An epicyclic gear assembly has a central toothed sun gear unit mounted on a carrier plate and plurality of planetary gear sets surrounding the central gear in torque-transmitting relationship. Each of the planetary gear sets has a toothed planet gear supported by a planet shaft, the first end of which is cantilevered from the carrier plate. A second end of the planet shaft supports the planet gear. A double-tapered concave middle portion of the planet shaft allows flexing of the shaft so as to facilitate elastic deflection of the planet shaft while distributing load between the planet gear sets. The outer circumference of the middle portion has a pair of spaced outwardly convex protrusions formed between the first end and the second end.