What Is The Best Freewheel .?

[Al_Fel]

No, what I'm asking is if the ENO freewheel was 'never a good freewheel to begin with', the how come no one had a bad thing to say about it for all those years it was considered the best. Unless you meant it isn't a good freewheel compared to todays standards. Either way it's got nothing to do with him changing his opinion.

When Eno's came out the only other option was a dicta or an ACS. That made it a good freewheel. They are decent freewheels but no where near as good as the newer breed of Echo's.

[JT!]

Yeah that's what I thought he was saying but it made it sound like it was never a good freewheel to begin with.

[Mark W]

I remember when you got your first ENO moving from a dicta. I don't think you had that opinion about it when you first got it.

No shit - going from a 16-click £5 freewheel to an £85 sealed bearing 72-click freewheel has that effect 'when you first get it'. However, having to service it very often to keep it running, and having to repeatedly buy new pawls for it because they sometimes seemed to just shit the bed. The reason I did the 'How to service an Eno' thread Wiki FAQ jobber was because I had to do it fairly often, and other people had to as well.

It's not a bad freewheel, but compared to something like the Echo TR or SL freewheels it's more hassle for something that I'd say doesn't really function as well. The SL has a much more definite and positive engagement to it which you can quite easily feel by hand just turning it, but when you ride it's noticeable too.

RE: SL maintenance - I don't think Ali's stripped his once, and it's stilll as good as new. It literally feels like it's new when you spin it, but it's served Ali pretty well over the past 11 months he's been using it. Part of the awesomeness of open bearing freewheels are that you only really need to just flush them with some spray lube to get them working fine again if they go off a bit, although I don't think Ali's even done that. I've certainly not had to do anything with mine over the past few months I've had it.