Tech Briefing: Hubs with Magnets, Longer Droppers, Colourful Pedals, & More - February 2022

 Lifetime warranty works 3 years of the time, all the time.

Raceface is another one of those brands where a lot of their stuff has been crap for a looong time. Isis bottom brackets, chainrings that didn’t shift, one-by rings that wore out in a couple of months, fragile carbon cranks, crap hubs, soft rims and pedals that disassembled themselves under load.

I am constantly perplexed by companies that make so many crap products yet succeed.

 I had RF carbon cranks with the same pedal insert problems. Sent them back to RF for warranty in early June, and RF replaced them. 4 months later in September! They said they were backed up.....By that time I had obviously bought another crankset, so while I did get a warranty replacement, I wouldn't say this inspired any confidence in their service or their products. The turbines will hopefully be more durable.

 I’ve pretty much wrote Race Face off my product choices after Easton bought them. I do have an Atlas stem, but there’s not much Race Face ID buy now. Besides, didn’t their good engineers leave and start Oneup?

 @wyorider: they're a legacy brand. All the RF soft goods I've ever owned have completely fallen apart in an unreasonable amount of time I'll never buy any of their garbage product again.

 Yeah Chromag have been homies

 from working in a bikeshop in whistler, i can attest to raceface cranks being the absolute worst piss poor quality cranks

 Man.. by the time you pay for the crash replacement on the carbon cranks you are 75% of the cost of a set of eeWings..

 I find it a Turnon

 I shuttered when I read "Reed Cycles"

 @ReformedRoadie: Reed backwards spells deeR.

 @ReformedRoadie: I shuddered when I read "shuttered".

 @noapathy: he may have just closed himself off from reality

 I too rode a bucksaw, and man what a bike.

 Me too, love my Bucksaw. Could this be a quiver killer for trail riding? Yes, esp. with different wheelsets for summer. But is it? No.

The Foes does seem a tad big and heavy compared to the cf Bucksaw frame, but at least you know the seatstays will hold!

 If you love concave pedals. It isnt the most grip-inducing format

 if you're impatient like me they're a challenge, but if you follow their guides/youtube it's not bad

 I’d rather pay to have my bike repainted than ever do that again.

 it was a huge pain the a** to get it to look nice, I honestly gave up on the complete wrap, the basic kit is more then enough protection, the compete coverage is overkill

 I did a dyded bros wrap on my bike and really took my time and it came out awesome. Took about 3 hours. Youtube helped a lot as well

 @Caligula1620: right on.

 @spaztronaut: Yeah but now it said ⚡dyedbro⚡ all over your bike.

 @Pinemtn: have a super sharp exacto knife handy and a hair dryer

 @jackylegs: I've done 3 frames and 4 forks now. Really helps to have a bare frame with no parts, with the bike locked into a good stand and lots of good light. Spray bottle with lots of barely soapy water and a hair dryer. The stuff is hard to kill, use lots of soapy water and just keep at it until it's good. The learning curve is steep... first frame took me about 6 hours to get right... but by the end I was already pretty good. Second frame - 3 hours. Last frame took about an 1.5 hours. I can knock off a fork in about 30 mins now.

I do the full protection because I sell my bikes every year and the value it adds is well worth the cost and headache. It actually works really well and does make keeping the bike clean easier. Last bike and new bike are raw aluminum frames so didn't need to bother... just did the forks. But if I get a painted frame again, I will definitely use a complete kit again.

 @islandforlife: You're not wrong. First frame I did looked like shit and took me 3 hours with much swearing. With a lot of patience, a bit of experienc and a few beers, the second frame I did still looks like shit but only took me 1.5 hours.

 @pisgahgnar: haha too true how sad would you be

 @Caligula1620: ahh thanks for the pro tip. will do.

 @pisgahgnar: Exactly the reason i've looked at their website for every bike i've bought in the last couple years, and never ordered something.

 No crank flip...they stick like glue...shin guards... than Crank flip

 Bungee ball tensor

 I've been doing okay with OneUp Components EDC straps for the past three years. Jacket (for the climb in autumn and spring) being the usual strap on.

 less friction..or is that bad?? Short answer, maybe.

 @Caligula1620 pawl springs can wear out.

