Hello Vital MTB Visitor,
We’re conducting a survey and would appreciate your input. Your answers will help Vital and the MTB industry better understand what riders like you want. Survey results will be used to recognize top brands. Make your voice heard!
Five lucky people will be selected at random to win a Vital MTB t-shirt.
Thanks in advance,
The Vital MTB Crew
Vorsprung has a pretty good video on the pedal kickback in general.
Essentially, it isn‘t only the chain „growth“ which is only relevant when the freehub is engaged. But actually the chain flapping around (quite a lot of mass) creates some „pulling“ on the chainring as well, in both directiony.
https://youtu.be/grNUgu0H9YA?si=O1BThIcf7w61bBdR
I have just done some experimenting on my Mondraker Summum (which has like 200% Anti-Squat) with a „freecoaster gear“. Replaced two cogs with some spacers on the cassette so you have a gear where the chain moving around has zero effect on the chainring.
I actually noticed a massive difference in my feet and legs, you could really feel how much calmer you can stand and the rear end working much more freely/a lot less fatiguing.
The Ochain doesn’t work when it comes to making your suspension feel Better. However it does mute chainforces on the pedals which increases feeling the bike thru your feet. Especially for flat pedal riders. It’s a little expensive so I only have it on my main bike. But I really like it.
Which hub are you on?
that makes sense, but again this would mean that the free motion has to be at the cranks. If you disable your derailleur clutch, take out your pawls, the chain flopping around will still tug on your cranks. With this hub "solution", the cassette still moves from chain tension (which, again, once you're going faster than 5 mph, its 100% the same effect as having a completely disabled freehub)
In my opinion the oChain does make the rear shock feel better because it free's up it's movement. Like you stated it mutes the chainforces and the chainforces are what can add tension to your shock on a bike with high Anti-rise or chaingrowth.
DAMPING
Would y'all want to see a 15-minute VitalMTB video with back-to-back testing on a section of brutal rocky chunder with different pedal kickback theories to see if the Ochain really works as advertised?
Don’t threaten us with a good time!
Chainforces and suspension movements are not independent…?
Yeah, of course pick a bike that has the potential for it. On my Stumpy Evo I can now predict the occurrence of kickback. It happens both up and down. On ups if the rear wheel falls into low spot then back up it'll bounce your feet off the pedals. Basically same on the way down but it can be mitigated by speed. So it's really only on slow, steep chunk where it happens, which is of course the worst time for it to happen. I think you should also test with a Hydra hub to eliminate the randomness of hub ratchet takeup. I actually went with a DT 350 36pt hub on my new wheels to try to mitigate the issue. Was going to go with Tairin, but I've been burnt before on low volume boutique hubs.
The stumpy EVO i had similar experience with DT hubs, Went all the way to 54T and instantly noticed the pedal feedback, had to drop to 36 to find a balance
Just recently when changing from Trace hub to a vault, instantly noticeable... suspension felt stiffer and less free.... put other wheel back on and it was smooooooth again
That's good to hear, I haven't had time to try out the new wheels with the DT 36pt hubs yet, but was hoping the sus would be freed up a bit vs Hydras without the cost and weight of an Ochain. I have a Nomad too, so the Evo is built fairly light.
seeing High engagement hubs on modern bikes always have me thinking 'why pay so much for fancy plush suspension & then Stiffen it with a high engagement hub'
I went through a went stage of wheel building when i had my META'AM'22, Had high anti squat - I couldnt understand why my bike felt so terrible through the fast rough compared to the same bike my friend had(different wheels) i built some nice I9 wheels and then a dtswiss 240 with 54t
Took me untill i read DTswiss's website about pedal kick with high engagement and suspension/chain forces and for some reason i happend to test the theory by swapping wheels with my friend's... He happend to ride before me and whinged there was something wrong with his bike like it was binding, I didnt have an answer so i rode his wheels and BAM instantly smoother and less pedal feed back.
