so around seven months ago I rode the free night planetary free coaster for
the first time ever and in that time I made a whole bunch of videos about this
thing asking if it was a game-changing free coaster because if you guys didn't
know this is the only free coaster available right now that you don't have
to disengage or re-engage and I'll show you what that means right now I have
examples from previous videos and I'm gonna try to illustrate it right now so
you can hear it clicking right now is a cassette I'm not going to do anything
I'm not gonna let go of it as you can see we're just gonna spin it backwards I
haven't done anything I'm just free coasting now and as you'll see the
driver actually moves itself the opposite way so um we're free coasting
now let's go forward again you can hear the clicking again that means it's back
in cassette mode I didn't have to disengage it or re-engage it and with
this came the question of whether or not this free coaster was actually game
changing I mean we hadn't seen anything like this before
it's a cassette and a free coaster at the same time which we have seen before
but we hadn't seen in that or in free coasters in general is one that you
didn't have to disengage or re-engage what I mean by disengage and re-engage
is just having to back pedal and forward pedal to disengage or re-engage the hub
so before you go fakie with conventional free coasters you have to do somewhat of
a back pedal to disengage the hub and allow it to free coast and that means
whenever you go forwards again you have to reengage it by pulling the slack out
which normally means paddling forward as much as you have set in order to
re-engage the hub and allow it to pedal forwards again
so with this hub you don't have to do any of that and it doesn't kind of in a
way that feels impossible and like magic which I've made videos about previously
and in this video and since that seven months has gone by I've had so many
people asking me about this hub whether it's in person or online and lately I've
had a ton of questions on if I'm still riding it and what I think of it now
that I've ridden it for so long and here is the full review video and
with that I thought since my thoughts on this
thing are pretty simple to be honest I can take it apart again for the first
time since the last video where I took it apart and showed the internals and
show just what this thing looks like on the inside and maybe even give you guys
an idea of whether or not you should buy it and with that it's gonna be pretty
casual so let's take apart the hardware from the hub I'm gonna be totally honest
with you guys and I'll give you my thoughts right now
right off the bat this free coaster is amazing I absolutely love it and I would
not be riding a free coaster without it is it game-changing we'll have to find
that out after we take it apart and what we're doing this let's talk about any
maintenance issues or anything that I've ran into with this hub the honest truth
is that the only issues that I've run into with this hub are from not having
the cone spacers tight enough there was a little bit of a wobble but it's
because the non-drive side cone spacer came a little bit loose and all I had to
do is tighten it up and the only issues that I've heard of anyone having are
from having way too loose of cone nuts I had one friend who had an issue where it
wouldn't in like pedal forwards or fakie or do anything and it was because his
cone spacer was way too loose he said like way looser than anyone who'd ever
think it could get so I haven't heard of any issues with it I haven't had any
issues with it I guess before we start taking things apart let's see if the
axle is still straight usually whenever you spin it in this position you can
tell if it's bent which it looks perfectly straight to me and I don't
know if you guys can really tell they're not but it looks perfect I did do the
axle mod which I don't know if you're gonna be able to see in there not
especially if the camera focuses so you can see the tube in the axle it's on
both sides I have a video on that as well there's an entire playlist of these
videos I did that because I wasn't totally sure of the hollow axle because
I've broken so many okay my time riding bee
but let's get this driver off here another thing to keep in mind with this
hub is that when you get it new there is 100% a braking period with the hub what
that means is that you have to ride it and continue riding it to break the hub
in in order for it to work the way that it's supposed to I'm not gonna lie to
you guys when I first got this hub and I wrote it for the first time ever I
thought that it was just it wasn't working the way that it was supposed to
I thought that oh man I don't know about this thing but my thoughts on breaking
it in we're also just taking two laps or how the skate park can be like oh it's
probably good no it actually takes around 10 hours to break this hub in so
any of you who bought this thing and I've had people ask me about this
they have run into this you have to break it in and you have to ride this
thing for around 10 hours for it to work properly and since that break-in period
the amount of times that this hub has unintentionally engaged on me has been
so few it's a rare thing to happen and usually when it happens is whenever I'm
moving extremely slow or because of the way that this thing works a situation
where the wheel is completely stopped and then I land fakie a perfect example
of this is an Abubakr whenever it comes to an abou Baca your tire is completely
stopped I mean obviously you're pulling the brakes to stop on your back tire so
when you go to hop in your wheel isn't moving and you land and there's a chance
that it will stay engaged and that's because the way this hub works is that
it relies on momentum to go back and forth at least that's the way that I
perceive it so you've got the hub moving forward into setting and the only way
