rousseau

Just got a new cassette put on my bike at the LBS. The old one was silent while coasting, but with the new one I get that classic combination lock clicking sound when I stop pedalling. Which, to be honest, I don't like much.

Are there cassettes that click and that don't click? Is it something else in the mechanism?

barba

Do you mean the "tick, tick, tick" of the freehub? The cassette itself shouldn't make any noise. Did you change the chain when you got the new cassette?

rousseau

Yes, I got a new chain, crankset and cassette last week. But yes, I don't mean the cassette itself, but, well...I'm not that mechanically-inclined, so I don't know exactly what's making the "combination lock" tick-tick-ticking. Point is, with the new setup I get the ticking while coasting, where with the old one I didn't.

Why might that be?

Lurch

The freehub is what normally "clicks" when coasting, but you didn't change that. Could the dork disk be rubbing after the work you did on the wheel? They often make noise when coasting but it is usually a rubbing sound, not a sharp click and usually once per wheel revolution.

mtnbiker4791

sounds more like you had a freewheel rather than a cassette

barba

That is what I am starting to suspect.

rousseau

The mechanic who did the work on my bike also rebuilt my wheel a few weeks previously, and had replaced a couple of broken spokes for me even before that. He said it was great having this new cassette now, because it was such a hassle replacing spokes with the older setup.

Does that explain anything?

rousseau

Switched cassettes again today (fine-tuning, it's an ongoing process), and asked the mechanic at the shop about the ticking. He said it was an older-style clutch that made for the silent coasting with the older cassette, and that I'd have a hard time finding another one like it.

The reason for my ignorance is that I just got back into biking last year after a number of years away from it. I bought a used Giant Kronos road bike with said "silent-coasting" cassette on the back, and just assumed that road bikes didn't tick these days. So that explains it.

well biked

For future reference, here's excellent info on telling the difference between a cassette and a freewheel:
https://sheldonbrown.com/free-k7.html

As stated earlier, a cassette doesn't "tick," it's simply a cluster of cogs that goes onto a freehub body; it's the freehub that "ticks." The cassette and freehub body are usually not changed out together. A freewheel has the cogs and freewheel mechanism integrated into one unit, so that when you change out one element of the unit you're usually changing out the other. It really sounds like you have a freewheel from your descriptions, not a cassette; they're not the same thing-

barba

For what it is worth, it sounds like you are talking about a freewheel, not a cassette. For an explanation, see here: https://sheldonbrown.com/freewheels.html

Edit: Well biked beat me to it.