PEDALING PERFORMANCE

What is Pedal Feedback? We define it as all the trail noise that reverberates through your feet, which includes feedback from pedal KICKback, cassette backwards slap, and rear wheel lockup. This all comes in different ways from your suspension, drivetrain, or even rider weight. It’s measurable, and we’ve done the testing to verify it.

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Hub points of engagement (POE)

How does your hub’s POE work with decoupling components? Great question. The more POE your hub has, the more positions in a 360° rotation where the hub’s ratchet system can engage, which means that you get quicker hub engagement. A lower POE hub means that there’s more of a lag between when you begin pedaling and when the hub’s ratchet ring engages and you start delivering power to the ground. So, if you have a higher POE hub combined with your decoupling component, then you’ll notice less engagement lag between when you start pedaling and when your hub engages.

Hub-based decoupling solutions

As you may have guessed, hub-based decoupling solutions are based … in the hub. As you rotate through cranks, the chain pulls on the cassette and rotates the hub. With decoupling hubs, the engagement lag happens between when you begin pedaling and when the hub's decoupling component engages the driver, based on how many points of engagement (POE) your hub has. However, with decoupling hubs, how much lag depends on what gear you’re in, thanks to gear ratios.

Gear ratios are dependent on the number of teeth on your chainring and the number of teeth on the cassette’s cogs. Here, the gear ratio determines how far the crankset will move before the hub engages. This means you only get the advertised amount of travel (say, 20 degrees) when you have a 1:1 ratio between cassette cog and chainring teeth (so, 32-tooth cog and 32-tooth chainring).

To understand how much engagement lag we get from a decoupling hub, we can multiply the hub’s degrees of travel (most have options between 9° and 20°) by the gear ratio of the drivetrain (the number of teeth on a given cog divided by the number of teeth on the chainring). This might look different than a gear ratio that aims to show the number of wheel rotations per crank rotation, and that’s on purpose—our focus here is at the hub, not the wheel. We’ll use the inverse gear ratio to determine how much the crank will rotate based on one wheel rotation.

To create our equation, we’ll use a 32T chainring, and an Eagle Transmission cassette gearing (ranging from 10T - 52T), and we’ll use an easy degree of travel number: 20°. We’ll use a 90 POE hub, which gives us a 4° engagement angle (how often in the 360° of hub rotation the pawls engage). Put together, 20° at the hub plus 4° of engagement angle = 24° of lag at the hub. Now we’ll apply the hub lag to calculate the engagement lag by using the gear ratios in both the largest and smallest cogs.

Easy gear (large cog: 52T)

To calculate total engagement lag, we’ll multiply the hub lag x the gear ratio: 24° x (52/32)= 39°. This means that a decoupling hub with a 20° setting will see the cranks rotate by 39° before engaging the hub. You'll notice a large amount of engagement lag at the cranks while in the easiest gears that are typically used for climbing—your feet will travel further before the hub engages, which can make timing challenging when initiating pedaling (think of the pause before a power move). This represents the maximum degree of travel available, so the numbers will naturally be smaller with fewer degrees of travel, but the same principles apply.

Hard gear (small cog: 10T)

Using the same equation: 24° x (10/32) = 7.5° of crank lag. This means that a decoupling hub with a 20° setting will see that the cranks only rotate by about 7° before engaging. With 7°, you’ll hardly notice any engagement lag at the cranks when in the hardest gears, which are typically used while descending. This feels similar to riding without any decoupling devices as it reduces the performance: instead of 20° in the gears you typically descend in, it’s drastically less.

If you have a hub with a different POE, you’ll find that changes the engagement lag as well. Any amount of hub engagement also gets multiplied through which gear you’re in, so if you have a lower POE hub, you can feel even bigger difference in lag between the easy and hard gears.

We'll start with the same hub 90 POE hub as above, which gets us the same engagement angle of 4°. There is no lag at the hub other than POE, so we multiply the 4° by the gear ratio, and then add the amount of Ochain's engagement lag. We'll use 12°—Ochain's max adjustment.

Easy gear (large cog: 52T)
4°x(52/32)+12° = 18.5° of engagement lag.

Hard gear (small cog: 10T)
4°x(10/32)+12° = 13.25° of engagement lag.

Now, when we change that hub to a much higher 690 POE, we can see how much the hub you use improves these numbers. First, we'll calculate the engagement angle: 360°/690 = 0.52°.

Easy gear (large cog: 52T)
0.52°x(52/32)+12°=12.85° of engagement lag.

Hard gear (small cog: 10T)
0.52°x(10/32)+12°=12.16° of engagement lag.

This tells us that a lower POE means more engagement lag, while a higher POE means less lag. And, with Ochain, you can choose what hub and POE you'd like to run, unlike decoupling hubs that come with a set POE.

How it works: Ochain uses a two-stage system. When the chainring engages, it compresses the Ochain’s internal springs first. During the final degree of travel, elastomers take over (acting like a suspension bottom-out bumper) to smooth the transition and prevent harsh feedback.