IB15: White Industries starts shipping 6-bolt hubs, adds Boost mountain bike versions

Not White too! Please oh please, can someone explain to me how Narrow/Wide continues to be a marketed concept? How does thickness contribute to holding the chain any better than tall teeth alone?

As long as the teeth are tall enough, the chain cannot drop unless the lateral play causes it to miss the next tooth. And if the chain is made to tightly hug the teeth between the narrow plates, the alternating wider links are not afforded much lateral freedom anyway.

Without compromising any performance in chain retention, keeping the teeth all narrow would allow for odd tooth counts, more even tooth wear, and cheaper parts that don’t require complex machining.

What am I missing?

(Nice looking disc hubs, by the way.)

Onion – I am guessing you have never used a wide/narrow chainring.
Go ride one and you will find out what you are missing.

Onion and Tim – The reason narrow/wide rings are marketed is because they actually WORK. I ran SS specific (“tall”) single ring setups since the 1×9 days and was always trying to find a more elegant solution to prevent dropped chains. I often added chain catchers, + guide, + bash guard… All types of solutions.

The narrow/wide rings work unbelievably well at retaining the chain. Compared to a tall-toothed chainring, the performance benefits are massive.

Use one before you knock it.

Onion, it’s pretty simple. The wide teeth match up with the wider spaced part of the chain, meaning that there is less lateral movement of the chain.

When you’re bouncing down the trail, it’s not so much that the chain that’s already on the ring falls off, it’s that the chain that’s just off of the ring (link or two before it gets to and after it leaves the chainring) can move to the side, and cause the chain to come off. With the wide sections filling the wider parts of the chain, the chain will move to the side less, and be less likely to fall off.

Yes they work better than than rings with equal length teeth. And yes I have tried both. Take even for example the race face N/W rings – they have quite short teeth, similar to the ones on a big ring of a typical 2x or 3x setup. And yet the race face rings work well, the 2x and 3x rings don’t… at all (without a guide). I have also compared larger tooth rings – a DH single ring, and a wolf tooth, almost the exact same ring profile other than the n/w part, and the DH single ring had quite a few chain drops on the same route the wolftooth has had only one.

BTW, LOVE my CLD hubs. White industries and DT; the only hubs I use.

Onion – Yes, I’ve done this. N/W works better. Zero dropped chains in 2+ years in all sorts of riding conditions vs dropped chains in all the same riding conditions. This is on a well made custom Ti bike etc etc so it’s not a sloppy build. If you need an odd tooth count, want better wear etc, use whatever you want and stop whining about a product you won’t be using anyways. FWIW I haven’t noticed any more wear on these systems than I used to without. I still replace after roughly the same # of miles as long as I’ve kept the drivetrain clean and switched chains as soon as I notice any stretch. I WOULD say the bigger help with dropped chains are clutch derailleurs, but for those not using derailleurs through either SS or IGF solutions and/or those that run down really gnarly terrain where the chain can still bounce off the ring despite the clutch the N/W still helps.

Don’t read the comments.

@jd- I am not saying narrow-wides don’t work; I have never tried one, and am not trying to be a downer. But just working is not a very high bar. I think what Onion is trying to say is that, while narrow-wides work, rings which rely only on very tall teeth might be even better. Thing is, a decent number of people have ridden narrow-wides, a small number have ridden rings with tall teeth, but I presume very few have tested both for extended periods of times. So I think his question is valid. I have heard of people wearing out narrow-wides quickly in wet and muddy conditions. But if you’re riding narrow-wides and like them, good for you. They MIGHT not be for everyone, and there MIGHT be a better solution. Just throwing out some questions, not trying to be ‘that guy’.

Tom- there’s nothing negative about reporting product failures. It’s the failed products themselves (or something that was done to them) that was negative. Thanks for the data points.

Are the freehub body’s steel or are they soft aluminium?

It’s much more the clutched rear mech than it is the chainrings preventing chain loss.

Free hubs are Ti