John Yull – Ezra Freecoaster Update

This is great! Let the world know how the product is! It seems like we all waiting for that smooth, reliable freecoaster. Is the Ezra the one John?

“I’ve been asked how my Ezra freecoaster is working. It never engages and rolls great but it keeps slipping the clutch plate. Heres 3 clips of it doing it. It usually happens as I apply pressure to the pedals during a combo but also happens just pedaling normal (clip 2). It is a street hub so I’m sure greater pressure is applied riding street. Anyone else have this issue??”

25 thoughts on “John Yull – Ezra Freecoaster Update

    • I really like the update here John, just seems to hit the nail on the head. Rather than just talk about some visual is all the more powerful. A Part 2, Part 3 etc would be awesome. Like Jay said, perhaps its wearing in…

  1. It’s definitely not a wearing in issue. I had a twitter conversation with Karl yesterday he said it happens randomly yet he hasn’t had any internal ware in 1 1/2 years. We will see. I cant see how this has no long term affect.
    When it happens there is a slight slip and then it’s back to rolling perfect. It’s just a HUGE distraction.
    2 other riders said it was happening to them on my Facebook post yesterday.
    But on the plus side this thing rolls great you don’t need to set the pedals and so far it has never engaged on me while rolling in either direction.

  2. It almost sounds like one of the pins on your chain is catcing on a lip of the hub somewhere. I had a similar problem with a nankai bamboo hub and 1/2 link chain.It would run perfect and this crazy pop sound would come out of nowhere. Took me days to catch it. I even had the slight slip as the chain was falling onto the driver after the pop.The pin was out by like an extra mm. Probably not your issue but worth checking.

  3. I can’t wait for the eclat to drop; I’m hoping it turns out good.

    I’ve heard they’ll be available in 3/8″ and 14mm, so I think that might make it a more popular choice, especially in flatland.

  4. Hey guys. I’m going to try and explain what is happening in this scenario as best as I can. When the cranks get pushed a little forward, the retention springs are thinking you’re wanting to engage/pedal forward and lifts the pawls up just a little. If you don’t readjust the cranks by bringing them back just a hair, the pawls catch inside the ratchet ring barely on the edge and then slips into the very next groove in the ratchet ring for engagement to be able to pedal forward. This is what the quick pop sound is. It never fully slips. This scenario can be completely avoided just by making sure you don’t push the cranks forward close to engagement before your next trick or pedal forward. More time spent on the hub definitely helps with this.

    For me personally, I only experience this every so often. I use crank pressure for the majority of my tricks as well. As for the wear…I had zero true wear on the internals after riding a final prototype version for a solid year and a half.

    I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks a lot!

  5. From a mechanical engineering view, and maybe another engineer could chime in on this, but this popping is just inherent to the design.

    About the only thing I would think you could do to lessen the sound is by maybe adding more of, and smaller pawls. This would maybe make the angles for engagement less so they would cover less distance for full engagement, but engagement might be faster depending on variables. I would think more of, and smaller pawls would be a more smoother engagement as well.
    Part of why the Nankai’s engagement is so smooth is that essentially the driver has a gazillion tiny pawls, and the shell has an infinite amount of tiny pawls (smooth).

    I’m sure they (Ezra) tried this though, so who knows. They’re the engineers, not me.

    I’m sure it’s durable. For the size and treatment of the internal parts, I’m sure you’ll probably go quite a long time before any sort of pawl/shell failure. I would think if anything would happen, it would be that a pawl would chip or shatter, though I’m sure those metals involved are treated appropriately. I can’t see much else going wrong with something like this that relies almost entirely on radial articulations.

    I’m sure it just a matter of changing our habits when cranking. I know a lot of freewheel guys have to adjust how hard they kind of slam into their first cranks when trying freecoasters out for the first time. A little finesse goes a long way with the slack involved. Maybe it’s a similar deal? Maybe we need to be more deliberate with that engaging pedal with this set up?

    Just some ideas.

    Time will tell.
    Thanks to everyone for posting their experiences.

  6. Mine does the same thing and it’s exactly as Karl described, you’ll even notice if you are coasting and pedal a very slight amount forward you can hear the pawls buzzing the engagement ring.

  7. I’ve been using mine since October, and honestly I can’t stand the pop. Since I’m at the park mostly, it always does it right before I drop in, scary. And now my biggest issue is I put it in cassette mode, and it makes the same sound, but totally slips and death cranks. Smashed my knee all up on my stem. I’m surprised mostly by the lack of internal wear from all the evil noises it makes though. Kinda over it.

  8. i only found out about this hub today it the workings of it look brilliant, just the fact that freecoasters could be made by just doing slight modifications to an existing cassette instead of redesigning the hub like other freecoasters is awesome. as for the popping in this video there’s probably no 100% solution since we’re talking about 3 small metal fingers poking upwards into a bunch of metal ridges moving over them so it’s understandable that once every so often they are only gonna catch the edge and pop back, i’ve heard this in regular cassette hubs too after the springs don’t hold as much tension as they used to in order to get a solid engagement point, maybe in time some research into this design will iron the issue out a bit. but cheers to the person who came up with this design, i’m sure riders can look forward to no more blown out bearings on older style freecoasters due to their inner workings.

    also i see a great opportunity in this design to create the first reversible freecoaster cassette hub where you just reverse the pawls and package some left hand drive clutches (though it looks like the highest amount of slack would work both ways) along with square teeth in the hub shell much like in the gsport ratchet which is a reversible cassette.

  9. I think its because your pedaling slower then the hub is movig, the pawls stick up and the hub slides over it, causing the horrid poping, has it ever popped in a full or 540 cab? Anyway, when we ride clutch freecoasters we tend to not slam the pedal into engagement because it hurts and causes shinners. Maybe just slam it in everytime and see if that works.

  10. Ive got this hub and its pretty good. The pawls popping when the cranks are ina certain position is pretty normal for its design. The one thing i dont like about this hub, Is the lack of slack. If i knew it would be this little of slack (maybe 1/8 of a crank )i wouldnt have gotten it. More slack would help avoid the pawls popping all the time also. I plan on just getting some other coaster, Unless ezra releases a clutch disk with much more slack. Sorry for bumping up an old post lol

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