With many brands offering fancy systems, and even whole bikes, to mitigate its effects, and some binning its existence altogether, pedal kickback has been the story on everyone’s lips for years now. Today, DT Swiss has stepped up to the plate with its new Degrees of Freedom, or DF system, which introduces some free movement into the freehub. But what makes the system extra attractive is that it’s available as an upgrade kit for existing DEG freehubs.
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Pedal kickback is a phenomenon that occurs on full suspension mountain bikes, and usually those with taller travel figures. It comes as a result of chain growth, where, as a bike moves through its rear suspension travel, the chainstay length naturally lengthens a little bit. This causes extra tension on the upper portion of the chain, which then causes the pedals to rotate rearwards a touch. That can come at quite some force too, so when dropping off larger features, or navigating especially chunky terrain, pedal kickback can become noticeable and hinder a bike’s overall ride.
But then, there are some brands that state that pedal kickback either doesn’t exist or isn’t as serious a problem as everyone has been led to believe.
Either way, Degrees of Freedom, or DF, is DT Swiss’s tonic to pedal kickback. It’s a slightly different system to what we’ve seen already on the market from the likes of e*thirteen as it replaces the ratchets found in the brand’s regular freehubs. Because of that, it’s available as an upgrade kit that’ll work seamlessly with DT Swiss’s recent DEG freehubs.
It’s a system that allows the freehub to rotate freely in a defined range before it engages. This touch of free movement is then credited to reduce the negative effects of a chain’s influence on a bike’s rear suspension.
As DF replaces the ratchets inside of DT Swiss’s freehub, we’re told that it adds no weight and that it requires no more maintenance than a regular-style hub. It then provides three setup options, providing different degrees of free rotation – zero degrees, 10 degrees, and 20 degrees. There’s also a model available for e-mountain bikes and DT Swiss’s DEG Hybrid hubs that offers zero or 10 degrees of free rotation.
This adjustment means that it can be tweaked from venue to venue. If you’re riding a track that’s not as technical and relies more on solid pedalling, the system can offer that. If you require a smoother ride, that’s where its freer adjustments come into play. It will require the user to remove the cassette and get inside the freehub, however, it’s not an external adjustment.
If set at zero degrees, DF defaults to its high-engagement 90T engagement with a four-degree engagement angle, whereas the DF Hybrid system defaults to its 60T ratchet with a six-degree engagement angle.
