Broken freehub gears

shaneparsons

Hi guys, this post is more about curiosity than anything else because I took the bike back and got it upgraded to the next model with a better freehub. But the thing I am wondering is while I was riding the old bike a few days ago I was cycling up a steady hill nothing to steep in 3-6 so top gear for a 18 speed bike, then suddenly I lost all power and the chain was making a horrible grinding sound. So I stopped to see what the problem was just thinking the chain may have fell off but all the gears on the freehub were spining freely without one another and I could move all the individual gears side to side about half an inch. I had to get picked up because the bike was unusable! What could have caused this problem so that I can prevent it happening again! The bike was only 3 days old and I didn't attempt to shift will riding on the hill.

Many thanks,

Shane.

cooldad

Apart from seeing double, I'm confused. It was an old bike three days old?

And not sure what spinning freely means - most cassettes, if that's what it was, have the sprockets on a spider, so both the freehub and cassette would have to fail at the same time.

What bike is it/was it?

shaneparsons

I said old bike due to having already taken it back and gotten an upgrade the bike was a Hyper Havoc 18 speed. By spining freely I mean I can spin each gear individually with my fingers when normally the whole thing would spin.

shaneparsons

The issue I had is the same as this but the gears are all split apart from each other. https://youtu.be/20IatczpOSo

shaneparsons

Here is a better video that resembles what I had! https://youtu.be/DfvF1eMp--A

cooldad

I hate to say this but you are going to have a lot more problems with that.
It really doesn't deserve to be called a bicycle, let alone a mountain bike. And I'm not being a snob - I have bikes I've spent less on, second hand Marins and Konas.

It broke, nothing you could do about it.

shaneparsons

I no longer have that bike but do you have any idea what could have caused this or is it just down to the cheap brand and poor quality parts? The new bike I have is the Hyper Advance, it has Shimano all the way through the gear system instead of just half.

The Rookie

It's a freewheel and not a freehub, cheap and very cheerful, they fail occasionally, usually early life (it's either good or it's not).

Shimano all the way is meaningless, they make cheap stuff as well.

cooldad

I still have a couple of bikes with freehubs and six speed cassettes, although you are probably right about that one.