Problem - possibly with the freewheel

[summerdays]

Ok I'm had an occasional problem which I have ignored on my spare bike which I'm currently using. Now it seems to be getting worse so I need to work out what it is. (And then fix it)

Hybrid bike, 7 speed, 5 years old ish. Has been serviced but ages ago since I don't use it that much.

When I pedal normally it is fine, but if I pause and freewheel or stop and restart I get a problem where I put some pressure on the pedals it feels as though there is zero resistance - only ever for about half a rotation of the pedals. It means that I'm avoiding freewheeling if I can and worry when the next time it will happen as it throws you off your rhythm.

Any suggestions?

 

[martint235]

Sounds like the pawls in the freewheel aren't engaging properly. Is it a cassette based one (ie a free hub)? I've had this problem a couple of times. You can try flooding it with lubricant which may help for a while but in both cases when I've had it, I've had to buy a new hub eventually.

 

[Arsen Gere]

+1 What Martin says. If you can show it is the freewheel I'd swap it for a new one, probably less than a tenner. Better than monkeying around and risking injury if it does not engage properly.

 

[PatrickPending]

99% likely to be a freewheel - 7 speed cassettes a bit rare esp. on 5yr old bike. Cheap and easy to swap out - if you can get the old one off - probably best to fit a new chain at the same time.

 

[summerdays]

I will investigate a little further - thanks for the suggestions. Now got two bikes to fix!!!

 

[Smurfy]

Is this hub gears or deraileur gears? Some hub gears have a roller clutch for a freewheel, rather than a freewheel with pawls.

 

[summerdays]

Deraileur gears.

I have had a sneaky idea .... I remembered that Mr Summerdays bought the same bike (when we decided that we wanted to get back to cycling) and at some stage upgraded his bike to have disk brakes (so new wheels), whereas I cheated and just bought a new bike with disk brakes. Anyway somewhere there hopefully is the old wheel lying around. I just haven't found it yet - must be at the back of the shed in a dark corner.

He reckons I should just use his old bike- it's his spare bike now but it's one frame size larger than mine.

 

[boydj]

Had a similar problem with a mountain bike that had hardly been used for a couple of years. The grease in the freewheel had dried up, so the pawls were sticking. It's not easy to get any lube in there, but a good dose of GT85 initially loosened things up and then after a couple days some light oil was dribbled in and it was fine after that.