Aside from a period correct restoration or nostalgic reasons, if one were to build a wheel set for a 30 year old road bike, is there any reason to choose a free wheel?

I'm a classic/vintage newbie, but seems using a free hub is the smarter choice. My reasons:

1) availability of modern parts (hubs and cassettes)
2) bikes from that era use friction shifters, so within reason most modern cassettes will work
3) bikes from that era are most always steel, and the drops outs may be cold set (or just stretched 4mm each time) to accommodate a modern 130mm axle.

Obviously there are great deals to be had on NOS free wheels and hubs, but I'm curious if there are other benefits.

Thanks for any insight.
-Sean

A slight advantage: if you have two (or more) freewheels with different ratios, the freewheel stays together when you swap it out. Every cassette I have ever had came apart- a separate cog, lockring, spacer or what-have-you. The small parts always seem to get lost in the bottom of the extra parts bin.

Also, the freewheel has more bearings. This makes them theoretically more durable, but cassette bodies are still available for common hubs and changing them out is as easy as changing a freewheel. I've only had one cassette body wear out, and that was after being abused.

Freehubs are less prone to bent or broken axles than old school hubs

There is no advantage to freewheel over freehub. The freehub design improves on so many things and is really one of the great innovations in cycling in the past twenty five or so years.

However, if you've got an old bike and old components, stick with a freewheel. If you're going to use your five or six speed components on a freehub wheel, you're going to have to custom build yourself a cassette from assembled cogs, and then deal with spacing problems from using too few cogs on a cassette hub. None of that is a huge deal, but it's not worth dealing with if you have a working freewheel, or can get a working one for dirt cheap on eBay or in the back room of any bike shop.

If you're planning on upgrading to modern STI or other compemporary components, then a freehub will be your only option, and asking is a moot point.

If you upgrade to modern 9 or 10 speed freehub you can still use your friction shifters (bar end or DT) and derailleurs if they spread wide enough, but you will have to use a narrow chain which will get dropped between chain rings of older cranks.

To go modern you need at the very least, cassete (and wheel to mount it to), 9/10 chain, crank for 9/10 speed, and appropriate bottom bracket for the crank.

This is why they invented wire ties, put it through the center of all that stuff and it stays together.

I'm running 9 speeds on my '80 Italian Campy racing bike. I have a shimano derailleur and shimano rear cassette with the original Campy Super Record cranks. It works ok, the only issue is that the campy DT shifters have to go almost 180 degrees to get into the lowest cog in the back.

When I replaced the 27" wheels on my 1982 Santana tandem with 700Cs, I went with a Phil hub and Shimano FM723 freewheel. This cost me about half what a comparable tandem freehub + cassette would have.

tcs

I have heard many times that older cranks won't work with 9 speed chains. In my experience, I have never had a problem using 9 speed chains. Sheldon Brown (pbuh) seems to have had the same experience:

It's much easier to find 5 speed freewheels than 5 speed cassettes. Riders of older bikes don't like having their choices all cluttered up with tiny incremental gear differences that are better suited to delicate finely tuned modern riders who feel the need to stay inside their max hp rpm range by changing gears constantly with every slight change in gradient or puff of wind instead of just man-upping and just staying in the same gear because they can.

That was exactly the scenario I was considering - keeping DT friction shifters in tact.

I was primarily asking from a wheel building perspective. If I'm going to the expense and time of lacing up a set of wheels, I like to be practical about component choices.

Damn straight! Hell, I'll build a wheel with a Regina 4-speed FW and man up some more. Or maybe I'll go 3-speed FW and man up more than that. Screw that, I'm using a BMX freewheel. I'm all man. But you know, coasting is for pu$$ies. I'm going fixed.

To the OP: I've munched freehub bodies because the pawls have so much force going through them operating inside such a small diameter shell, while FWs typically have at least twice the radius for the pawls. The conditions, however, were extreme: 24 ring 34 cog offroad with the tire slipping and grabbing with the available traction. And, if I had a conventional wheel on that bike, I'd be replacing bent axles weekly. Overall, the advantage would go to freehubs IMO.

And on a tandem, the torque of two riders toiling away in low gear drives a freewheel on to the hub *really* tight. Freehubs win hands down in tandem applications, even for down-tube shifter retrogrouches like me.

I've been riding bikes with freewheels for nearly 40 years and have only worn out one. I use only Campy Record hubs and have NEVER bent an axle. I'm not sure how you would do that. I see no reason to change to a freehub on an old bike.

What about the 13-17 5sp corncobs from the '70s?

I have not seen one of the advantages of a freehub posted, or I missed it. But, here goes, freehubs have their bearings more toward the outer edge of the axle, but freewheels have the right wheel bearings more inboard. Therefore freewheels are more prone to bent axles. I've read this before, but I have to add, I'm just over the clyde limit at 210lbs. I used to ride a six speed freewheel set up on a mountain bike on trails and I used to jump logs and never bent an axle. I've seen a few bent axles on bikes I've worked on, and they were all associated with freewheels, none with freehubs. But these bikes must have seen way more abuse than I dished out, considering I couldn't bend an axle.

Aesthetically freewheels get you a much nicer looking rear hub since you don't have such a chunky center section. Freehubs are superior in supporting the axle and in the location of the bearings on the drive side but they look crummy. Getting one that is polished is also tough unless you want to spring for Phil stuff. And those still have kind of a chunky middle section. Just MHO. I'm not saying aesthetics should outweigh function, I'm just pointing it out.

Karl

i am old school as well and like the durability of the freewheel. and i too agree that you don't need anymore than 5 out back. most my rides are ss cruisers and i am proud to stand on big hills and i say +1 to manning up old school.

Well, some companies' freehub designs put a bearing more toward the outer edge of the axle - others don't.

tcs

So a freewheel has an inner body, and outer body, bearing races, bearing balls, a ratchet mechanism and the cogs and spacers.

A cassette is just the cogs and spacers.

From an industrial engineering view it seems like a cassette should be about a third or maybe a half of the cost of a comparable freewheel - but alas, they aren't!

tcs

And this would in fact be a problem if you are dealing with young bike shop mechaincs who didn't know how to install or remove a tandem's freewheel - which is a practical reality these days.

tcs