After adding sour apple green to their collection a few weeks back, Absolute Black was showing off this jailhouse orange narrow/wide chainring. Word is one of the other colors might be going away, but this one should be escaping into production this fall.
We also scored a look inside their new Black Diamond hubs to see how the magnetic star ratchet pawl rings work, plus an explanation of why they offer two different styles of SRAM direct mount chainrings…
The Black Diamond hubs have minimal moving parts, using only what’s seen below to transfer your legs’ effort into forward motion. One side of the star ratchet is machined directly into the freehub body. The other is a floating ring that slides laterally inside grooves. A strong ring shaped magnet pushes it against the pawls to engage (left). When coasting, the pawl ramps simply push it back against the magnet (right, click to enlarge). There are no springs or loose pawls to misplace in the infrequent service intervals Marcin says this hub requires. In fact, he says the design is fairly impervious to most things like dust, water and crud. But, if it does seem a little off, you simply remove pull the freehub body off with your hands and clean everything out, add a little lubrication and pop it back together.
Check the full technical specs in this post.
Standard 9/10/11 speed freehubs and XD Driver bodies are available.
The front hub is equally beautiful, and Marcin says the external machining and shaping isn’t just for cosmetics. There’s also considerable care paid to the inside shaping, and the combination (particularly on the rear) means less torsional twist of the hub shell. That twist, which is minimal on any hub, can be enough to put slight angular pressure on the bearings, which causes them to wear quicker. He says his hub shell shape keeps them very stiff to last longer and roll smoother.
Shown here are the SRAM BB30 direct mount chainring (black, top) and the standard SRAM GXP direct mount chainrings.
Why two different designs? Because SRAM’s short BB30 spindles can be 6mm shorter than the standard ones, which would throw the chainline off considerably if you were to use the wrong chainring. It’s simple to tell which you have. The short spindle will have a 9mm spacer on the drive side, and the long version has a 15mm spacer. Check your bike, then order accordingly.
