noise, here’s an idea for a new segment on the channel: “Name That Freehub”. Post blind sound clips weekly, then ask viewers for guesses. The chosen winner gets GCN gear and maybe even posts the next freehub sound clip? It’ll boost viewer interactivity! Cheers from South Korea!
Thank you for your video explaining free hubs it gave me what i wanted even my oval 900 6 pawls double engagement free hub wasn't in your video , thank you again,,,, from Aussie land
They all sound good. Although I had a road bike and it had a freehub that was very quiet. It didn't make any rattling sound. I don't remenber what brand this was. My bike was scrapped after 38580 km. It was not worth the repairs I needed to do. I now have a different bike with NEXUS-8 hub. It works very good and it's not very loud The sound is just right for me.
Finally the content I love, thank you! Pity you didn't disassemble Chris King hub, and glance over contact points (there is a a difference because the more you have faster engagement but it comes at the cost of the lifespan). As for Zipp hub -- shouldn't it mean it is silent when running free (I just checked, Zipp does not offer hubs at all, it looks like you have to buy entire wheel, bad, bad, bad)? My vote for next topic would be internals of the headtube -- how fork is stabilized, what benefits come with tapered headtube, and so on.
Just got a handbuilt pair (built by and for a mechanic that ended up not using it) with Bitex hubs. I wasn't too fond of the noise at first as my stock wheels were dead silent, but I now appreciate the added safety it gives me on shared paths.
Nice video. How about touchin a subject about different front wheel hubs. There seems to be all kinds of hassle about the freehubs but a lack of talk about the front wheel hubs in UA-cam. Would be nice to know how to service different types of front hubs, tools required etc.
Informative vid...Question you may be able to answer if you read these comments...I have a late model Campag Bora One wheelset and late model Bora Ultra wheelset. The Bora One freehub has a nice sound but the Bora Ultra freehub is almost dead silent...any thoughts why the difference?
Shimano's old style roller clutches were terrible because of the spongy pedal feel, they still are in the Alfine 11 hub gear, particularly in 2nd gear, but the new silent clutch in XTR is done very similarly to Chris King but taken a little further so the hub running on uses the spline that drives the toothed washers together (This creates increased engagement force with increased drive torque) to separate the washers and stop the hub making noise. The one downside of the axial engagement style hubs like DT/King is that the smaller the teeth on the washers are, the more sensitive they are to contamination as a small piece of grit between the washers will stop all the teeth on the washers from engaging properly, but that's really a hub sealing issue.
@MJD I've pretty much swapped everything to 6 bolt hubs on my bikes st this stage as I'm fed up with centrelock disks moving around if you load them backwards riding street. I still have an XTR hub on one bike that's about a decade old with thousands of km on it and it's running smoother than a 1 year old XT hub.
I am wondering how to disassemble my hub, so I can clean out the grease and neatly put it back together. The hub says Formula on it. The rim had a piece missing along the edge. So I took it apart and recycled the rim and spokes. . RJ the Bike Guy demonstrated using a large hex wrench to get the freewheel thing off, but I couldn't follow what he was doing after that. It's an older style, and I expect it is the type that has loose ball bearings inside.
If you want to see a crazy freewheel mechanism, look no further than the left freewheel in a Sturmey Archer Model X or Model K, or a BSA 3 Speed hub. They have inverted freewheels where a toothed planet cage sits within a ball cup which is fitted with two sprung pawls. When you freewheel, the pawls spin around the static ratchet teeth. Another interesting freewheeling arrangement is to be found in a Sram Automatix hub, where high gear is in fact fixed and in order to freewheel, the hub must change down into low gear, though it does this automatically and will change back up instantly when you start peddling so long as you're above the threshold speed for activating the centrifugal clutch.
Thanks a lot for the video. I have an old MTB Bontrager rim (29er RXL Scandium) with the freehub body FH-420386 TPI, which is clearly worn out. I'm upgrading my groupset to Shimano M-8000 2x11, with an 11-46 cassette. My questions: - Which freehub do I need? Quite difficult to find how to evolve from the existing freehub to a newer one. - Which one would be compatible to my bike? And another question: - I suspect my axle is also worn out and would need to replace. Which part would I need? - Should I replace the entire hub? If so, which part(s) do I need. Many thanks!
