Weird "Stickiness" when pedaling backwards and loud freewheel
50
Member
305 days
gshuldes posted 13 weeks ago.
Your description sounds perfectly normal to me.
1) Your back wheel should start to spin backwards when you pedal backwards with the wheel off the ground. The freewheel contains a couple of spring loaded pawls that lock on to notches in the hub when you pedal forward. When you coast or pedal backward these pawls get pushed up out of the notches, then snap back down into the next notch. Pushing the pawls up requires a little bit of force, and when the wheel is off the ground this force eventually makes the wheel spin backwards.
2) The clicking sound is caused by the pawls snapping back into the notches in the hub. Different brands of freewheels sound distinctly different. Some are very quiet while others are quite loud.
804
Member
827 days
cayman posted 13 weeks ago.
seems to be alot of back pedaling lately ;)
john
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
Two things I'm bringing up only because they might be related.
If I have my bike off the ground so the back wheel can spin freely, and I pedal backwards, then my back wheel will start to spin backwards. The freewheel will spin at first, but then slowly, the back wheel will just start slowly to spin. I brought it into my LBS and they looked at it and said there's nothing wrong, but it just seems strange to me.
Then in a separate note, if I coast, my wheel really clicks very loudly. I mean really loudly, like a car can probably hear me coming loud. When I rode with a friend recently he even commented on it.
1.) anyone think the backwards spinning part is strange?
2.) Does the loud clicking matter?
3.) Could this be a problem that both are related to?
To tri or not to tri - that's not a question at all!