Megarange/Tourney Freewheels

[richyx]

I have just removed the old shimano freewheel from a Mavic 700 rear wheel from a Peugot Course road bike.

Bike as purchased from ebay


I was wondering if fitting a new freewheel with a very large sprocket would help with getting up the hills round here which can be a bit too much for me.

Largest sprocket on old removed freewheel was 28 teeth so I am looking at freewheels similar to this with 34 or more teeth.

http://cgi.ebay.co.u...=item43a31cf30d

Is there any problems that I may have overlooked with this and any suggestions for suitable freewheels gratefully received. Would prefer Shimano compatible as I have the tools to fit/remove this type if need be.

 

[Gerry Attrick]

The biggest difficulty you may face is the capacity of your rear mech. Generally road rear mechs use a short arm for precise shifting with a relatively small range of gears, whereas you may need a longer arm to cope with the bigger range.

I am assuming the new freewheel has the same number of sprockets as the old one. If it has more then there could be compatibility issues with your shifter, but assuming you have friction shifters, then you should be ok.

Mech capacity is explained here.

 

[richyx]

The biggest difficulty you may face is the capacity of your rear mech. Generally road rear mechs use a short arm for precise shifting with a relatively small range of gears, whereas you may need a longer arm to cope with the bigger range.

I am assuming the new freewheel has the same number of sprockets as the old one. If it has more then there could be compatibility issues with your shifter, but assuming you have friction shifters, then you should be ok.

Mech capacity is explained here.

Thanks for your help.

Yes I use friction shifters with this bike.

I don't think I will have any problems with the rear mech as I have another rear wheel (Shimano Cassette 14 - 32) that I have tried on the bike and can use the largest sprocket ok.

I am mainly looking for suggestions for a suitable screw-on freewheel.

I have also found this one that may be suitable.

http://cgi.ebay.co.u...=item4cf00fae76

 

[richyx]

I found this information on the Sheldon Brown website.

* At first glance, many people look at the sprocket numbers 11-13-15-18-21-24-34 and wonder what Shimano's engineers were smoking when they came up with that setup, with a 10 tooth jump between the bottom two sprockets! In practice, this is actually a very nice arrangement, because the big jump to the 34 allows the jumps in the cruising range to be much more reasonable. If the jumps were evenly spaced, the user would often find that one gear was too low for cruising, while the next one up was too high. This type of freewheel, sometimes known as an "alpine" design, is intended to provide comfortable cruising, with the super-low gear for the tough hills. It works a lot better on the road than it looks on paper! "

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http://www.sheldonbrown.com/mega7/