Not sure if Stan's will be offering the dead-silent version of these Project321 hubs.

 No springs behind the pawls to break.

 @krka73: I mean, isn't there some sort of limit on the durability of magnets too? I guess I'm just missing the value added

 @Tmackstab: hmm, so more of a durability enhancement more than performance?

 @Jerobertson4: haha I'd imagine less friction is the goal.

 @krka73: your blinker fluid is low

 There's a lot going on in even the most basic hub, but if we had to list the top two things that attracted us to Project321's magnetic design (damn, I'm sorry--I swear I didn't mean to do that), it'd be consistent alignment and low drag.

With regular pawl springs, you're pushing pawl teeth against ratchet ring teeth, and trusting everything to generally mesh and align properly when you mash on the pedals. Magnets are super reliable and consistent when it comes to that critical moment. Compared to mechanical springs, the magnets basically let the pawls self-align.

Mechanical springs also use a "push" force, so they're weakest when full extended and are pressing the hardest when compressed. That just means there's less force holding your pawl in place when it's engaged than there is when it's disengaged and compressing the spring more. Magnets are the opposite: they're a "pull" force, so when the pawl is engaged and the teeth are meshed, the magnetic spring is at its strongest. The further you move the magnet away from what's attracting it, the weaker it gets, and that tends to help reduce drag.

To be fair, these are all small differences, but because there really aren't any downsides to the magnetic design (the Neodymium magnets tend to outlast mechanical springs and held up great as we tested over the past few years), we basically said yeah, we'll take the updsides here.

 They work great for pedals so why not hubs?

 @krka73: Not gonna do the silent version that uses oil as acoustic damping in ours, no, but stay tuned for some sound comparison videos we made to help compare our new hub sound to other popular hubs . . and other things

 @StansNoTubes: wow thanks for the response and break down!

 @Caligula1620: from a demagnetization physics perspective, not really as long as you don’t put them in the oven or next to a more powerful magnet.

 @Caligula1620: No problem, thanks for asking about them!

 @sspiff: I think I was thinking of the magnets actually breaking, not losing their polarity. I guess I have just had some weak ass magnets in the past, but very interested now in the early reviews!

 @calarco68: Stan's it a tire producer? Since when?

Project 321 is a hub manufacturer, a pretty good one at that, and they make the new hub internals for Stan's. So ol' Stan can focus on building tires and not have to worry lol.

 @privateer-wheels: lol

 @privateer-wheels: Yes, full attention on tires and cranksets now.

 @Caligula1620: From personal experience (P321 not Stans hubs but more commenting on the magnets & pawls):

1. Hub very smooth and low drag
2. Good engagement (not Onyx instant but fairly close to)
3. One can quieten down the buzz with precise application of tiny amounts of Dumond grease rather than oil.
4. The weak point in the design WAS (hoping that they have improved this part of the design or assembly process) the glue used to stick the magnets to the pawls - I had a six magnet munch fest, not a sound one ever wants to hear again, at the top of Howler and can confirm that riding a steep, tech, black trail with no chain tension (and no free hub engagement) is NOT fun and potentially dangerous. Incredibly, on strip down, the pawls and the ring drive were almost undamaged despite reducing the six magnets to neodymium dust (well more a slurry when mixed with the free hub lube).
So in theory magnets do not weaken over time like springs will but I have never had a ride ruined (or lost a wheel to warranty process - the non ride time is what pisses us off about warranty processes) nor a hub fail because a pawl spring tossed itself into the ring drive mid ride.

 @StansNoTubes: any accurate ETA on wheelset with the new hubs? They are in the website but not available.

 @nogirlsatgt: they are available at the distribution level. Or were last week. Talk to any shop.

 Dnuop kcid backwards spells Dick Pound

 What about fat riders?

 There’s sure to be a market for them if people want to ride in snow. I’m looking at a plus tyres bike (surly low side) atm for scooting around my work campus. But I’m probably going to chicken out and get a Sunday high C or cult devotion. 1/3 the price and hopefully as much fun.

 Beleive it or not some places in canada have ALOT snow for 6+ months a year and fat bikes are the only way to keep riding 12 months a year. Our local club even has a groomed and it's a blast