Looking at building a new wheel set and I have decided on the We Are One Triads for the rims, however, I cannot for the life of me decide on which hubs I want.
There is quite a bit of discussion out there that high engagement hubs negatively affect suspension performance. This comes from the idea that lower engagement hubs have some "slack" to compensate for chain growth as the suspension moves through its travel.
From everything I have read, it is a real thing, however it's highly debated on how much it really affects the performance on trail. I think the biggest reason for this, is because when the wheel is moving forward fast enough, it negates this affect. It's when the wheel is locked up, or big slow hits, where it is felt the most.
Here is a great video explaining a lot of this.
The author of this article definitely does not like high engagement hubs because of this.
This Pinkbike article says to not worry about it. They don't really talk about hubs though, and there are a lot of people in comments talking about the affect of hubs on it.
There was a good thread about hubs here on reddit a few days ago here, where a couple people point it out.
My conclusion is, the majority of people do not think it is a big deal / notice it, but the the minority of people that do, are very adamant about it being a big factor in suspension performance.
So I'm curious to get some more opinions on the matter here?
by Tyler927
4 Comments
There are solutions to this as well. There’s the Ochain Active spider to reduce it by a tuneable amount:
[https://www.ochain.bike/?srsltid=AfmBOora9H-WnRpujs5OvCuikmp2sNkHYM_Qi84NmwCFr2z2WGQzDfkK](https://www.ochain.bike/?srsltid=AfmBOora9H-WnRpujs5OvCuikmp2sNkHYM_Qi84NmwCFr2z2WGQzDfkK)
If I were you, I’d go ahead and get those freaking Hydra’s or the Vesper, see if the it causes pedal kickback in a way that bothers you. If it does, go get an Ochain. If it doesn’t go enjoy your crazy high engagement.
It just takes one ride without a chain or with an Ochain to notice.
The Ochain is not revolutionary or game changing but modern bikes are really good and pretty much all bike performance parts at this point are marginal gains (carbon vs alloy wheels or bars, 36 vs 38 etc..) It is especially noticeable if you ride flat pedals in steep chunk. Low engagement hubs do not fix pedal kickback in a meaningful way because they don’t have a reliable amount of “slack,” you can be one degree from engagement or several whereas the Ochain resets.
High engagement hub + Ochain is a good middle ground if you want a really nice setup, but generally high engagement hubs aren’t quite as bombproof as those with more modest engagement. An alternative would be a high pivot without the Ochain if you prefer those compromises. Or neither, your bike will still be fun to ride. I have an O chain on my enduro but not on my trail bike, both with Hydras. It’s not like the trail bike is spitting me off in every corner. I’m just prioritizing different things in different applications.
Hi, I got the WAO triads a couple months ago and they and they are pretty badass. I am in my 3rd year of MTB and I went from like 24 POE to 36 to 90 to 120. I’ve always sucked at tech climbing. I got the WAO wheels with oneUp hubs which are 40 POE I think. I began to realize that I just need to concentrate more when pedaling thru rocky/rooty punchy climbs and POE is not really going to save me if I have no technique in the first place. 24 POE felt like garbage though
In true spirit of mountain bike industry, nobody really has any depth of engineering understanding, so most of the info out there is wrong. Here is all you need to know about pedal kickback.
Firstly, pedal kickback is a direct result of anti squat effect caused by the chain tension. In general, if the pivot point (actual for single pivot or virtual for multi pivot designs) sits above the chainline, then the chain tension is going to make the suspension extend.
So yes, you will feel kickback, but only if there is upper chain tension. Which happens on power on pedaling, when the rear wheel encounters a bump, you will feel some force through the pedals.
In DH situations, you don’t really feel pedal kickback, because there is no top chain tension. What you feel is the combination of derailleur cage tension an inertia, which pulls on the lower part of the chain. Ochain devices eliminate this, however TRP derailleurs with the B tension clutch also do this to a lesser extent. You can get largely the same effect on a regular derailleur by zip tying the b tension pivot down so it doesn’t move. You still have the issue of cage bounce without Ochain though.