Fixed Hub & Gears?

[Revolver]

I searched to no avail

6 speed fixed hub

Tarty do a 6 speed fixed hub... Which means you could use it with a ffw, and have gears at the back, in theory.

Is it possible? Anyone use this arrangement?

I was just thinking, the standard hope pro II hub has something like 32eps, which is considerably less than the try-all FFW. So that would allow you to have gears and a stupid amount of engagements, which is always good. Seeing as when the chain's always rolling with a FFW, it would also mean if you stopped pedalling, the gears would still change.

Anyway, discuss?

[Mark W]

The standard Pro2 has 24 clicks, and the Pro2T has 48. If you ran 18:15 on there, that'd effectively be 28.8 ep's at the pedals and 57.6 ep's at the pedals, respectively. So I guess yeah, you'd have a few more clicks if you ran a freewheel up front, but I suppose it's the reliability that's the difference?

Either way, no reason not to run a cassette with a FFW.

[Fishy]

The standard Pro2 has 24 clicks, and the Pro2T has 48. If you ran 18:15 on there, that'd effectively be 28.8 ep's at the pedals and 57.6 ep's at the pedals, respectively. So I guess yeah, you'd have a few more clicks if you ran a freewheel up front, but I suppose it's the reliability that's the difference?

Either way, no reason not to run a cassette with a FFW.

You've got the wrong end of the stick I think.

I think he means a ffw with a FIXED rear hub.

Edit: You're kind of right.

Edited May 24, 2008 by Mr Fish

[kid creole]

yeah you can run gears with a front freewheel and that fixed hub, that how most comp bikes were like until they changed the rules about gears.

[Mark W]

Yeah, by "run a cassette with a FFW", I meant running a cassette on a fixed hub, as he'd asked. I was just pointing out that if you run a normal hub on the rear, you don't 'only' get 24/48 clicks on it, depending on whether Hope put a T on the end of it's name or not.

[Revolver]

I'd never go for FFW and rear freehub just due to the fact that you'd get varying EPs, cus sometimes they'd engage at the same times, and sometimes they'd engage differenly, meaning more pedal motion before engagement.

Cool, interesting to hear that FFW & Rear fixed gear hubs were actually used in comps. I wonder why/what the benefit was over the standard gear arrangement.

[Mark W]

I wasn't suggesting at any point going to a rear freehub and FFW setup

I wonder why/what the benefit was over the standard gear arrangement.

Lighter for a start, at least normally. Equally, if your freewheel shits the bed, you can just throw a fresh crank arm on with a freewheel on it. If your hub's engagement mechanism shits the bed, you've got to put a whole new back wheel on. Crank arms fit better into toolbags than entire 26" wheels do

[Revolver]

I wasn't suggesting at any point going to a rear freehub and FFW setup

No, I know. I think everyone knows its a ludicrous idea that people only wonder about when they first come across FFWs

[Mark W]

Yeah, that and the "If I put a freewheel on the front, and a freehub on the back, does that mean I won't have to backpedal if I go fakie?" thing...

[Revolver]

Yeah, that and the "If I put a freewheel on the front, and a freehub on the back, does that mean I won't have to backpedal if I go fakie?" thing...

haha

which is of course not true. It would be the same as using just one freewheeling mechanism, only more stupid.

[Mark W]

I wasn't suggesting at any point going to a rear freehub and FFW setup

Lighter for a start, at least normally. Equally, if your freewheel shits the bed, you can just throw a fresh crank arm on with a freewheel on it. If your hub's engagement mechanism shits the bed, you've got to put a whole new back wheel on. Crank arms fit better into toolbags than entire 26" wheels do

If you're balancing on your bashring on a rock/log/man/whatever, you can also alter your crank position (Backwards, obviously) because the chain wouldn't move with it, if that makes sense? If you ran a freehub, when you adjusted the crank position the chain would move too (Which, if the chain is being restricted by a rock/whatever it couldn't). With a FFW setup, it wouldn't move.

[Scotty Evil1]

Ive always used a FFW and fixed rear hub, used to be with gears and now with single speed.

Currently got a tensile FFW and an onza fixed rear hub and its great, works perfect.

Scott

[psycholist]

IIRC both Shimano and SRAM tried this arrangement for XC bikes too, Shimano in the 70's or 80's, SRAM in the 90's. It should give better rear shifting as the sprocket rather than the chain tension will drive the shift, so less stress on the parts for a gear shift (While freewheeling). The big problems with this on conventional bikes were fitting the freewheel bits onto a 3 chainring setup (Think about the bearing requirements given the range of chain positions and chain lines 3 chainrings, all bigger than most freewheels produce and the loading the freewheel will take because of it). My guess is that what really shelved this one was trying to shift gears with the front derailleur while freewheeling...