Absoluteblack Black Diamond hubs – a sneak peak!

Woburn-based Absoluteblack have sent us a quick look-see of their new, very tidy looking, Black Diamond hubs which are officially launching at Eurobike 2014:

They’ve teamed up with a mystery partner, who is producing the rear magnetic star-ratchet freewheel. In the words of the press release:

“The system contains two rare earth, circular magnets, one in the hub body and one attached to the moving star ratchet. The magnets repel each other, forcing the ratchets together; there is only one moving part. All the ratchet components are made out of special grade, hardened stainless steel. This ratchet design can tolerate mud, dirt and other contaminants without loss of its performance.”

Sounds tasty.

A mystery ratchet, and some nice fat bearings

In addition, the hubs come with large 17x30x7mm low friction bearings (four in the rear and two in the front), a stainless steel freehub, an external bearing preload feature, lots of seals and easy servicing. They’re designed for “trail and aggressive Enduro” (it says here). They certainly look pretty.

The front hub weighs 138g and comes in at £128, and the rear hub weighs 268g and costs £285 – so aiming at the slightly more chi-chi end of the market.

More details at Eurobike 2014!

Absoluteblack’s website is here (but there are no details of the hubs up yet).

Barney Marsh

Barney Marsh takes the word ‘career’ literally, veering wildly across the road of his life, as thoroughly in control as a goldfish on the dashboard of a motorhome. He’s been, with varying degrees of success, a scientist, teacher, shop assistant, binman and, for one memorable day, a hospital laundry worker. These days, he’s a dad, husband, guitarist, and writer, also with varying degrees of success. He sometimes takes photographs. Some of them are acceptable. Occasionally he rides bikes to cast the rest of his life into sharp relief. Or just to ride through puddles. Sometimes he writes about them. Bikes, not puddles. He is a writer of rongs, a stealer of souls and a polisher of turds. He isn’t nearly as clever or as funny as he thinks he is.

Comments (11)

terrahawkterrahawk August 20, 2014 at 3:20 pm

that rear one’s going to be a bugger to keep clean

MugsMugs August 20, 2014 at 3:22 pm

“The magnets repel each other, forcing the ratchets together” – surely attract?

NorthwindNorthwind August 20, 2014 at 3:59 pm

@Murray- if I follow, it’s basically taking the place of a spring so the magnets repel, and force the moving ratchet into the freehub rack. Pretty similiar in concept to a DT240 only with added miracles.

dangeourbraindangeourbrain August 20, 2014 at 4:06 pm

The magnet is in the hub body according to the above so repel is correct, pushing it out towards the freehub shell, which at least means no expensive magnets to replace when the freehub shell chews up regularly because it’s light weight cheese rather than heavy but reliable steel.

Can’t help thinking it’s stupidly expensive way of making a spring though, or that £128 is madness for a front hub.

barneybarney August 20, 2014 at 4:15 pm

Dangeourbrain – it also says in the text that the freehub is stainless steel…

Nick EvansNick Evans August 20, 2014 at 4:48 pm

Tune demoed something similar years ago – the Dezibel, but it remained as vapourware. That was insanely light, this just seems a bit pointless IMO.

bakesbakes August 20, 2014 at 5:00 pm

pineapple hubs

dangeourbraindangeourbrain August 20, 2014 at 6:37 pm

You’re quite right barney, missed that in the write up. Spotted the SS ratchet parts and read it the same lower down.

ShanghaiedShanghaied August 20, 2014 at 9:53 pm

I’d guess the “mystery partner” is Soul-Kozak, a Polish (where the Absolute Black founder is from) company that’s been making hubs with magnetic freewheels for years. They make decent stuff, but are almost completely unknown outside of Poland.

brassneckbrassneck August 21, 2014 at 10:58 am

Can’t help thinking it’s stupidly expensive way of making a spring though.

Depends how long you’ve spent scrabbling on the garage floor for that one pawl spring you dropped servicing a Hope
🙂

Sounds like a godd ide to me, but the price/reward ratio doesn’t work for me – as you say the springs don’t fail often enough to make it a problem worth solving.

igmigm August 25, 2014 at 11:02 pm

Garage? Surely you service hubs in the kitchen?

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