I have a couple of wheelsets with OEM hubs (3-pawl, I assume), and they sound, well, just as one expects from decades-old bikes. I built some DT 240 wheels, and I love the busy-bee sound. I recently got some DT 370 wheels which are nice and loud for warning pedestrians. But frankly, they all seem clunky compared to my latest... I bought a 2010 Felt F1 with Dura-Ace 7900 groupset and WH-7850-C24-CL carbon wheels. The hubs are like butter! They spin forever and are near silent when they freewheel. What kind of wizardry have they plundered? They are not of this realm. I love ‘em! TECH QUESTION: Shimano‘s later carbon clinchers are labeled as tubeless. These aren’t. Did they actually change the rim design, or did they just rebrand them when tubeless became more popular? Can I just tape and valve them for tubeless, or will I find a problem with the bead? Thanks!
I had clicky freehubs as a kid but in my early 20s (1970s) had a custom bike made and its Shimano hub is still totally silent. These days I ride a Specialized Roubaix and a Giant Toughroad, both of them have silent hubs. However, some of the people I ride with have clicky hubs and I find it annoying to ride behind them. I can't understand why anyone would want a noisy hub.
i think it just sounds cool, sort of like putting an exhaust on a car. another reason you might want it is if you ever get stuck behind some people walking or another biker they would easily hear you when you were to stop pedaling
You can't understand the real feeling of hubs noise i love it and it's like you don't have to own a cycle bell just your hub is like a monster and everyone is looking at you & give you a side
I guess there's a trend here in Germany as most bikes are super loud. I find it very annoying and don't really understand the fuss. it sounds like there's something wrong with the bike and that's gonna break at any moment
Great tutorial! The Zipp magnet system is pretty impressive, but so are the others. Do the Shimano Ergo shifters insides next, maybe compared to Sram and Campagnolo? The Rotor hydraulic shifters are interesting too.
Thanks very much Jon, but the drawing of the parts of the Chris King hub unfortunately doesn't tell all that much about it's functionality. I assume they use a star ratchet system as does DT?
"You're not going to get any benefits or performance increases from 120 points of engagement" --maybe not in road cycling, but you will when riding an MTB. I reckon you borrowed that cutaway/demonstrator hub from Mr. Dodd at GMBN Tech!
Hi Jon,im after a little bit of advice from your good self. Ibought a pair of vision team 30's after seeing your 'cheap bike to super bike' build,sadly after 6 months of use the freehub has stopped working and was wondering if a replacement shimano freehub be compatable? thanx for any advice,love the show.
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, a low maintenance hub is needed and easy to repair, also traveling with saddlebags, many-spoke wheels are needed more or less 34 or 36 spokes to support a lot of weight. What hub or system do you recommend for 34 or 36 spokes? bikers hug,
You really want to remove a freehub over a wide tray, to catch the ball bearings, pawls and springs. But it's really not that hard to overhaul one. You just need a couple of specialized tools, with some models, to remove the bearing(s) and end cap. Definitely a more advanced procedure but still easier than building a wheel. Amazing how much torque those tiny pawls can take without breaking. Just 2 on my bike's freehub that carry all the power I'm putting down, in theory up to 1000W each (as if I could ever approach even a fraction of that!).
Hey there: I recently bought an entry level Cannondale road bike with Claris components. After a few months riding I decided to buy my first upgrade and I bought the new 105 R7000 kit. However a realized the cassette is a bit bigger (it has 11 speeds) than the one that came standard with the bike (Shimano HG50, 11/30, 8 speed). My question is; if I buy the rear 105 free hub, would it fit my current aluminum wheels or I need to get a new wheelset too?
Question about suggested lubricant for cold weather. Tips on internet suggest using a thin grease [NLGI = 00] during winter but I could not find a suitable grease meeting this standard. What grease would you recommend for a very cold winter in a freehub?
My favourite is the Shimano one. My tires are louder than my hub. But this stems from random street racing . We raced at night and being as silent as possible would allow us to overtake more easily . Coupled with my eyes being sensitive to light, I didn't even have lights on my bike. My road bike was called the white ghost because of this. Kinda sad people don't want to race anymore.
What I want is a quieter freehub. After 30 years with a Regina freewheel (on a Campy hub) that had a very subtle buzz, my new bike with a Shimano freehub just makes such a racket! Part of that may be the amplification of the noise through the CF frame, but really...
