Chalo said:
richj8990 said:
And most of the hub drives with an integrated controller (ex. E-Bikeling) are direct drives with freewheels. No thanks. Cassette or nothing.
Really? Seems pretty arbitrary to me, especially considering how effective mid drives are at wrecking freehub bodies.
https://www.sunrace.com/en/products/freewheels-e-bike
Freewheel ratchets naturally hold up better because they're bigger on the inside diameter than cassette freehubs are on the outside diameter.
Yes, I unfortunately know about freewheels...I've broken two of the axles attached to them. And I don't even ride that hard. It appears that this forum is more for pavement riding, and that's great, but some of us need an electric setup that will actually hold up offroad. It's not that I would ride an e-bike offroad as hard as I do my other two 'acoustic' bikes, even though I'm not taking big jumps with those or anything either, I would ride the future e-bike more gingerly like I do my current front-hub drive one. Just looking for different options to take the bike down way, way below the current 57 lbs that this one is. And without a freewheel. I don't mind being eccentric out there, but freewheels don't belong on mountain bikes, the industry learned that over a decade ago. Yes, there still are some $300 Walmart bikes that have freewheels on them. But as I've mentioned on another forum, I did the math and a 3x8 cassette-based drivetrain costs about $8-10 USD more to put on the bike compared with 3x7 ---same everything but cassette and freehub. Freehub-based wheel costs a tiny bit more than a solid threaded hub wheel, 8-speed cassette LESS money than a freewheel. There is no excuse to keep putting freewheels on bikes...at all.
"Freewheel ratchets naturally hold up better"? Let's talk about the axles (see above about them failing, and case closed) and range of a freewheel vs. cassette. The Sunrace 11-32t 7 or 8 speed freewheel as far as I know has been discontinued. Which means the most range I've seen from them (or any other major manufacturer that still even bothers to make freewheels) is 11-30t. Compare that with a modern cassette, which typically has a range, depending on if it's XD or not, of 11-42 to 11-52, or 10-50/51/52, sometimes 9/46 (a newer Chinese one has 9-50 but there are still technical 'beta release' problems with it). Translation: a cassette typically has up to 60% more range than a freewheel assuming a single chainring up front. No broken axles, 60% more range. Win...win.
11-30t with a single chainring is absolutely horrible range offroad, especially with an e-bike. For climbing a 10%+ grade, even with electric power I need something under a 1:1 ratio, preferably closer to 0.7 ratio as in 36t front, 52t rear with a 1x chainring. That will successfully climb a 12-13% grade that has loose, rocky stuff. Even climbing with an 'inferior' front-hub drive, not to mention what a mid-drive could do with that ratio. What chainring size would be needed if the freewheel was 30t in the granny gear? 22t. 22t is fine for a triple chainring. It's not fine for a single chainring.
So you guys can keep riding freewheels on pavement, that's fine with me. I learned my lesson with them offroad, and no amount of 'ratchet' discussion is going to change my mind about them. Maybe MS-DOS still has a few advantages over Windows 10 but would you really go back to MS-DOS? Cassettes are much easier to work with, you can drill into them and make different gear ratios, and their hubs are much more sturdy than a freewheel axle.