Skip tooth freewheels. Why?

[Unchained]

Why do some of the "lower" end cogs on freewheels have 1" / skiptooth pitch instead of 1/2"? Did it help shift? This is something that has bugged me for a while. I haven't asked because I wasn't sure if these actually existed. I thought I was losing my mind, just seeing skiptooth everywhere, apparently I haven't lost it yet... :mrgreen: :wink:

 

[outskirtscustoms]

I'm not sure but I had one on a low end huffy I think it was to save money. I mean 4 grams of metal times a few million bikes saves them a lot.....or so they say.

 

[frameteam2003]

Yes I think it was to help in shifting.The only true skip tooth freehweels I've seen were Made in Frane 1920s

 

[masterpoop63]

it allows for better shifting as mentioned above to my knowledge

 

[socal_jack]

Probably was an early attempt at better shifting as that's a decently big jump in tooth count on the bigger cogs, still 1/2" pitch though both Shimano and Suntour had a version of this. Later Shiman mid gear had Uniglide where the teeth were twisted, later gear has ramped teeth to guide the chain, Shimano calls it Hyperglide but SRAM has their own version as well.

 

[Unchained]

Probably was an early attempt at better shifting as that's a decently big jump in tooth count on the bigger cogs, still 1/2" pitch though both Shimano and Suntour had a version of this. Later Shiman mid gear had Uniglide where the teeth were twisted, later gear has ramped teeth to guide the chain, Shimano calls it Hyperglide but SRAM has their own version as well.

Thanks, that makes sense. I do know about the twisted teeth.

You said "still 1/2 pitch though" - even with every other tooth missing? What did you mean by that? Is actual 1" pitch different than those cogs?

 

[socal_jack]

Probably was an early attempt at better shifting as that's a decently big jump in tooth count on the bigger cogs, still 1/2" pitch though both Shimano and Suntour had a version of this. Later Shiman mid gear had Uniglide where the teeth were twisted, later gear has ramped teeth to guide the chain, Shimano calls it Hyperglide but SRAM has their own version as well.

Thanks, that makes sense. I do know about the twisted teeth.

You said "still 1/2 pitch though" - even with every other tooth missing? What did you mean by that? Is actual 1" pitch different than those cogs?

There's more involved in than just removing every other tooth to achieve 1" pitch, a combination of tooth profile and spacing, try wrapping chains from 1/2" and 1" pitch around sprockets of each other. You can get away with it maybe on small cogs but on larger ones the real differnce shows up.

 

[Unchained]

Probably was an early attempt at better shifting as that's a decently big jump in tooth count on the bigger cogs, still 1/2" pitch though both Shimano and Suntour had a version of this. Later Shiman mid gear had Uniglide where the teeth were twisted, later gear has ramped teeth to guide the chain, Shimano calls it Hyperglide but SRAM has their own version as well.

Thanks, that makes sense. I do know about the twisted teeth.

You said "still 1/2 pitch though" - even with every other tooth missing? What did you mean by that? Is actual 1" pitch different than those cogs?

There's more involved in than just removing every other tooth to achieve 1" pitch, a combination of tooth profile and spacing, try wrapping chains from 1/2" and 1" pitch around sprockets of each other. You can get away with it maybe on small cogs but on larger ones the real differnce shows up.

That's interesting, I didn't realize they were that different. Thanks for shedding light on all of that for me :mrgreen:

 

[socal_jack]

Here's a 1/2" x3/16" chain wrapped as well as it'll go around a 10t skip tooth rear hub