Ochain R Review | Composure and Silence

It’s rare that a new genre of component hits the market, especially one that makes us rethink suspension performance and frame kinematics. I hope everyone has seen Aaron Gwin’s winning chainless run from 2015, and in the finish corral after his run, you can hear him commenting on how well the bike worked without a chain. Wasting no time at all, Ochain launched in 2020, claiming their product had harnessed the chainless performance benefits Aaron Gwin was talking about while retaining the ability to pedal. Fast forward to 2025, and the Ochain is a staple on World Cup enduro and downhill rigs alike. Their product has spawned some competitors in the time since, further giving merit to their idea.

Before we get into the Ochain itself, let’s define the problem it was engineered to solve. This might be the fastest we’ve gotten nerdy in one of our blogs, but here we go! As your suspension compresses, your wheel swings up and back, causing the distance between your rear axle and your bottom bracket to grow. That growth puts tension on the chain, and will tug on your chainring, which means it’s also tugging on your cranks. That is what we call “pedal kickback”, and basically feels like your feet are getting tugged backwards while your bike moves through its travel. While I’m simplifying things for the sake of keeping things moving, you can see it for yourself. Pick up your bike by the seat, let it drop, and watch your cranks spin backwards.

Ochain is getting this float through the use of elastomers, which are tucked away behind a couple layers of seals to keep the internals running smooth for 150 hours before needing a service. When it comes time to perform a routine service, kits are readily available, and they come with all the elastomers and seals you'll need.

A common sight in the World Cup Downhill pits. Interestingly enough, Ochain sponsors zero teams, making their ubiquity especially noteworthy.

Getting the Ochain R installed is pretty straightforward, and it bolted up with no issues to my 8 bolt Eagle 90 cranks. Just like AA batteries, the 104 BCD chainring is sold separately, and while Ochain makes their own chainrings, any 104 BCD chainring will work perfectly. All four bolt chainrings use the same style of two piece chainring bolts, and to put it bluntly, I think they’re pretty frustrating to use. The three fingered chainring bolt tool struggles to get grip on the back of the nuts, and I had a harder time installing the chainring that I expected. After exclusively using 3 bolt and 8 bolt SRAM chainrings for the last few years, I forgot how dang easy they make it, and I’m not taking it for granted any more. After the first few rides, my chainring did come loose, and I've heard of riders destroying their Ochain by not catching a loose chainring early enough. It may be worth using a little Loctite on those chainring bolts!

To take advantage of the externally adjustable float on the Ochain R, you'll press down on the cranks, pull the knob outwards, and then rotate it to its new position. It takes all of about 5 seconds, and pressing down on the cranks removes the tension from the system for easy rotation. Once it’s bolted up, the float is immediately apparent, and the dial functions exactly as advertised, controlling the amount of dead band you need to overcome to engage the hub. When locked out, there’s still the smallest amount of slack, but it’s not noticeable at all on the trail.

The test bench for Ochain and all other components.

Like you may expect, pedalling the Ochain is initially a foreign feeling, especially when set up with the maximum 12° of float. Whenever you step on the pedals, you’ll need to overcome up to 12° of Ochain induced float, and then however much float you get from your hub. With 72 points of engagement in my DT Swiss 350 rear hub, that adds up to 5° of float, and that culminates in a lot of slop before engaging the chain. It’s quite similar to the feeling of a low engagement, lower end hub, something I’ve had many hours of experience with in my mountain biking career. But in recent years, I’ve had the luxury of high end, high engagement hubs, and I was surprised at how much I missed the snappy high engagement feeling. After a few rides, that thought faded into the background, and I quickly got used to the spider induced slop at the start of every pedal stroke.

With the ability to change the float, you could quickly reach down to lock out the Ochain before tackling a technical climb. Of course, you’ll need to remember to unlock it again before descending to take advantage of its party tricks, just like a climb switch. But unlike a set of touring skis, it’s incredibly easy to leave your setup in climb mode when the trail turns down. After having forgotten my climb switch more often than not, I’ve sworn them off, and taken the same approach with the Ochain. My personal rule is that components stay in descending mode at all times, even if it means a bit of slop to overcome.

