Why when pedaling backwards on my road bike it does not make as loud as noise as others . how can i change it?

Question

Why when pedaling backwards on my road bike it does not make as loud as noise as others . how can i change it?

Answer 1

The noise you hear when you pedal backwards on your road bike is the free-hub inside your rear wheel which is used when freewheeling down hills etc... Some hubs are noisier than others and the amount of noise it makes doesn't effect speed at all.

Some brands and models are noisier than others. Most mavic wheels are fairly noisy, whilst many shimano hubs are fairly quiet. Their is no way to change this noise without either replacing the hub (full wheel rebuild) or pulling the hub apart and seriously changing some of the internal pieces in it.

Answer 2

As Jason says, the sound you hear coming from your rear wheel when freewheeling is a matter of the mechanical design of the hub.  Pawls inside the hub engage when pedaling to drive the wheel.  Otherwise, the pawls slip inside the hub making clicking sounds.

As Jason says Mavic hubs are loud.  I've never heard anything louder than Chris King hubs.  (Interestingly, Chris King hubs don't even use pawls.  They are based on ring drive technology.)  Other hubs are much quieter.  It is really just a matter of how the hub is designed.  There is no way to change the sound short of spending lots of money to get a new wheel or have your wheel rebuilt around a new hub.

Personally, I'd spend my money on performance enhancing changes rather than buzzing hubs.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

You really shouldn't pedal backwards even though it makes a cool noise. It wears out the freewheel/cassette body very quickly.

The noise is just the mechanical aspect of the gears doing their job.... some make no noise at all!