Great video as usual!
Jon, out of nowhere, with the best GCN Tech video so far. Thank you so much.
#poty2019
Nope. Lots of skimming over and hand passing.
I hate my disk brake bike ... I’m
Holding onto my 5 emonda rim disk frames and bikes. The pawls just fall out hub on disk hub assembly. And cassette comes off. Could anyone let me know how to tighten the slack up now I’ve pushed the pawls into the hub. Then it’s off on eBay
You've got to do STI Shifters next...
...I've stripped them down and now it's your turn to show em how it's done!
Not stripped them down yet but had one snapped off my bike in a bunch crash, ( complicated things)
@@elijahkwon422
Yes, they can be monsters...
...you use similar tactics with clocks as you might with STI shifters.
Now hub gears can be harder, and I have yet to master some of them...
STI shifters? I'd like to see a teardown of some Di2's!
In any case, this guy has a great video for a set of old, old STI shifters. There's going to be some differences with the modern stuff (eg. with both brake and shifter cables going under the bar tape), but it at least gives you the gist of it.
ua-cam.com/video/xkGNN_2CfCY/v-deo.html
I have to say I didn’t know there were so many different types of free hubs before I watched this video. Very informative. Thanks for sharing.
Ah wow, you've just scratched an itch I've had for years! Jon, you are a legend. This vid is super nice
I'd really like to see a deep dive into derailleurs! Please discuss topics like derailleur pull geometry, touch on why certain gear levers only work with certain derailleur, and any cross compatibility hacks with derailleurs/cassette options!!
"Free Hub Sound Test"...love it!!! Bike geeks love the sound of free hubs. Love this video and this channel. Keep it up with the amazing stuff. I've learned so much from watching GCN!
Believe it or not you can get Chris Kings freehub buzz as a ring tone. I have a set of Chris King MTB hubs, but I'll never take them apart as they look more complected than the Shimano hubs. The detailed explanations are greatly appreciated. This is one I'll have to watch more than once. Thanks.
I was helping someone on my saturday ride because their free hub jammed. Thankfully it wasnt the hub, just the plastic cassette guard getting mangled. Could tell they didn't ride often so I'm glad I could help :) great video as always
You load your videos with so much information that I often have to watch it again later to get what I missed
the first time. Thanks for the education and all the experience.
The GCN refurb "super bike" hanging proudly just behind...proud!
It’s probably his fair weather commuter bike now. That’s what I’d use that tank for. 😁
easily my fav GCN tech video yet
Awesome video, thanks. I'm currently learning on a job to be a technician, this video does a great job of explaining how different technology's and brands of hubs work.
7:35 I don't understand that bit about "more power transfer". Surely, unless the freehub is slipping, power transfer should be 100% when engaged. The only difference would be how quickly the engagement occurs when you start pedalling.
I think what you're thinking of is different than the losses they're talking about. 1 revolution of the chain ring forward would indeed result in 1 revolution of the hub body. But the losses are in the fact that the parts have flex and friction which turns a percentage of the force into heat. The more of those exist the more power you have to put in from your legs to overcome them and rotate the wheel. If the friction is reduced or some of it is eliminated then you can move forward the same amount by using slightly less energy.
@ I'd argue if you're a sprinter or just racing cars the flex in components can become more significant, though if you're on a casual ride it may not matter
More engagement, better power transfer and reliability I reckon. just saying.
@@JonCannings Better reliability, perhaps. The only advantage I see is the *quicker engagement* of, say, a 54 or 36 tooth DT Swiss Hub over a 25, assuming the mechanism can engage that fast (just 6.6 deg or 10 deg of rotation vs 14.4 degrees).
That is the actual efficiency a freehub can do. Material flex does cause some loss in power transfer though as little as they are on smaller components can, in fact, affecting the transfer.
The enthousiasm for the inner workings of the different freehubs is visible on Jon's face. :)
JT... aside from performance, it is all about the sound! Loved the sound of the mavic hubs on my '75 Raleigh Competition, until I heard the silky silence of Rolf on my '80's Conalgo Sarroni...weaving silently through neighborhood at night is a sacred pleaser that really is more akin to flying than cycling. Love it. Thank you for this expose.
