Can't touch this. Hammer time with Dave Astley

Well, the debate started about 6months ago when the new HammerSchmidt front transmission system was made available.

The setup is a planetary front derailleur system that basically removes your front derailleur completely, so you have one chain ring and you switch between a one to one gear and an overdrive gear. So you have no moving chain at the front. This is encased with its own bash guard and chain device ( you do have to have an ISG mount on the frame to mount it) So you don’t get any cross chaining, full use of all gear combinations, great ground clearance, better chain line, so you get less wear (sounds too good to be true). 

Anyway a good friend of mine who will remain nameless (you know who you are) who likes everything new and bling decides he is going to buy it. We both had our reservations (me more than him) as it is a fairly new bit of kit that is pretty expensive if it doesn’t perform properly. After much deliberation, discussion and general blokeiness, he bought it.

So while it was winging its way to him, the next discussion was how to fit it!!!. After waiting a couple of weeks it arrived. Then there was the matter of getting the ISG mount faced, which needs a larger diameter cutting tool (900mm). After ringing around a couple of local shops to find someone who might have the right size cutter to face the mount, and coming up with a “sorry mate, we don’t have anything that size” or “I haven’t heard about that yet” sort of answer. He decided after more discussion to shim it for now.

Test Day: Saturday 24th October 2009 ( A wet and windy day at Llandegla)

It All look very nice and blingy
But does it work????

The only drawback we could find with this was the routing of the cable has on the down tube, and with particular frame doesn’t have any cable lugs on the down tube. You also seem to get a large loop of cable under the frame as it enters the mount to the pinch bolt.

So we took it out for a test, we tried it under pressure on a climbs, peddling backwards and changing, downhill and then extreme climb changing, across all gear combinations under all pressures, standing up and changing and changing gear while coasting/freewheeling.

Conclusion: I really tried to find fault, I really did, but I must admit (to coin a phrase) it’s the future. If you aren’t too bothered about a little bit more weight than a regular chain set and front derailleur, which a lot of people who have a frame with an ISG mount aren’t that bothered too much.

We weighed it against his old XTR chain set and it’s about a 1.5lbs heaver, this does sound a lot but this version is the heaver free ride one. You can get a lighter XC version for the weight conscious. I loved it and the whole simplicity of the system, there are as, I said a few niggling points with it, price being one, and you do get a slight drag on the gears when you are in overdrive and top, also, hopefully it can stand the ever changing British weather conditions. But if you regularly clean and grease it I can’t see it being too much of an issue.

So for me it’s HAMMER TIME.