Tairin Wheels is finally ready to sell you its innovative S1 Silent Star Ratchet Hub for $585 CAD. A glance at the internals reveals what-looks-to-be a standard star-ratcheting mechanism, wherein two face gears mesh with one another to translate freehub rotation (pedaling) into rotation of the rear wheel. In reality, no actual ratcheting occurs while freewheeling, and so the hub is silent. That’s because the outboard face gear (or star ratchet) associated with the freehub, is decoupled from the inboard face gear on the hub while coasting. During pedaling, an initiator mechanism drives the outboard portion inwards to engage with its complementary inboard portion. Central to the initiator mechanism is a small coil that sits between the freehub body and the outboard face gear. The coil is designed such that, when the freehub rotation matches that of the wheel, the coil guides the outboard face gear inwards to engage with the inboard ratchet, thus driving the wheel. That same coil retrac...