I now have a Medium engagement Set and a DH low engagement set - Everyone who rides my bike notices how nice it rides(for reference the ones who tend to try are on high end boutique bikes/builds)
Yeah, buy a fancy hub then fix it's issues with OChain.
Tairin has a good idea, always 5.5 deg engagement, but it adds complexity and I am unsure how robust the pawl retraction mechanism is let alone the drive ring/pawl system. Relative to this thread, here's a new E13 anti-kickback hub:
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/patent-revels-how-ethirteens-anti-pedal-k…
You should read a few posts back before you post. It will help your cause out next time.
In my experience the chain forces on the back wheel are still prevalent if not exacerbated by the Ochain. But you aren’t feeling them in your feet which gives me better control. I feel like I’m feeling the bike in my feet with the Ochain vs feeling the bike thru varying degrees of pedal grip.
Anyone with release dates and juicy gossip for ripmo, Hightower, and tallboi?
sounds like the Hightower and Bronson are coming first. Also heard the tallboy will be diff from current iteration esp weight wise.
Yeah, let's go back to rumors and stop with this sensitive ankles pedal kickback talk
The Hightower was updated literally a year ago, surely there's not a new one coming?
Regarding Ochain, it's not only the freehub that creates resistance and pedal kickback. If you can rotate the chainring you can get slack on the bottom (derailleur swinging forwards) and the top (chainring rotating back) meaning the chain doesn't need to be routed through the derailleur and the cassette turned to get the slack at the top.
I wouldn't be surprised if all this routing and rotating creates a lot of resistance even if the freehub is not an issue.
One way to test this would be to do a chained run, a chainless run and a run with the chain in place but the freehub pawls removed. Technically, if my ramblings are correct and the Ochain has an effect, the two chained situations should be identical (at speeds above freehub engagement).
DT Swiss 350 with 18 tooth ratchet (so already low engagement)
To add to the thrread derailment, i recently got an Ochain and it definitely does something. The rear of the bike is almost completely silent now (even with stfubike there was still some slapping around) and all the little tugging on the pedals that you get accustomed to is gone, which you only really notice when it’s not there anymore.
Did ochain solve world hunger, pedal kickback and chainslap all in one? No but it made my bike quieter and smoother, so it was worth the money in my books.
on a raaw madonna with 36t DT 350 hubs
Yes please.
One thing I want for the testing is for riders to wear noise cancelling headphones or just listen to music, as while I think O-chain absolutely provides a benefit, I think the silence aspect is a huge placebo effect.
On the topic of chain slap, I'm just going to say that 200g of chain moving around is going to do absolutely f-all when we're talking about suspension forces from a 75kg rider, and a spring of 400lb/in.
Dak 'confirmed' the new mystery Maxxis intermediate tyre is the new High Roller on the B-line cast.
Hell yeah!
Strange because it looks like a variation on the Shorty2 rather than the Highroller 2
Bruni filming on a new bike for Specialized in Poland this week, per WynTV. I'm hoping that finally we'll see the new Demo make it's appearance after the summer break. Other candidates include the new enduro, stumpjumper, and I'm hoping it's not another ebike.
It's not about suspension forces when it comes to chain slap, take a 200g piece of chain and slap yourself with it, I guarantee you will feel it just fine, just like you can feel it flapping around through pedals. But we are all used to that sensation, so it feels normal even though I wouldn't call it nice feeling by any means. High frequency vibrations are not doing any good to your body, feet are not so sensitive to it as hands are, but any little bit helps. Now can we finally get some damped dm stem mounts? WRP was working on those, but I don't think anyone else was, this could be really beneficial to prevent hands damage from long term vibration exposure.
Just solve it at the source, where you hold the bike...
Sometimes it's not enough? In car you also have bushings and soft mounting for a lot components between front wheels and steering wheel and I deffo ride harsher terrain on my bike than on my car lol.
https://motocrossactionmag.com/mxa-team-tested-urmosi-soft-bar-mounts/