Onza “Tensile” Freewheel: Out Of The Box
April 11th, 2008 by Guitar Ted
Onza: The name conjures up images of white tires, bar ends, and funky elastomerically sprung pedals. However; Onza isn’t in to that anymore. They have been busy the past few years doing business in the trialsin market in the U.K. One of their products caught the attention of J&B Importers who thought single speed freaks would appreciate it. A quick engaging, tough, durable freewheel.
This is the Tensile 18 tooth freewheel, (which is also available in a 16 tooth model) and it has some cool features. The freewheel spins on two sets of ball bearings encased in a hardened chromoly housing. The freewheel engages with two sets of three pawls ratcheting in a 20 tooth outer ring for a total of sixty engagement points. Quick engagement anyone? The housing has a hard nickel plating for durability and corrosion resistance. The Tensile freewheel is also fully user serviceable.
I have installed my 18 tooth example on a 29″er single speed and I will be testing it all summer. It replaced an ACS Claws and according to my digital scale, it weighed exactly the same. Cool! I’ll check back with some updates soon.
The Onza Tensile freewheel is available in 18 and 16 tooth configurations now and has a MSRP of about $70.00. Check with your local bike shop for availability.
What is RSS?
Get our articles in your inbox:
G-ted,
I look forward to your review. As much as I dislike freewheels I have 3 sets of hubs that use them. At $70 they are a few dollars cheaper than the White Industry that is normally sold for $80-90.
The splined removal tool is by far better that those 4-prongers. Nice touch.
I gave it a really rough first outing: Snow, saturated gravel, and 37 degrees. Can you say slop? For 2.5 hours too. We’ll take a look at it tomorrow to see how it came through!
What kind of remover does that freewheel take? Is it splined for an existing tool (it “looks” like it’ll take a Shimano BB tool)? Also, the bearings: are they sealed cartridges like the White Industries model, or loose bearings like older freewheels? If it is the latter, it still qualifies as “user servicable”, but only if you have the dexterity of a brain surgeon and the patience of a saint!!!
Ghost Rider: It removes with a traditional Shimano cartridge BB tool. The bearings are loose ball type, not cartridge. I’ll be cracking mine open soon and will post up the guts for all to see!
GTed…have fun with that. If you’ve opened a loose-bearing freewheel before (and I have a sinking suspicion you have), you will surely know that it rarely comes out great and is usually a hair-pulling, tooth-grinding affair. I wonder how Onza can qualify that as user serviceable?
In any case, I’m looking forward to the pictures of the guts. Be sure to get a shot of your glazed, bloodshot eyes once everything is back together, too!!