Chosen had some pretty shiny things in their booth this year, and as good-looking as they are, the real beauty is hidden inside. Their new super fast engaging hubs come in plenty of varieties, and the new silent hub all but eliminates friction. Also in other hub news, Shutter Precision expands their popular dynamo hub sizes to fit more of your adventuring needs…
Chosen’s 150T hub has… you guessed it, 150 teeth on the drive ring. Add to that 3 pawls with 7 teeth each and you get an instantaneous 2.4° engagement! That is slightly faster than Chris King, and again even I9’s 3° Torch hubs. They will be available in both road & mountain versions, with mountain versions using either straight-pull or j-bend spokes and the road hubs in straight-pull only.
Also lurking on their shelf in Taipei was their new Silent Hub. Though undeniably quiet, the key advantage to this hub design is that the pawls are taken completely out of the picture as you coast leaving only the friction of the bearings and seals remaining. As you can see in the animated image above (right), as soon as you pedal, the cassette body snaps the pawls into position and you’re off! These silent hubs will also come in straight-pull only for road, and for mountain will get both straight-pull and j-bend options.
Shutter Precision showed us a prototype of their 150mm dynamo hub last year and it looks like they’re ready to go to market now. Also they tell us they will have a 110 Boost hub ready soon, so those riding with the new standard up front will be able ride all night long powering lights and charging gadgets. Both hubs run on the 6v, 3watt standard and will be distributed through Cycle Monkey and Merry Sales in the states.
