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i am new to biking and i have what is likely a dumb question. i bike with about 10 or 15 other guys depending on the day and i have noticed that when i am coasting, there is a racheting noise. none of the others have this noise. i have ultegra components, which many of the oters have. the only difference is that my bike is new and the others are all older.
anyone know what that is.
thanx
gerry
I have one bike with Sora (no ratchet noise) and anothewr bike with Dura Ace (ratchet noise). I prefer no noise but hey what can u do?
ssushi
It's just the hub freewheeling. New hubs are generally louder as they haven't worn at all. Some hub designs/brands are intrinsically louder or quieter than others (and some are built to be silent.)
My road bike hubs (Coda Expert) have gotten considerably quieter after a few thousand kms of riding. They used to make an almighty racket, now they are fairly quiet.
Right, it's a function of the hub and freewheel. I have a set of Rolf wheels that have a 'strafed by Stukas' sound when coasting: rat-tat-tat-tat.
Yes and no.
Yes it is the free-hub...
No it is not something that you have to or should wait until it "wears in".
Many manufactureres use a lighter grease so the pawls will ratchet faster esp at first...
Or either the grease is washed out and they get louder until they begin to rust. Then they will get quieter as they wear really fast.
One sure fire way to quiet your freehub is to open it and repack the ratche area with more/thicker grease.
I simply open it up about twice a year and wipe out the old grease and repack it.
Typically you can take the freehub apart fairly easily on such wheels as Rolf, Spinnergy and Mavic. Repack these freehubs with a nice teflon grease such as Finishline Teflon grease.
Shimano hubs may be easy or hard to open depending on the model. You may damage it prying out some of the covers without special tools.
An alternative esp for the Shimano and other freehubs that cannot be easily opened is to pull off the cassette and pour a nice heavy oil... I prefer 30Wt Quaker State... Around the covers of the free wheel (the area where the threads where the nut that holds on the cassette are)... Just put enough to cover it fairly well and then just let the wheel sit on its side for about an hour.
When you return the oil will be gone as it is now in the free-hub. spin the hub and listen... Still noisy... Repeat the process up to three times....
Your hubs will run nice and quite.
JBP
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