Originally Posted by
nahh
No worries, but I have found some freewheels to be louder than others. Road cassesttes can be quite loud, as can SS freewheels. Mountain ones tend to be quiet, in my experiance.
The loudness of a freewheel or freehub design has to do with how the pawls click into place. Some are designed to be loud (for example, American Classic, Campy in my experience) while most Shimano tend to be pretty quiet - for Road or Mountain stuff. I have a silent-clutch Shimano freehub (designed for police bikes) on my commuter.