Great stuff John. Used Royce hubs for years now, not the lightest but as Tina Turner said "Simply the Best"
Good stuff
@joncannings, You’ve forgotten to mention that one benefit of having more points of engagement is less lag from coasting to pedaling. This is especially important for XC and technical Trail riding since mountain bikers are often riding in situations where a complete revolution of the crank is not possible due to rocks and other obstacles thus requiring the rider to propel the bicycle by “jogging” the cranks. It for this reason that wheels built with Chris King hubs have become something of a holy grail for many mountain bike enthusiasts. It is also the reason that many other manufacturers have recently been upping the pawl or tooth count in an attempt to swipe a little bit of that hardcore mtb business.
This was mentioned in GCN interview here ua-cam.com/video/vgPLJSTWuV4/v-deo.html
Phew! I have a DT Swiss 350 rear hub on my tourer and the freehub came off when I was trying to remove a jammed on cassette! Now that I understand how it works, I'm happy that I've put it back together correctly!
I have tested various lubricants for the dt star ratchet, besides the original special grease. any grease wether thin or thick is inappropriate to reduce wear of the teeth as it quickly gets displaced and does not return. Additionally, the stiction created by grease impairs the mobility of the ratchet in the drive ring, which is crucial to prevent misengagement and damage to the teeth.
the best lubricant hands down is transmission oil (75W/90), maybe hypoid gear oil (85W) is better for hot weather. This oil is thick but thin enough to flow arount, yet does not leak through the seal. it's excellent anti wear property effectively reduces wear by friction which is visible as black "dirty" grease after a short amount of time using grease.
I've done my testing on a powerful ebike (750W mid drive motor), making the ratchet's life very hard.
Love to see Jon stripping it down, getting dirty and educating us all. What a top pro he is!!!!
A really helpful video from the point of view of know what goes on in a freehub but do have a feeling that you have gone into some detail like this when you have gone through the process of servicing a freehub. I am very fortunate to not have to really look at my freehub all that much since the small parts inside bring me out in a cold sweat! Please can we have a video going into the crazy world of headsets... so many different types and ways to install. Would be really useful. Thanks once again Jon!
Thanks for featuring our exploded Supadrive hub guys! :) We find that high engagement offers the ability to build in a bigger surface area between the pawls and drive ring, as well as offering near instant pick up for those all important sprints. Sometimes split seconds make all the difference.
I took my bike in for a full overhaul and my rear wheel came back much, much quieter than when I dropped it off. Having said that, it also feels more smooth and picks up more quickly when I go from freewheeling to putting in power. So while I do miss the noise it made, I feel like it's faster and more responsive now.
Very thank you to Jon and the GCN Tech's backroom boys so much，since I buy my new Cervelo S5 with DT Swiss wheel very loud freehub sound，so I'm very curious how the freehub looks like and how to they works so long for such massive mileage，then I search anywhere from Google to UA-cam for any freehub explain but there's nothing，until GCN Tech unveil this video，I think it is the first video that talk about freehubs so detailed，and take each brands compare about how insane are the technology，I think this is why GCN makes the world's biggest education program，should you guys get some awards？😝
hi, this may be useful too. Thanks, Jon ua-cam.com/video/XXZlM5ibl5s/v-deo.html
Excellent presentation, one of the best explanations on free hubs I have seen, thank you.
Really helpful video fr someone like me who is not a "techy" but wants to understand and perhaps do a bit of self maintenance.
I have a bike with a freewheel from 1971. It works great. I was not able to break it down for cleaning but did use WD-40 to clean out old grease and any dirt by spraying it in one side and draining out the other. Afterwards using good penetrating oil in the same manner. It makes a very faint clicking sound, for all intensive purposes it doesn't make a clicking sound at all. I kinda wish it did as I like the sound. A loud free hub means or could mean it's not lubricated or at least not very well which of course leads to a short free hub life.
I always wanted to know well how hubs work and you bring this video. Thanks a lot!!!!!
Is there a difference between mountain bike and a road bike hub? Or both of those can use the exact same hub?
Still helping me today. Thanks!
About to upgrade my 18t dt Swiss 350 Pro37s to the 54t.
Great explanations Jon! Brilliant video
Great explanation of each type of freehub but how can I service them? Do I just clean all the old grease away and reapply some fresh? Any areas I must avoid grease etc?
i think about changing my free hub sound all the time,This video explained it perfectly.Cheers
Hi Jon, I hope you stay on with GCN, seems like others are moving you to the background ala Matt and Emma. In any case, I do really enjoy your competent videos. Cheers!
