World Cup riders and their mechanics on the Sidekick hub, in their own words.
Sidekick spent two seasons on World Cup bikes before anyone could buy one, because that's where the engineering feedback came from. Race team wear found problems the lab hadn't.
We walked the pits with a camera and asked the riders and mechanics running it what changed. Everything below is from that video.
The sound of silence
My number one favorite thing, to be completely honest, is it's silent. It's really quiet. I'm someone that loves a really quiet hub. I don't like much noise. You just get to then hear the bike and the tires on the ground.
Kye A'Hern, UR Team
Louise Ferguson of Intense Factory Racing says it shorter: "I can just hear the dirt and the tires and nothing else."
How it feels to ride
It rides really well, so it feels like you're almost riding better in a way. It's just amazing how fast you can come into stuff and it just gives you a lot of support, or like it feels supportive, and then makes riding easier.
Mille Johnset, Intense Factory Racing
I think for us, the combination of kind of eliminating that pedal kickback and how quiet and how fast they roll, it just made your whole bike feel like settled down.
Aaron Gwin, Gwin Racing
Zero drag
Ferguson opens the video with it: "There's no drag, so it's like free speed on track." Gwin's has a good analogy... spin it and "they pretty much spin like a front wheel."
When we go in straight lines or where you need to carry a lot of high speed, there is zero drag in the wheel, so it feels really good, and you can just go a bit quicker.
Mille Johnset
I don't need to put as much effort in because the bike just carries momentum.
Louise Ferguson
With the zero drag, obviously that's just a bit easier for us trying to get every tenth of a second out of it, and it just gives us that little edge, I think.
Ronan Dunne, Mondraker Factory Racing
Our drag test puts a number on it: 1.37 watts less than the DT Swiss DEG at 30 km/h, every second the rider isn't pedaling.
Reliability and maintenance
On service, the answers came from the pits. Jake Hood, Mondraker Factory Racing: "Been solid hubs. Unbelievable how fast they roll and the little resistance they had. Maintenance wise, very easy to work on." James McAllister, Gwin Racing's lead mechanic: "We don't actually have to pull them apart that often to access the freehub body and to service it. There's no tools needed." Chris Elson, UR Team's lead mechanic: "It's tool free, so it comes apart within literally ten seconds."
Dakotah Norton and his point is about the rest of the drivetrain:
We can run our normal chainring. You don't have to have something you have to service all the time. It's low maintenance and does the job well.
Dakotah Norton, Mondraker Factory Racing
The complete package
The Sidekick hub for me is just a combination of how much it kind of smooths out the bike, the feel you get and the rolling speed and how quiet it is. All three of those things combined.
Aaron Gwin
Sidekick hubs start at €249.95, and every one uses the same internals the racers are describing.
All quotes are from the video above, trimmed of filler words only.
