I currently have threaded bullseye hubs with a 7 spd Sachs freewheel. I'm not that concerned with going to 9-10 spds but wondered it anyone has had trouble with them for a long tour. Should I consider upgrading to a cassette hub? The Sachs freewheels are a pain to remove, and I usually need to take it to a LBS to remove it. There's only 1 or 2 bike shops near by that even have the tools to do this, so I have concerns if the freewheel breaks down while in mid tour.

You could carry the spline tool needed to remove the hub. Park Tools makes one for under $10 that should work. It's not all that large or heavy. Any LBS should have the chain whip and a suitable wrench.

Before a long tour you might want to put on a new freewheel (and probably chain). I just saw a NOS Sachs freewheel on EBay.

Yeah, carry the spline tool, and buy a spare freewheel and give it and some money to someone you can contact easily and will express mail it to you.

Replacing the chain often is good advice. If you don't know how, learn how to check yours.

Unless there is something I am unaware of concerning the SACHS, most of your "cheaper" or box store bikes are still on 7 speed freewheel. Worse case you could rob a part off a goodwill store bike to get you down the road.

Shimano makes wide ranging 7 speed freewheels. They're cheap and they work. I'm running one right now on my commuter. There is no particular reason to go to 9-10 speed for touring. You have a 126 mm drop out spacing and preferably you'd go to 135 mm (not 130) rear for touring (as that makes a stronger wheel) which means you really should have someone spread your frame who knows what he or she is doing. I'd leave it alone. People have toured successfully on 5-6-7-8-9-10. It just doesn't make that big a difference.

I toured across the country with someone who had a 5 or 6 speed Maillard Heliochromatic hubs. We brought the tools to take it apart just in case but it never needed anything.

Avoid the 7 speed, 14-34 Shimano "Mega Range" freewheel sold by Harris Cyclery and others. It jumps from 24 to 34 teeth on the low end. If you're topping out a steep hill in the 34 shifting up to a 24 is an absurd jump. The IRD 13-32 is a better choice. It progresses from 28-32 on the low end.

https://www.interlocracing.com/freewheels_steel.html

As others have suggested, just carry the small spline tool on tour. No chain whip is required. A borrowed vise or long handle wrench from any garage should remove it. Loose and re-tighten at home before heading out if you suspect it to be frozen on.

Some day I'll upgrade to a cassette but my Phil Wood threaded hub costs $165 versus $456 for his cassette version!

I would add to BobG's excellent suggestions. I would get the tool, remove the freewheel, repack the hub bearings, and apply anti-seize lubricant to the hub threads prior to reinstalling the freewheel. The only freewheels I've ever had trouble with are one's from the 70's or 80's that have never been removed. Stubborn freewheels can be removed by putting the spline tool in a vise, putting the wheel on top of it, and turning the wheel counter clockwise like you are steering a bus to the left. Otherwise, I just put the tool in the freewheel with the quick release lightly screwed against the tool to hold it in place. I then put a 12" adjustable wrench on it and give it a whack with a dead blow hammer enough to free it before removing the quick release.

I too have a Bullseye Hub set. I find them substantial in design and just as functional
as the Original type Phil Hub [steel tube,alloy flanges bearing assembly pressed into the tube.]
a hub I used on tours for over a Decade.

with the Bullseye added benefit of the service tool , to replace the bearing cartridges
is 1 tiny allen wrench for the set screws .

I replaced my bearings with Enduro type which is an all Ball no spacer , QBP stocks some .
Rodger D used a highspeed bearing with a spacer separating, less bearings.

My touring wheels have been 48-40 spoke pairs , a broken spoke only occurred once
[thanks to 'dork' discs protection]
And that one I only needed a 10 minute job of wheel re truing and rode on with the other 47 spokes, for days ..

before I made friends with someone with a BF adjustable spanner ,
and use it to unscrew the freewheel removal tool, I Brought with Me. .

that tour was a loop from AMS to Calais-Dover through UK to Newcastle ferry Norway, Dk, to PL Warsaw, CZ Prague
Austria Bavaria, Strasbourg France, Luxembourg, Belgium Again, and back to NL to Fly back to SFO.

freewheels I used Sachs ARIS, Shimano interchangeably , they use the same Spline tool.

13-32 or 34, 6 0r 7speed, using friction bar end shifters either are OK.

I have done all my touring in the past with threaded hubs and freewheels. The freewheels were never a problem; rims and spokes were. Over the last few years I have been replacing my wheels with freehub wheels, Phil Wood and White Industries hubs mostly. I haven't had any trouble with them. While I was at it, I got rims that while still light, are much stiffer than the old Super Champion rims and this goes a long way to eliminate spoke problems due to rim flex.

As someone who started with 5 spd. freewheels, 7 seems pretty good, but I have now standardized on 9 spd. They have the gear range and gear spacing to keep me happy on all my bikes.