for it to really efficiently go into free Coast mode is to be moving forward
like this if it's just stopped and you pull it backwards it's going to be
engaged because I believe that the forward momentum is what allows the
planetary gearing in this hub to do its job so on an abubakr or any other trick
like an ice to fakie where my back wheel is completely stopped on my way back in
before I land I will give the tiniest little forward crank possible just
enough to get the wheel moving and before it lands fakie and I know you
guys are probably sitting here watching like take the driver out already we want
to see the inside so let's look at the inside and we're just gonna pull this
driver out boom there we go alright here's the driver just like I suspected
and just like in the first video it looks exactly the way that it did when
it was new literally there's no change I can put in
old footage here from when the first took it out and showed it in that video
the internal looks exactly the same so we'll set that aside now let's pull out
the planetary clutch system pull it all out as one piece because I don't really
want to take this apart yet and here's the insides of the cassette area I'm not
sure if you guys can see this or not or how close you can see it but it looks
just like it did when it was no let's see how zoomed in we can get here aside
from being a little bit dirty the teeth look great everything looks great so
drivers good the teeth on the inside ratcheting ring is good what about the
planetary clutch setup that we've got here let's see what this thing looks
like on the inside link once again guys it looks exactly
like it did the first time I took it apart I see no issues with that and like
I was told by the people at free night this is to be expected because this
planetary clutch system right here does not experience any forces on it all it's
there to do is raise and lower the pulse or raise the pause really and allow the
pause to lower I am seeing one little spot of where here so this one little
spot of where here that's all I'm seeing and it's not even
really like it doesn't even look like it's
anything and the other ones look perfect it seems pretty definitive this hub is
the real deal the internals of it still appear to be perfect even after seven
months of hard riding on it if you've seen the previous videos I purposefully
engaged it like hard and just made it engaged so as far as durability goes I
think the hub's going to last and I think that this is what a lot of people
were waiting on so I'm gonna put it back together here
it does go together in a very specific way but honestly that was the first time
I'd taken this thing apart since the last video that I made on it and I'm I'm
not surprised it doesn't feel any different when I ride it it doesn't seem
like anything has changed whatsoever so I'm really honestly not surprised to see
that it's still perfect I'm just excited that now that I've taken this thing
apart after seven months there's really no question on whether or not this hub
is legit whether or not it's a game changer
I think is up to you guys for me it is absolutely a game changer it completely
changed the way that I do fakie tricks they went from being a means to an end
for a trick and just a way to get out of landing something you say I do an
icepick variation to fakie the half cab in the fakie were just how to get out of
that trick now I actually feel like they're part of the trick they feel good
they feel like they look good they feel like they made me ride smoother with
fakie tricks I can do tricks out of an in fakies that I never could have done
before with the cassette and that was immediately apparent I have done several
things that was really really excited about that I'd never ever could have
done on a cassette and the fact that I can do it with this hub and then go to
the trails and pedal it forward and if I end up having to for some crazy reason
pedal between jumps I know you're not supposed to but if you end up having to
or doing it out of instinct I'm not gonna die because of slack or anything
like that what I will say about this hub is that it's absolutely not for everyone
because there's certain situations that you just can't use petal pressure
on this hub for instance anytime you're doing some sort of brakeless spinning
back wheel trick say a five tab on a quarter or a 360 tap on flat ground it
is going to be a free coaster no matter what there are situations where a buddy
of mine did a 270 tap over a hip at a skate park and somehow he ended up with
pedal pressure but he couldn't duplicate it other than those few tries and every
single other time after that it was a free coaster upon landing
in that back tire motion and that's where the trade-off aspect of this hub
comes into play if you're okay with trading the ability to use pedal
pressure on your back wheel spinning around in tricks like three taps and
five taps for having a unlimited slack free coaster then maybe it is a game
changer for you for me I never use pedal pressure for anything I've had brakes
since I started riding that means I've been using my brakes for everything
since I started riding I don't use pedal pressure on tire taps or anything like
that so I don't have to worry about it for me this is the perfect hub and it is
a game changer and that's not to say that things like an annual 180s or full
cabs using pedal pressure are completely impossible as long as you're moving
forward with this hub it's in cassette mode so if you pivot around in a full
cab and end up moving forward a little bit before you spin that 180 to get to
fakie again you're gonna have pedal pressure on a manual 180 if you're
moving forward you're gonna have that pedal pressure you can still ride
wheelies think about it that way you can still ride a wheelie which means that if
you're moving forward to do a manual 180 and you use that pedal pressure to pop
you out of it it's still going to work there's just a few certain situations in