Even at its highest level of float, there really isn’t much movement between the chainring and the cranks. Not more than a few millimeters, but even that slight decoupling between the suspension and your feet does make for a tangible difference in descending performance. While I won’t make the claim that it revolutionizes your rear suspension feel, it does make for a more settled and controlled ride, but not for the reasons you’d expect.

On my first ride with Ochain, I took advantage of the adjustable float, getting an initial control lap with 0° of float. Unsurprisingly, the bike and suspension performance felt identical to my ride the day before, and I opened it up to 12° of float on the next lap of the same rough DH trail I frequent to test components. This took place during the winter time, so I was in the middle of my annual flat pedal renaissance, and I was happy to immediately notice it took less mental energy to keep my feet planted in their happy place. Not only that, chain slap was cut in half, making for a quiet and soothing descent. Initially, the Ochain was installed on the Stumpjumper 15, which was already a relatively quiet bike, but the Ochain took it a step further. Those well engineered rubber chainstay protectors had an easier job with the minimal chain slap thrown at them, and a quiet bike is a fast bike.

Now the Ochain has found its forever home on the Sentinel V3, paired with the Eagle 90 Transmission. This setup has made for the quitest descending 12 speed drivetrain I've ever used, and Ochain's chainring is completely compatible with T-Type chains.

Ochain's chainring worked perfectly with the Eagle 90 drivetrain. Bonus points if you can guess who signed the derailleur.

Successive laps with varying amounts of float in the Ochain made it clear that I preferred the maximum 12° on the descents, as it provided the calmest feeling at the pedals, and quietest overall system. This constant calmness through the cranks made me question my understanding of pedal kickback, and take a deep dive into both what the Ochain is claiming to accomplish, and what I think it’s actually accomplishing. Like the majority of folks reading this, I’m no suspension kinematics expert, but I do enjoy thinking critically about what’s happening underneath me while I send my life through the woods for no reason other than a little thrill.

To avoid completely making a fool of myself, I’m going to skip trying to explain the exact mechanism of how pedal kickback occurs, but what’s important to know when it can happen in a real world application. The stars have to align, and you can only get pedal kickback when you hit a compression while your rear wheel is completely stopped or rolling slowly enough for the cassette to rotate faster than your wheel. The most disruptive moments of pedal kickback are when the rear wheel is locked up and you’re hitting braking bumps on the way into a corner, or finding a flat landing on the backside of a big drop. Those instances are relatively rare, and are not the typical high speed scenarios where our feet are getting knocked off the pedals. So if pedal kickback isn’t the culprit, why does the Ochain keep my feet more planted, and what the heck is it actually doing?

This argument always comes up, and while you can definitely get some of the same performance out of a low engagement hub, consistency is what sets the Ochain apart. If your hub has the same 12° of float as an Ochain, the issue is that you’re going to have anywhere between 0 and 12° of float before engaging the pedals. You don’t know how much slop you’ll need to overcome before engaging the pedals, and you won’t always get the same chainslap mitigating effects as the Ochain. Additionally, you can control the amount of float in the Ochain, even completely locking it for zero slack in the system.

This same comparison also applies to the Ochain S and Ochain E, and the comparison is very straightforward. Ochain R and Ochain S both feature the EASY system to externally adjust the amount of float, while the Ochain N and E have to be completely disassembled to make the same adjustment. Plus, the more expensive Ochains can be set to 0° of float, while the more affordable ones have a minimum of 4° of float. We’re looking at a price difference of about $70, and I think some users are going to benefit more from the easy adjustability than others.

If you’re a downhill racer, I would save the cash and just get the Ochain N. It’s got the same maximum 12° of float, which is where I would leave the Ochain full time on the downhill bike. I’m looking for maximum descending performance, and I’m certainly not stressed about the pedalling performance. For the enduro racers out there, I think spending the extra cash for the Ochain R is worth it. Having the ability to tune your Ochain for the track you’re riding is very nice, and straight up locking it out for an extra flat and pedally stage is an advantage you’ll be glad to have.

Ochain has shaken things up with their spiders, and considering both E*Thirteen and Rimpact have recently come out with competing products, it’s clear that there's merit to their idea. I’ve been a huge fan of the Ochain R, and appreciate the smooth and quiet descending performance a decoupled chainring provides. Aimed at gravity racers, the Ochain is certainly an advantage between the tape, and I look forward to taking it there myself this summer.

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