Home > Bike Types > Mountain Bike

The Tairin Mugen is a silent roller clutch drive hub with micro spline compatibility

Tairin-Mugen-micro-spline-freehub-mtb-mountain-bike-canadian-6001-bearings
7 Comments
Support us! Bikerumor may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article. Learn More

Tairin Wheels of British Columbia are ready to release their silent Mugen hub following a year of designing and testing. The Mugen is a modular hub with roller clutch drive mechanism, housed within the freehub itself along with the main load bearings. Not only is it silent and fully serviceable, it is also Micro Spline compatible, thus can be run with Shimano’s 12 speed cassettes with the 10-tooth top cog. We have the details.

silent freehub micro spline shimano
The Tairin Mugen silent freehub with micro spline driver

Tairin Mugen Silent Hub

Tairin-Mugen-micro-spline-freehub-mtb-mountain-bike-canadian-6001-bearings

What is special about the Tairin Mugen hub isn’t that it is silent, though bravo. It is the fact that they’ve managed to design the hub to accommodate much larger bearings than you might expect to find in a hub. Especially, on a Micro Spline compatible hub. The Mugen load bearing is 6001, measuring 12mm x 28mm x 8mm. More frequently found in aftermarket Micro Spline compatible hubs are 6902 bearings, measuring 2mm smaller than 6001. Why should you care? Because generally speaking, the larger the diameter of the ball bearings, the better the longevity.

tairin-mugen-mtb-freehub-silent-roller-clutch-drive-mechanism-6001-bearings

The Tairin Mugen features their “Overlapping Bearing Interface” (OBI) construction. What now? This is what allows Tairin to house the main load bearings inside the freehub itself. The freehub sits deep into the hubshell, through the oversized bearing and is tethered-floating on two balancing support bearings, becoming part of the structure that carries the rider’s load. This means that the furthest bearings are carrying the rider’s weight and forces (left disc side bearing, and the furthest right side bearing sitting inside the freehub).

On standard four sealed bearing hubs, the two bearings inside the shell take care of the rider weight and forces, and the two bearings inside the freehub take care of the driving forces from pedaling. Tairin say the OBI design has more leverage support from the hub to the rim, as the virtual line of the normal forces extends further outwards towards the endcap-to-endcap.

Tairin-Mugen-freehub-internal-mtb-silent-micro-spline-shimano

Inside the Mugen, the 6001 freehub bearing sits directly onto the frame thru-axle. The hub’s body axle does not protrude each side’s end caps, it butts against them. The axle also butts against the 6001 bearing that sits directly on the frame’s thru axle.

The Tairin Mugen roller clutch drive gives rise to instant engagement. Great, if you’re an XC racer looking for marginal gains, not so good if you’re more interested in descending. A hub with instant engagement can exacerbate the feeling of pedal kickback on certain suspension designs, that’s why Tairin have opted to make the Mugen’s engagement customizable to suit your riding style. They plan to release roller clutch cages that are color coded yellow, red and blue, signifying 0 deg, 2.5 deg and 5 deg engagement.

tairin-mugen-12x148-mtb-freehub-silent-mechanism

All Tairin Mugen freehubs are made from steel, including the Micro Spline, HG and XD drivers. Its modular design means Tairin have the freedom to design other non-silent freehub mechanisms around it.

Pricing & Availability

As with all Tairin Wheels, the Mugen will be available as hubs or complete wheelsets. Choose from their DH rated Duty MK2, the Lite, or the GRS. All wheels are hand laced in house with Tairin’s Yield Point Wheel Build technique. Tairin say the technique guarantees no need for truing, re-tensioning, or seat-in periods for up to two years. If the wheel goes out of true, they will sort it out.

The Tairin Mugen weighs a claimed 450g. It is a 6-bolt rotor mount design for J-Bend spokes only. From June 1st, the Mugen will be available in Boost spacing (12mm x 148mm). A superboost adaptive kit will be available separately for DH bikes, as seen for the Shogun hub. A non-boost Mugen will also be available at a later date. Prices start from CAD 550 per hub.

Tairin’s Shogun hub with 3.75 degree engagement will also be available with Micro Spline driver

TairinWheels.ca

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

7 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Mark H
Mark H
4 years ago

Maybe you should lead with a photo of something that doesn’t look like it’s 3D printed. I was very sceptical about the hub until I got to the last photo. Up to then there were four photos of a 3D printed part and two renderings.

Even the last photo looks… contrived, with matte splines on a smooth cassette body.

But that’s a great idea to tune the clutch windup as a consistent engagement angle vs ratchets which are anywhere between instantaneous to their max angle, depending on the hub-to-cassette body orientation.

Hoss H
Hoss H
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark H

They seem to have the full hub on their instagram @tairinwheels with videos as well. Very interesting steel XD drive. The last pic is of their current shogun hubs

Dominic
Dominic
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark H

Steel freehub bodies are typically matt. So I’m not sure how “contrived” fits in to the picture.

Mark H
Mark H
4 years ago
Reply to  Dominic

Dominic, the thing is it’s not the whole freehub body that’s matte. It’s only the section with the splines that’s matte, not the area immediately adjacent to the splines which should also be steel. And actually, as Hoss H mentions, that’s the Shogun hub which probably has an aluminum body, which is why it’s black when steel parts probably wouldn’t be painted.

J'Anky Teal
J'Anky Teal
4 years ago

What’s the tolerance range on a thru axle? The bearing is probably going to be dead on 12mm, but with a sliding axle:race fit you’re going to see some eccentricity. It’s scary not to control the entire system, but the bike industry is a little more… forgiving than others.

GTPjon
GTPjon
4 years ago

Not convinced by the location of the large bearing at the inboard end of the freehub / clutch either; that means the spoke flange is effectively at the other end of an unsupported tube. I also wouldn’t mind betting that some thru-axles aren’t intended to be the sole load support; they’re supposed to function inside a continuous tubular axle, so this might result in a weak point and axle failure. Added to that you’ve got the downside of roller clutch hubs, you need more steel than a regular hub to resist the bursting force of the clutch, so they’re heavy.

Pertti Pasanen
Pertti Pasanen
4 years ago

Silent, instant engagement, replaceable bearings and price is reasonable. Almost everything I need. Probably futile to hope there’s a 197/12 fat version coming :/

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.