certain tricks that work only like a free coaster unlike the other cassette
free coaster options like with the Z coaster you can choose to keep it
engaged for things like tire taps and three taps this hub does not give you
the option to keep it engaged and like I said that gives you a trade off you have
to decide from I think for a lot of people not having to ever worry about
having Hubb engage on you while you're riding
fakie is huge and I know that's a frustration that a lot of people have
with conventional free coasters with a free night planetary free coaster you
shouldn't ever have to worry about that because as long as you're moving
backwards in a fakie you have to force this thing to engage you have to really
crank forward and no accidental foot twitches are going to instantly engage
this hub and whatever would happen after that on a conventional free coaster one
aspect of this hub that could be perceived as game-changing is the fact
that while you're riding fakie with this thing it has unlimited slack what do I
mean by that literally while you're faking you can pedal forwards with this
hub as long as you don't pedal too hard so what that means for people who ride
free coasters is that you don't have to worry about that foot twitch engaging
your hub on accident you can literally pedal forwards a little bit and adjust
your feet and do whatever you need to and never have to worry about this hub
engaging as long as you're moving backwards in a fakie and that is huge
while we're on the topic of conventional free coaster hubs let's talk about the
different nuances and things you have to worry about with them do you don't have
to worry about with this hub for one some free coasters have plastic bushings
in them that break and wear and when they wear they can make your whole wheel
feel wobbly and loose you don't have to worry about this with this hub because
every piece of axle within the hub itself is taken up by some piece of
metal that planetary clutch assembly has an aluminum spacer in it so that there's
no chance of wobble or wear in there and then you've got your driver which is all
bearings then you've got your cone nut on this side just bearings on this side
and cone nut on there so there's no possibility unless something goes catch
tropically wrong for this hub to wear on the inside and make it loose another
thing is just the general maintenance of conventional free coaster hubs I had a
friend who had one that rode trails and he had said he had to take it apart all
the time andrey greased it because there would be
dirt in there and i've heard of people having to take their coasters apart and
just maintenance them and make sure that they're not going to break basically i
haven't taken this thing apart whatsoever
I got it other than for the videos that I've made I've just ridden my bike and
that is my favorite thing about this free coaster I just get on my bike and
ride it I don't have to think about what I'm doing I don't have to think about
disengaging it or the fact that after I turn a fakey around I'm gonna have to
worry about slamming on me on the stem because I'm the kind of person who
forgets about slack and would just die all the time I just ride my bike and I
love that about this hub and as I've said in previous videos my only real
worry about this hub was the hollow axle on it since I put that tubing in the
axle I haven't had to worry about it as you guys saw it was perfectly straight
and since I took it apart and everything was perfect internally my worries about
this hub are completely resolved I have no worries and I plan on riding this
exact hub as long as it holds up it's the way that it's held up in the last
seven months is any indication it's going to last years into the future and
I am so happy to say that and bring this information to you guys and I can
definitively say without a shadow of a doubt that I never want to ride another
hub ever unless it's got the exact same style of cassette free coaster no
disengagement or re-engagement needed this is the only hub that I want to ride
so with that being said the question of whether or not this free coaster is
game-changing can only be answered by the person who's going to ride it if it
fits your riding style and you're okay with the trade-offs or you don't have to
worry about those trade-offs then I think it's absolutely a game changer for
someone who likes to ride trails but also wants to have a free coaster and
never worry about catching the slack or rien gauging a free coaster this can be
a game changer for you for someone who likes to use that pedal pressure in a
tire tap or a back wheel spinning trick this might not be the hub for you unless
you're okay with that trade-off and that's just the nature of BMX products
in general I know there's a lot of people when this came out that acted
like it shouldn't exist because it didn't fit in their style of riding but
the truth of the matter is that there's people out there like me who this hub is
absolutely perfect for and just because something doesn't work perfectly
with your riding style doesn't mean that it shouldn't exist or that it doesn't
work perfectly with someone else's that's why it's called freestyle and
that's where I want to leave this one I want to thank free night for providing
me with this hub to ride and make videos about for all of you to watch I hope
that this was informative and maybe helps some of you who are on the fence
on whether or not you should buy this hub and if you want more information
like I said I've got tons of other videos about this thing I'm sure there's
a playlist on the screen right here for you to click if you want to see more
thank you for watching if you found your way here from somewhere else consider
hitting the subscribe button down below and while you're down there let me know
what you guys think about this hub because I absolutely love it
thank you guys for watching and hopefully we'll see you tomorrow for
another one goodbye