Advantages / disadvantages of freecoaster and cassette hubs I've been reading a lot over the past few days about BMX, and last night I watched a few videos like this one. I have been seeing the words "freecoaster" and "cassette" around a lot, and I was curious what they were, so I looked them up - freecoaster does not require pedaling to go backwards, while a cassette hub does. In that video (around 3:08) I assumed that they were pedaling backwards just for "style" or whatever to make it look cooler - and after reading I think it is a cassette hub he is running.

What are the advantages of a cassette/freecoaster hub, and am I right to assume that if you take your feet off of either to do a trick that they will not keep spinning (provided that you press off of the pedals evenly and don't produce a spin)?
My son wanted to change his freewheel/cassete hub to a freecoaster hub so I did some research about 6 months ago and found this great YouTube video from Odyssey and RideBMX magazine all about freecoaster hubs.

As you said, the cranks will not move when coasting backwards. For my son, this is the real advantage and why he wanted the hubs. Landing a 180 out of a half pipe, his freewheel hub did not allow great control of the bicycle requiring him to spin cranks as he rolled backward (just like that trick at 3:08 in your video).

In the end it came down to money and we (he 12 year old) did not want to spend the money to get a new wheel with a freecoaster hub, you cannot just swap the axle/mechanism/insides of your freewheel shell with a freecoaster mechanism, you need a shell/hub that supports the freecoaster axle/mechanism.