Dave Mayer

Engaged? But does does more than one pawl transmit torque? Jobst Brandt, a mechanical engineer and someone to be trusted on any subject bike-related, enlightens:

Freewheel pawls (Jobst Brandt) (yarchive.net)

Shimano, a manufacturer who is large enough to have engineers on staff understands this, and designs their freewheels and freehubs so that each single pawl is robust enough to support full rider torque.

This begs the question as to whether the small-fry boutique vendors, who are pandering to consumers with the game of one-upmanship marketing (like makers of food blenders: we need more speeds! We need more pawls, and 'points of engagement!') assume that the rider-delivered torque is spread among more than one pawl, and therefore undersize each pawl. Not a good assumption: I trust Shimano's judgement on this.

Kontact

Having pawls that can take the whole load is smart - because the other pawls might stick and you don't want the one good pawl to shatter just because the grease got sticky.

However, freewheel mechanism have a fair amount of play between the inner and outer parts along the axis of rotation. Because of that, the first pawl to lock doesn't end up bracing between the center axis (the freewheel bearing) and the pawl engagement surface. Instead, the outer shell moves slightly off center until a second pawl engages and then a third. I doubt any pawls after three engage because that is enough of a tripod to lock the location of the outer body to the inner.

So if freewheel mechs had tight bearings, you might be right. But they don't, and that allows the body to deflect until other pawls engage.

ratell

My fairweather bike came with a 3 pawl hub. First week of riding the pawls got stuck in the factory grease making the bike unrideable. Bike shop cleaned out the grease and put in some freehub oil making the hubs very loud. After a few months of riding I took the bike in and had broken one of the pawls. Compare this to my heavy steel commuter with star ratchets that are going strong after 10 years of riding in the rain. Especially now that there are some many ratchet options I see no reason to mess around with pawls.

Bah Humbug

So dumb question... why are both viable? What are the actual strengths of one variety vs the other? Does it matter at all?

ratell

Pawls are cheap. Zipp has them on their 303s and uses a ratchet on all their other models. Now that the patent on the star ratchet has passed more and more wheels are using their own ratchet system, but that takes more than just using a generic pawl hub.

ratell

I'm confused by this. Shimano uses cup and cone for their hubs.

fooferdoggie 

no I thought so too. but then they stick together and cause skipping and such. they usually require a special grease that wont stick them together.

fooferdoggie 

I regreased mine and did not Know this. on my commuter I never really noticed a issue. but on our tandem sometime after I did it we had this weird skipping mostly only in 13t cog and only when I was a bit tired and was not putting out as much power as usual. once I did the skipping stopped. it was random. after talking to a higher end bike shop they told me about the grease. it is when you peddle a little off is when the sticking would cause issues. so you may get away with it or you may not.

Germany_chris

While the person you quoted has his sh*t stacked higher than a midwest grain elevator a hubs bearings have nothing to do with it's freehub engagement

ratell

I see. It's cup and cone and pawls not cup and cone instead of pawls.

Koyote

Yes. The bearings (cup and cone vs cartridge) are unrelated to the freehub mechanism.

Darth Lefty 

You can find someone with a problem with any of the popular hubs. Still the rep of the DT Swiss hubs is the one that seems the most solid. I lately bought a Hope hub instead but it was because I found it on sale. If I’d found a DT 350 Hybrid for $200 I’d have bit hard. The Hybrid is the heavy duty version for E bikes also suitable for tandems and mashing schlubs. Thicker forging and steel freehub body.

I liked the Hope or the DT Hybrid because they both had the same flanges as the Taiwan standard cup and cone hub it replaced. Same length spokes both sides and front and rear and 32h. The regular 350 had uneven lengths and 28h. That’s not a ratchet issue but it was a selling point. But the spokes turned out to be a little chewed up and I replaced them anyhow.

Chandne

I have used a ton of hubs. I think the DRT 240 and Chris King are my absolute favorites. I have only shredded ONE rear hub and it was a DT350 with 36 teeth. I think it was defective because it happened at mile 4 on that new hub! Onyx is my other favorite for silent coasting but they are heavy for road bikes. I did not like the sound of pawl hubs so I stopped using them. The quality ones seem to be quite durable and I have never had an issue though I know a guy who has shredded a few OEM type of pawl hubs. He uses Chris King now with zero issues. He is a powerful rider and averages 300 watts but usually breaks them on short steep uphills where he probably puts a lot more watts. So it is that sudden burst of power that gets them. As for me, I love the sound of Chris King and the complete silence of Onyx so those will will be on my future builds.

Schlafen

I have 6 sets of wheels handbuilt with Miche Primato Syntesi hubs, 3 pawl freehubs. Oldest set is about 7 years old, 4 sets between 3 and 5 years old, and 1 set less than 2 years old but very low mileage (less than 1000 miles). The 5 older sets have a cumulative mileage of approx 60K and other than bearing replacement (once on the older hubs iirc) the Miche hubs never had any failures of any type. Freehubs are soft aluminium but if torqued correctly, not a real problem. I do check them over once a year.

That being said, Shimano 600 tricolor (6402) hubs are my favourite. Absolutely love the soft metallic freehub sound on those and the slim and elegant polished hub shells. Not a fan of the chainsaw sounding hubs.