Silent hubs

Why are they so rare?! Why do cyclists despise peace and quiet?? I've been spoiled by an old Shimano hub that is completely silent and have never been able to find a similarly quiet one (never tried Onyx). My current hub is an old Deore LX and it's very noisy.

I'm looking to replace the freehub body with another one that is quieter but info on this is sparse to non-existant on the internet. The hub is an FH-M570, which searching only gets you 1 result - the default OEM freehub body. However, I know that for example the freehub body from an M665 works too. So if anyone knows about an actual silent hub that uses this design:

please let me know!

Don’t know the intricacies of the specific examples quoted but what about just packing the Freehub with loads more grease?

It seems like nobody can make them quiet anymore. I have an old Shimano Rx100 hub that is totally silent, a basic Shimano WH-MT500 wheel that has a quiet ticking sound and an XT disc hub that is a bit louder but you can't hear it when riding.

I don't think it's just packing with grease, that makes the hub sound different but not quiet.
The Shimano hubs feel like they have softer springs in the pawls and maybe a better finish on the surfaces, I tried to spin the freewheel by hand on a Bitex hub and on a Shimano and the Bitex hub has a lot more resistance and you can feel the force of the pawls snapping back into place.

It's really a shame, we used to ride nicely ticking swiss watches and now we can only get tinny sounding crap.

It’s the youngsters fault they think loud hubs are cool.

I think my Bitex hubs are quite quiet.

Dura-Ace for P&Q

A lot of love from me for Shimano too for the quietness; particularly the MX 30 freewheel. I also think that one of the reasons I like riding fixed so much is the lack of any drivetrain sound.

In the youngsters' defence, loud hubs are very cool. Used to love the Shimano hub I had on my old Cotic that sounded like a swarm of bees. Very rarely had to use the bell.

;)

1 Attachment

^ Not if you were on a group ride with me they wouldn't... 😠

have you tried pedalling, that usually keeps them quiet

My dt Swiss ones are quiet.

Shimano RS010 hub pretty quiet.

I think there's also an old Shimano MTB hub which used a one-way bearing for maximum silence, couldn't tell you the model number though.

Aside from being quiet, Shimano hubs are also one of the only proper freehubs which includes the cassette body as a stressed member and put the proper adjustable bearing as outboard as possible on the drive side. Because IIRC they invented the freehub, and when they did, it wasn't all about separating the cogs from the ratchet; it was mostly about stopping bent and broken axles.

Weight weeniness and obsession with engagement points is why modern hubs became loud.

Sprag / ramped bearing clutch hubs were being made as early as 1903 (Sachs Torpedo) - silent, instant engagement, but heavy (sprag clutch assemblies require beefy hub shells to work reliably).

Onyx, True Precision and Shimano (Alivio Silent Clutch) also produced some hubs like this in the nineties, but the vast majority of 20th century freehubs were the traditional soft-springed low-count pawls/teeth in alloy bodies - light and reasonably quiet but slow to engage.

Then pro offroad cycling became a thing and the points-of-engagement arms race started - even lighter alloy shells, large pawl/tooth count and stiff springs - really light, quick to engage but loud af.

The key to reduce noise (and associated coasting drag) whilst preserving lightness and quick engagement is to come up with a reliable mechanism to quickly engage the ratcheting elements when pedaling and completely retract them when coasting.

Shimano had a stab at this a few years ago with their Scylence (:facepalm:) technology in the micro spline freehubs but it turned out to be an unreliable solution.

Onyx still make hubs. They’re a delight in silence. Totally quiet, in all the colours of the rainbow. Pricey, but so worth it. Fit and forget type of engineering.

This is the type of bullshit that came from motorcycling ‘loud pipes save lives’.
They don’t. This myth has been debunked many times over.

Loud hubs might not save lives but they do a good job of alerting other trail/pathway users of your approach

That said, I do like the relatively silent DT Swiss hybrid hub I have on one of my mtbs. I bought it for the steel freehub body and have to say I was disappointed by how quiet it was when it arrived but it’s actually really nice to have a quieter hub.

Yeah, I know, but like all sprag / ramped bearing clutch hubs they are relatively heavy, as the bearing contact surfaces need to be steel.

• XTR FH-M9111 weights 237g;
  
• Onyx Vesper MTB CL MS 142/12 weighs 374g;
  
• Onyx MTB MFU CL MS 142/12 weighs 417g;
  
  

They are pretty cool little machines but, at 500£ a pop, no thanks.

I’ve got some bikes with coaster hubs and I seem to coast down hills significantly faster than riders on ratcheting hubs when I ride with them. Of course that could just be that I weigh more but I’ve noticed it being more pronounced when I’m riding a coaster than when I’m riding a ratcheting hub.

If you mean single speed coaster brake hubs, it makes sense.
They are all essentially copies of the original Sachs Torpedo design - a roller bearing clutch on a screw shaft (the Torpedo). They have essentially zero drag when coasting.

When I spin the cranks backwards on shimano hubs vs noisy hubs there is a lot less resistance.

I too hate loud hubs, to alert others of your presence we have had another gadget that works just fine, it's called a bell. Some of mine are 70y old and still working and for weight weeniness you can get ones that weigh almost nothing these days. When out in woods or canal path I don't need noise, I came there to get away from it.

Saying that, hubs on Mavic Ksyriums are fairly quiet, still no match to my vintage wheels..

If you can feel resistance pedaling backwards there are other things to worry about

not pedalling, just spinning it with my hand

It's silent because it uses a "sprag clutch" system, it's not actually a clutch but a one way roller bearing system. If you know how the starter motors on motor cycles work then you'll understand, otherwise Google knows....