While cassettes may be easier to remove, is there really any practical difference between having the freewheel in the cassette or in the hub? I've seen broken hubs while visiting the LBS. I have had exactly one thread on freewheel cog set break on me in over 40 years of riding - and that was on someone else's bike.
When I upgraded my "main" touring bike to 21 speed (from 18) I put on a Sun Race 14/38 (or is it 14/36?) seven speed. I spent a lot of time determining what kind of gearing would work for what I intended. I decided I do not need any "go fast" gears. My crank is a 22/32/48, and I would dearly love to change the 48 tooth ring for a 36 or 38 tooth. I pull a 2 kid trailer (converted for cargo) everywhere I go on the bike. I don't use the 48 tooth ring very often, a 36 or 38 would suit my needs better. For going up the sides of mountains, I need low gears as for going down ... I can coast faster if I want/need to.

Currently as I see it, there are a couple of problems with freewheels: Sachs no longer makes the Aris, which maxed at 8 spd, and there doesn't seems to be a viable replacement yet. In addition pulling the freewheel for any reason, such as a broken spoke on the freewheel side, was always a problem for me. I needed a good, solid bench vice to loosen the freewheel and I typically broke things like the little removal tools in the process. These days when I make or buy a wheelset, I use freehubs. The clusters aren't any cheaper than a good freewheel was, but they are sure easier to pop on and off, and now with the wide range 9 spd clusters (12-36) I am happy with the gear spacing and the overall high and low. I no longer have to make compromises with my gearing. The newer rims tend to be much stiffer, so that even at my weight I no longer break spokes.

thing was Touring, using 48 spoke wheels replacing a broken spoke could be put off till convenient.


I had an 8 speed Aris F/W in my hand,

.. by the way SRAM Bought out Sachs group of companies ,
Malliard freewheel division was thrown over the side.maybe in a weighted Gunny Sack..
maybe they kept their chain making machines ..

To remove the 8 speed you needed 2 chain-whips to take off the last or last 2 cogs
to be able to put the removal tool on, and get a hold of it with a wrench..

7 was enough.. 50:13t high in a 622-40 wheel adequate , touring.

only thing 8th brought was a 12t

I still have 48 spoke wheels on my tandems, and I have a few for my single bikes, but my newer wheels are 40 with stiffer rims.

I like the Aris and I would probably still be using them if they were still available. The only thing that made me to go a 9 spd was the availability of a 36 cog. That way I still have the 12-32 8 spd I like and just add a 36 for that long steep hill at the end of a hot day.

I went over to a Rohloff Hub , as my next touring /utility Rig.

the new tooth profile ala Hyperglide , is all that is made in freewheels , with more than 1 ..
or a couple cogs, like in the White Dos.

the chain early shifting part of the index stuff ,

Using friction levers, the taller teeth dont ghost shift so easily.

The problem with the freehubs is while they solve the non-existent/easily engineered problem of axle breakage, they pick up either a ton of weight/cost/or shell breakage.

Another problem is that if you want to run practical 8s or something, you still end up with a spoke rigging angle set up for whatever cassette nonsense is current or expected for racers. When I built out my White hubs the dish looked like a straight line, on the centerline. Whatever it is, it will work fine, but I would certainly worry more about spokes on that puppy than with a freewheel. Unless you really need those cassette spacings and want to use the shift schedule to use them, what's the point. Another tech one would have to bite off would be brifters, the constant shifting is going to determine your position, and your gear there. So I guess if you want to ride the hoods across country changing gears like a rat on crack, you have your set-up with the new triples.

Shifting with brifiters will never quite be the same after reading this post . . . .

Years ago I had an axle break on a freewheel hub. That's an advantage of cassette hubs, the bearings are at the end of the axle on both sides.

in '95, after about 8,000 miles my freewheel and chain needed replacing. i pulled into the nearest LBS and had them replaced in about 1/2 hour. if i thought finding a freewheel at an LBS would be problem, i would just call a few and find out. OTOH, many online stores carry them and, i would think, could mail one to you at an agreed upon location, or as someone mentioned, just buy one and trust someone to send it to you express mail if you needed one in a hurry. and remember singlespeed freewheels (commonly used on BMX bikes) are readily available at a LBS. they can be used in a pinch too...

Heh, heh... Not that I mind brifters, just framing the argument for freewheels.

Very real possibility. The solution is Phil hubs, though a hulk like me has never broken even an LX. When one says Phil hubs, one normally gets an argument on cost. But even assuming one wouldn't spend the same or more on getting a freehub with a heavy shell, or Ti shell, the remaining shimano hubs, now that some of the cheaper ones have dried up are expensive, and if one goes the route of the high count hubs, one is getting into all kinds of fragile gear, where a chain alone can cost as much as the upgrade cost from cheap to phil freewheel hub. And then one has to add the cassette, the brifters, and so forth. So at least cost is no longer an issue.

I rode across country in 1977 using a 5 speed freewheel... that wheel is still usable today. I have both cassette and freewheel bikes that get ridden regularly. As long as the components are in good shape and you are maintaining things well I don't see an issue with riding either one. Carry the removal tool if you want, most well equipped LBS should have all the tools in stock, especially if they have been in business any length of time.

Aaron