ThermionicScott 

What do you mean by "obsolete"? Most of them aren't my cup of tea, but they'd still be just as usable. The weights compare pretty well with what I can find on Velobase for Shimano freewheels. Heck, the 13-24T 7-speed is lighter than the Shimano 600EX version in 6-speed!

Shimano's current freewheels are light, cheap, and you don't have to worry about them after installing. Life is considerably better for a freewheel user than it really ought to be, all things considered.

crank_addict

Type in the ebay search for Shimano Megarange. As mentioned earlier, I paid $3 for one FREE ship- LOL. Its a quality piece. Impossible for someone new to the market and try to compete with that. If you want the lightweight version, strip the Megarange down and have at the cogs with a $9 mini grinder from Harbor Fright tools.

ThermionicScott 

I can beat that -- I've had perfectly-good Shimano freewheels thrust into my hands for free at swap meets.

tricky 

But, that's not C&V.

Blue Belly

. Certainly isn't.

Blue Belly

that's part of the problem. A lot of what we are left with has to fit into the "useable" category. Obsolete=no longer stocked.

LesterOfPuppets

For MTB, I like Shimano's carriers for the 4 biggest cogs on their high end cassettes. It's much nicer to freehub bodies. But yeah, I've run a lot of Sram 850s and they do work well and weigh 20-ish grams lighter.

Just found this. Wonder if cheepbikeparts360 is legit? I'm kinda skeptical.

https://www.cheapbikeparts360.com/pro...-8sp-cassette/

ThermionicScott 

I'm still confused -- if IRD still makes all of the ratios, doesn't that make them not obsolete by your definition?

What gearing spreads are you wishing for? If I hadn't standardized most of my bikes on cassette hubs, I'd be putting the 13-14-15-17-19-21-24 IRD freewheels on everything, and tuning the overall range with my chainring choices.

The Golden Boy 

I tried ordering from them- you can't add to the cart.

I tried calling the company (I think in Key West) that supposedly owns them... they say they don't... There's stuff on that site I was drooling over.

miamijim

The people who 'shell out' $150-300 for a cassette are very few and far between. That end of the market is very, very small.

I learned over 30 years ago that most cyclists by nature, are very cheap.

USAZorro

So the litmus test of cheapness is freewheels?

Several years ago I bought an interesting-looking rigid MTB for $5.00.
I'm in the middle of repurposing it and giving it a major makeover. Probably will be about $500.00 going into that. I'm definitely conscious of the cost, but cheap? I wouldn't say so. I think it's about not spending money in a way that seems needless to get a bike to where I want it to be.

fender1

It's a hobby. If you need new or easy, buy new.

Blue Belly

They do but, more as a casual rider product. What I'm suggesting is something more of a performance part with a full range of gearing choices. Maybe even a kit would be a great idea, so one could pull apart the free hub & custom build the cogg set for a particular ride. Light weight? Ti is a much more availably medium, these days. We have newer better bearing capabilities Seems possible to build these into a vintage looking, modern performance unit. I know I got a little ahead of the curve there. The certainly may be no market for some if those ideas but...Thinking big sometimes has an eye opening effect on detail.

Blue Belly

I can't argue that. I don't sell new bike parts. Would be interesting to hear what a major retailer of this stuff could show us.

Blue Belly

Fun sounds like a good time to me too

Blue Belly

You may be able to tell that I take my hobbies pretty seriously Maybe that's part of the problem....

ThermionicScott 

The new IRD freewheels allegedly have a lifetime guarantee, excepting cog wear, so it sounds like they're up to the task for most riding.

All of those other things sound possible, but the potential market isn't nearly big enough to justify the investment. Performance/weight? Freehubs won that battle long ago. Ability to customize? I can do that more easily with cogs from $20-30 cassettes than any freewheel, save for those Zeus ones. Bearings? I dunno -- cartridge bearings are nice for reducing the need for service and adjustment, but it's hard to argue that anything is really better than what Shimano was using on their 600 and up hubs/freewheels BITD.