Superb vid, very thorough and well explained, with no pointless waffle. Can you give Doddy lessons please?
To make your freehub louder, I suggest holding a swap card onto your stays with a clothes peg so it hits your spokes. That's how we did it on our Malvern Stars.
Question, can you swap out a 10speed shimano free hub with 3 pawls with another shimano 11speed freehub also with 3 pawls?
Hotdog bump
I wish my free hubs were silent. Very cool and informative video. Thanks Jonnytech!
That was a great review of free hubs and how they function. Thanks
cool walk through, personally the only time I want a loud pawl and click sound is when a steelhead grabs my fly and takes a run, on my bike I think that sounds cheap and plastic like. Not precise DT Swiss for the win on that.
Hi Jon love the show, you have explained how free hubs work but how do you know which is the right hub to change it from a 10 to 11 speed as there are a lot of people selling good second hand quality wheels that are 10 speed at bargain prices but when looking for an 11 speed hub there are several of the same make so how do you know which is the right one?
Fascinating video. I love seeing how things work and why things are slightly different. Levers would be interesting with STI/Doubletap/ergoshift differences. Derailleurs too as that would help me understand them better for indexing!
Thank you very much for this remarkable video. You covered a wonderful range of territory in a relatively short time.
Hi John, great and informative as usual. However, you missed out Onxy sprag hubs, which I have on my MTB and CX bikes. I'm sure everyone will be fascinated to see how they work, including me!
Very entertaining and informative video Jon.
Would be interesting to do a test on which freehub makes the least noise.Chis King makes a racket, others not so much.
Thoroughly enjoyed that! Have no intentions of depriving the cycle mechanic the joys of servicing & looking after my bike, or indeed of giving him more work due to me "touching" it with tools. Would actually like to see something about chain rings, as I swapped to absoluteBLACK sub-compact oval. Much better for my knees!
The video we’ve all been waiting for
A loud freehub is a nice bell replacement. Never new DT Swiss offer an option, thanks, Jon!
I've ordered a ribble R872 with basic mavic wheels, hopefully they are not too loud, they seem the softest in the video anyway.
I don't recall my MTB wheel hub making noise, I'll try it tomorrow.
Please show the mechanism of shifters and the derailleurs...love the show
Yes, please do!
I promise to say nice things.
With all the craze surrounding freehub noise, here’s an idea for a new segment on the channel: “Name That Freehub”.
Post blind sound clips weekly, then ask viewers for guesses.
The chosen winner gets GCN gear and maybe even posts the next freehub sound clip? It’ll boost viewer interactivity!
Cheers from South Korea!
Cool and awesome as always!
Now I know the magic behind the awesome freehub sounds.
Great demystification JonnyTech, I am now wiser, thanks!
Thank you for your video explaining free hubs it gave me what i wanted even my oval 900 6 pawls double engagement free hub wasn't in your video , thank you again,,,, from Aussie land
They all sound good.
Although I had a road bike and it had a freehub that was very quiet.
It didn't make any rattling sound. I don't remenber what brand this was.
My bike was scrapped after 38580 km. It was not worth the repairs I needed to do.
I now have a different bike with NEXUS-8 hub. It works very good and it's not very loud
The sound is just right for me.
Finally the content I love, thank you! Pity you didn't disassemble Chris King hub, and glance over contact points (there is a a difference because the more you have faster engagement but it comes at the cost of the lifespan). As for Zipp hub -- shouldn't it mean it is silent when running free (I just checked, Zipp does not offer hubs at all, it looks like you have to buy entire wheel, bad, bad, bad)? My vote for next topic would be internals of the headtube -- how fork is stabilized, what benefits come with tapered headtube, and so on.
Just got a handbuilt pair (built by and for a mechanic that ended up not using it) with Bitex hubs. I wasn't too fond of the noise at first as my stock wheels were dead silent, but I now appreciate the added safety it gives me on shared paths.
Nice video. How about touchin a subject about different front wheel hubs. There seems to be all kinds of hassle about the freehubs but a lack of talk about the front wheel hubs in UA-cam. Would be nice to know how to service different types of front hubs, tools required etc.
