Judged against a tire casing, a motor and a mass damper, and it won.
The 2024 Pinkbike Awards shortlist for Innovation of the Year was Schwalbe's Radial Casing tires, the CounterSycle Tuned Mass Damper, the Lapierre Spicy, DJI's Avinox motor, the Specialized and Fox Genie, and the Sidekick hub.
Sidekick won.
Why
Dario DiGiulio didn't argue that we got to chain force first. He opens by saying the opposite: chain devices are having a moment, and Ochain's active spider was already close to ubiquitous on the World Cup circuit.
What he singled out was where we put it.
The elegance lies in the integration with an existing necessary component, namely the rear hub.
Dario DiGiulio, Pinkbike
He called Sidekick the most elegant take on chain-force mitigation seen to date, Every other approach adds a device to the bike. Ours adds nothing, because your bike already needs a rear hub. In his words, "once you've closed the system back up there's no knowing that."
What he found in use
It significantly changes suspension feel, reduces drivetrain feedback, and quiets the bike. No unusual service intervals beyond what you'd do to any hub. Durability solid across several months of testing.
He came away expecting it to become a semi-common addition to builds aimed at downhill performance, and impressed by how it changed the ride characteristics of a variety of suspension designs.
On weight
His one reservation was weight. The hub he tested was 408g, and he was fair about the consequence, describing the extra unsprung mass as not much more than topping up your tire sealant.
Sidekick 2.0 has since cut up to 38% of it with oversized aluminum axles. The lightest version, the Pro SP, is 275g.
Our take
Seven years went into this hub, and almost all of it went on making engagement consistent. Timing the pusher to the ratchet ring was the problem that took the years, and no rider was ever meant to notice it got solved.
The award sat Sidekick next to a motor and a tire casing, which tells you the category was about ideas rather than parts. The weight he flagged is the one thing we went after next.
We also put Sidekick head to head against the DT Swiss DEG DF, side by side on one page.
Hero photo: Dario DiGiulio / Pinkbike, from the 2024 Pinkbike Awards.