What you're talking about reminds me of the "vintage speed" niche in antique car circles... people who want to soup up old cars (like 36hp VWs), but within period-correct parameters. The Velo-Orange guy wanted to come out with a line of freewheels a few years ago, but I don't think anything came of it: The Velo ORANGE Blog: A Nice Freewheel System

There's the Grand Bois cassette hubs, too. They're spaced to 120mm or 126mm for vintage frames, use cartridge bearings, and allow for custom cassettes (in fact, that's what you must use.): https://janheine.wordpress.com/2013/...cassette-hubs/ But they're pricey, which is what you get with a high-quality niche product.

Blue Belly

yes, those old freewheel systems with some Ti options would be amazing. I'm sure they would only sell a dozen of them, though. But, dreams....

crank_addict

Haven't looked at the most recent titanium gears but years ago I did use a group for cassette. I don't recall the name (maybe SRP or TNT??) but the ramp and final quality was no match to Shimano steel. Slight difference in weight was not worth the price. I currently have a near new Suntour all alloy freewheel. Lightweight but surely won't have much longevity.

CliffordK

It is not an insignificant number of individuals who purchase $5000 to $10,000 bikes with full Dura Ace or Campy Record. Many of them also put 10,000+ miles on their bikes every year, and replace the cassettes regularly (especially reading that many bike shops seem to like to replace cassettes frequently).

I think I read that one of the rules for team sponsored events is that the bikes have to be essentially available for sale to the public. So, one could not have a CF/Titanium cassette on the team bikes, and sell plain steel cassettes to the rest of the world. Of course the teams that win get the most attention, creating good PR for their sponsors, and good bikes is part of it.

As far as C&V, a good freewheel can last me a good long time.... that is how my bike became "vintage"

My dream freewheel would be something like 11,12,13,14,16,19,23 (or similar). Unfortunately, nobody makes one anywhere close. DNP Epoch has their 11,13,15,18,21,24,28. I just don't need those last two sprockets for most of my riding, although there are many who like them.

Keep in mind, on the new market, there are virtually no new road bikes coming out with freewheels (other than fixies). And, even on the used market, 99% of the bikes either are Dept Store MTBs or road bikes with cassettes.

I do see a few old road bikes on the market, but not a lot of them are getting high dollar makeovers.

There may well be a market for a small semi-custom fabricator to make a wide range of road type freewheels. Say selling 100 of each style every year. But, the big companies don't want to support anything that they can't sell in quantities of thousands, tens of thousands, or perhaps millions.

The casual roadies are one of the groups that is often overlooked. I buy tires, tubes, patch kits, chains, whatnot. But, I am now mostly beyond buying dept store chains. I can't find Dept store tires I like. And, about 70% of the time, the dept stores are sold out of the narrow 700c tubes (they can't seem to deal with just in time ordering of components for bikes they don't stock).

I suppose it is ok if they don't have a deep stock of parts, but that seems to be the mentality in the entire bike industry. Ignore the casual roadies.

Blue Belly

aluminum isn't a great wearing gear. If properly made, weight difference should be quite considerable. There are different grades of Ti, as well. Though, high quality steel will always wear better.

Blue Belly

yeah, it really sucks sometimes but, it isn't cheap running a business these days & that's what they need to do. I feel for them...& us!

ThermionicScott 

You should join me on the Cassette Dark Side, @CliffordK. There's a Sunrace 11-12-14-16-18-21-24 and an Origin8 11-13-15-17-19-21-23, both for under $20 -- wouldn't be hard to cobble together exactly want you want out of both, with leftover cogs as spares.

CliffordK

Are those cassettes or freewheels?

There is quite a lot of flexibility in cassettes, although shift gates and common carriers are a bit of a problem.

It might not be too hard to setup a punch press to make new freewheel sprockets, and rebuild freewheels to suit one's needs.

One of the problems with the DNP Epoch is that the freehub (or whatever you call the internals of a freewheel) is much larger than other brands, and would make it difficult to interchange parts. It is also the reason why they can't support tight gearing.

dddd

You mean cassettes?

I so don't like messing with the cog sequences of modern cassettes, at least when any sort of handlebar shifting is being used.