Informative vid...Question you may be able to answer if you read these comments...I have a late model Campag Bora One wheelset and late model Bora Ultra wheelset. The Bora One freehub has a nice sound but the Bora Ultra freehub is almost dead silent...any thoughts why the difference?
Very interesting. Great video! but i missed shimanos silent hub.
Shimano's old style roller clutches were terrible because of the spongy pedal feel, they still are in the Alfine 11 hub gear, particularly in 2nd gear, but the new silent clutch in XTR is done very similarly to Chris King but taken a little further so the hub running on uses the spline that drives the toothed washers together (This creates increased engagement force with increased drive torque) to separate the washers and stop the hub making noise. The one downside of the axial engagement style hubs like DT/King is that the smaller the teeth on the washers are, the more sensitive they are to contamination as a small piece of grit between the washers will stop all the teeth on the washers from engaging properly, but that's really a hub sealing issue.
@MJD I've pretty much swapped everything to 6 bolt hubs on my bikes st this stage as I'm fed up with centrelock disks moving around if you load them backwards riding street. I still have an XTR hub on one bike that's about a decade old with thousands of km on it and it's running smoother than a 1 year old XT hub.
Please do these for an near everything...this is fantastic
I am wondering how to disassemble my hub, so I can clean out the grease and neatly put it back together. The hub says Formula on it. The rim had a piece missing along the edge. So I took it apart and recycled the rim and spokes.
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RJ the Bike Guy demonstrated using a large hex wrench to get the freewheel thing off, but I couldn't follow what he was doing after that. It's an older style, and I expect it is the type that has loose ball bearings inside.
If you want to see a crazy freewheel mechanism, look no further than the left freewheel in a Sturmey Archer Model X or Model K, or a BSA 3 Speed hub. They have inverted freewheels where a toothed planet cage sits within a ball cup which is fitted with two sprung pawls. When you freewheel, the pawls spin around the static ratchet teeth.
Another interesting freewheeling arrangement is to be found in a Sram Automatix hub, where high gear is in fact fixed and in order to freewheel, the hub must change down into low gear, though it does this automatically and will change back up instantly when you start peddling so long as you're above the threshold speed for activating the centrifugal clutch.
I'm liking this tinder profile lighting, JC.
Can you do a similar video about bottom brackets?
I was going to suggest the same, maybe some explanation around different bb standards.
They recently posted one IIRC
This video was amazing! So much excellent information. At least for the nerds out there.
Hey Jon ,
Great video as always . Love the tech stuff !
Thanks a lot for the video. I have an old MTB Bontrager rim (29er RXL Scandium) with the freehub body FH-420386 TPI, which is clearly worn out. I'm upgrading my groupset to Shimano M-8000 2x11, with an 11-46 cassette. My questions:
- Which freehub do I need? Quite difficult to find how to evolve from the existing freehub to a newer one.
- Which one would be compatible to my bike?
And another question:
- I suspect my axle is also worn out and would need to replace. Which part would I need?
- Should I replace the entire hub? If so, which part(s) do I need. Many thanks!
I have a couple of wheelsets with OEM hubs (3-pawl, I assume), and they sound, well, just as one expects from decades-old bikes. I built some DT 240 wheels, and I love the busy-bee sound. I recently got some DT 370 wheels which are nice and loud for warning pedestrians. But frankly, they all seem clunky compared to my latest...
I bought a 2010 Felt F1 with Dura-Ace 7900 groupset and WH-7850-C24-CL carbon wheels. The hubs are like butter! They spin forever and are near silent when they freewheel. What kind of wizardry have they plundered? They are not of this realm. I love ‘em!
TECH QUESTION: Shimano‘s later carbon clinchers are labeled as tubeless. These aren’t. Did they actually change the rim design, or did they just rebrand them when tubeless became more popular? Can I just tape and valve them for tubeless, or will I find a problem with the bead? Thanks!
That’s a really interesting video, very well explained by Jon. How complicated they are!
I had clicky freehubs as a kid but in my early 20s (1970s) had a custom bike made and its Shimano hub is still totally silent. These days I ride a Specialized Roubaix and a Giant Toughroad, both of them have silent hubs. However, some of the people I ride with have clicky hubs and I find it annoying to ride behind them. I can't understand why anyone would want a noisy hub.
i think it just sounds cool, sort of like putting an exhaust on a car. another reason you might want it is if you ever get stuck behind some people walking or another biker they would easily hear you when you were to stop pedaling
You can't understand the real feeling of hubs noise i love it and it's like you don't have to own a cycle bell just your hub is like a monster and everyone is looking at you & give you a side
I guess there's a trend here in Germany as most bikes are super loud. I find it very annoying and don't really understand the fuss. it sounds like there's something wrong with the bike and that's gonna break at any moment
Its like putting baseball cards in your spokes, the noise is fun for a lot of people.
