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My experience of BMX style freewheels on an MTB is a pretty poor one, mainly down to sudden failure miles from anywhere.
But how long would they last on a tourer type bike covering high miles?
No don't say fixed.
who can say, but if you fit a White Industries one you'll have piece of mind and a lighter wallet 😀
why not a regular hub and a ss sprocket and spacers?
I've used my singlespeed road bike for commuting and winter training for the past 2 years (c. 5000 miles) with fairly irregular cleaning and maintenance. I've gone through 2 chains but have had no issues with the freewheel [shimano].
Run a fixed/ free hub....if the f/w fails turn the wheel round and ride fixed.
Used a conventional Deore one for years with spacers, probably around 55k miles (would guess 45 road, 10 off). Can't complain. Got an XT 9 speed one with spacers now, alright one year (8k-ish miles) later.
I did use spacers on my s/s mountainbike, but I want to convert some 27x1 1/4 with a threaded hub and see how I get on.
I used to get about a year out of a Shimano or ACS freewheel as a courier, which was about 15,000+ miles.
It was a real PITA when they went though.
Before those wheels I had a Deore hub & spacers and it lasted fairly well, but the bearings disintergrated after a while. Could have fixed it, but not worth the cost.
Screw on freewheel was much easier to replace and almost no maintainance. A good quality hub might be even better though, Hope, DT or something?
I got through 2 Shimano freewheels (both 16T) fairly quickly then swapped to a White Industries 17T one which lasted a lot longer. Just had to change the teeth part of it cos they were worn through but the actual body is still OK. Shimano ones it was the other way round, the body went before the teeth.
WI are awesome.