Quiet freewheel
 

just re built my free wheel cassette (dunno, im new to this) got it but now instead of clicking loudly it kinda quietly taps. rides fine though. should i be concerned?

So you made your freewheel less annoying? Good job!

Oil/grease will quiet any freewheel/freehub.

This use to be the hot thing to do back in the day. Of course we were told of those who did the same but used thick bearing grease and had the pawls not fully engage then break. never had that happen to me but I was careful to only use thin grease and apply a THIN skimming on the ratchet area. Andy

Back in the day? You mean like 2-3 years ago? It came back for a while. Still is here. Many 2013-2015 decent road bikes came with ridiculously loud hubs.

I wonder if people realize that sound is energy, and that energy is coming from somewhere. (Likely not enough to matter... at all.)

For the Police, they make silent freewheel hubs, to sneak up ,'no knock' surprise like, on suspects.. on their bikes..

When you rebuilt it, what exactly did you do? (Freewheels and freehubs for cassettes are two different animals, mechanically. Which do you have?)

If you disassembled down to the pawls and re-lubricated, what kind of oil or grease did you use to lubricate it? Thicker lubricant may quiet it, but jamming it full of thick grease may gum up the pawls and prevent them from catching. In a worst-case scenario, that could mean delayed engagement or even complete freewheeling in both directions.

...as for volume of freehubs or cassettes, my '06 Campagnolo hub is pretty darn loud. I like to think of it as an audible reminder to stop being lazy and keep pedaling.

I wonder how they do it? I mean, freehubs have to have a ratcheting pawl, so how do they quiet it? Lots of pawls that only move a tiny bit and paired with Semi-slow engagement? Padding where the pawl hits?

The Whole hub is different..

The silent hubs are usually roller clutch hubs. My '97 Trek 750 has one. As the wheel spins forward, all you hear is the noise of the bearings spinning, and the air being fanned by the tire. Crank engagement is pretty much immediate (though not all that distinguishable from a quality freehub or freewheel). As soon as the chain is moved forward, the roller cams inside the clutch unit move out and engage with the hub body. I really enjoy mine.

There's not a lot of info out there about the Shimano hubs with this clutch. But if you Google "roller clutch" or "one way cam clutch", you can see the principle behind it. Mine's a Shimano FH-R050.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4247/...e0e23187_b.jpg2017-05-19_05-14-33 by jnjadcock, on Flickr

yep. I definitely gooped it up with lithium general purpose grease. clearly not enough to hinder its function but certainly did muffle it considerably. I prefer it now that i know I didn't do harm to it. It was a noisy bugger before. thanks for you replies.

Interesting thread. I've certainly noticed a big difference in mountain bikes. My 2010-era mountain bike was almost silent when coasting. Until about a month ago, we lived on a hilly street that accessed a popular mountain bike trail. Riders would coast by our house all day and I was always wondering why their newer MTBs were so much louder than mine.

Is there something about the newer 1X11, 1X12, etc. drivetrains that make them louder?

fwiw sram seems a lot louder than shimano