Many people believe that how loud the hub is indicates quality. Im not excactly sure why
Best GCN video yet. Thanks for advice on changing freehub sound signatures.
You guys really are good for something. ;)
I like that Mavic pawls will be flung out with centrifugal forces where as the others rely on spring alone.
Great tutorial! The Zipp magnet system is pretty impressive, but so are the others.
Do the Shimano Ergo shifters insides next, maybe compared to Sram and Campagnolo? The Rotor hydraulic shifters are interesting too.
Very good video and expertly explained
Glad it was helpful!
Could feature foss silent hubs? Or other silent hubs big thanks!
This was fantastic. Thank you Jon!
Please show us how to clean & lube the popular types of freehubs.
Great video as ever, but also the set looks amazing, Rocket shining in the background making me need another coffee!
Thanks very much Jon, but the drawing of the parts of the Chris King hub unfortunately doesn't tell all that much about it's functionality. I assume they use a star ratchet system as does DT?
Great overview ....demystifying the freehub .... thanks 👍
Nice explanations, Jon, although we could have done with a little more detail on the Chris King.
"You're not going to get any benefits or performance increases from 120 points of engagement" --maybe not in road cycling, but you will when riding an MTB. I reckon you borrowed that cutaway/demonstrator hub from Mr. Dodd at GMBN Tech!
Nothing more satisfying is passing someone while my freewheel is singing.
Hi Jon,im after a little bit of advice from your good self. Ibought a pair of vision team 30's after seeing your 'cheap bike to super bike' build,sadly after 6 months of use the freehub has stopped working and was wondering if a replacement shimano freehub be compatable? thanx for any advice,love the show.
Brilliant video, very cool ! Derailleurd in Detail please on the next one
What sort of lubrication should I put on the pawls/springs after cleaning?
Super informative! Many thanks.
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, a low maintenance hub is needed and easy to repair, also traveling with saddlebags, many-spoke wheels are needed more or less 34 or 36 spokes to support a lot of weight. What hub or system do you recommend for 34 or 36 spokes? bikers hug,
You really want to remove a freehub over a wide tray, to catch the ball bearings, pawls and springs. But it's really not that hard to overhaul one. You just need a couple of specialized tools, with some models, to remove the bearing(s) and end cap. Definitely a more advanced procedure but still easier than building a wheel.
Amazing how much torque those tiny pawls can take without breaking. Just 2 on my bike's freehub that carry all the power I'm putting down, in theory up to 1000W each (as if I could ever approach even a fraction of that!).
Just the video i was hoping for
Great video, can you please explain more about hydraulic disc brakes please
That's the one thing I can't do myself yet.
Hey there:
I recently bought an entry level Cannondale road bike with Claris components. After a few months riding I decided to buy my first upgrade and I bought the new 105 R7000 kit. However a realized the cassette is a bit bigger (it has 11 speeds) than the one that came standard with the bike (Shimano HG50, 11/30, 8 speed). My question is; if I buy the rear 105 free hub, would it fit my current aluminum wheels or I need to get a new wheelset too?
Question about suggested lubricant for cold weather. Tips on internet suggest using a thin grease [NLGI = 00] during winter but I could not find a suitable grease meeting this standard. What grease would you recommend for a very cold winter in a freehub?
Lubri-Plate SYN1600/00. Lubri-Plate 105 works well, too
I have a sram force etap AXS group set with fulcrum carbon wheels. I am looking to have a louder freehub - any idea what I should go for?😊
My favourite is the Shimano one. My tires are louder than my hub.
But this stems from random street racing .
We raced at night and being as silent as possible would allow us to overtake more easily . Coupled with my eyes being sensitive to light, I didn't even have lights on my bike.
My road bike was called the white ghost because of this. Kinda sad people don't want to race anymore.
Do a video on servicing hydraulic disc brakes and changing disc pads
What is happening with the black headset spacers you promised for the Celeste bike you built??