hokietris wrote:
Dan, I am seeing that the chain and disc rotors are shared with XT 8170 and that the cassettes are compatible. I know Shimano just started with GRX but is there any sense that they are trying to merge the streams of mountain, gravel, and road? The chain, rotor, cassette, possibly chainring, hydro calipers, battery, are all nearly or completely identical. It comes down to the RD and the cockpit where differences reside. Bigger gear ranges could see people actually adopt 1x more widely on road, leading to a clutched RD there.
This would be a huge positive for Shimano and consumers as it streamlines manufacturing and distribution and simplifies a lot of service. And with both electronics hardware and firmware involved, trimming down variants also saves money, testing, and support.
Might seem crazy but I could see a singular system with choices on cassette range/chainring size, # of brake pistons and rotor size, and of course cockpit type. Everything else is the "core" of the system.
Thoughts?
i write about this in my article on this launch on the front page. other than the obvious move from 11sp to 12sp, the overarching theme is the impression of offroad components and tech onto road. and, really, the move from 11sp to 12sp is part of that as well.
the MTB rotors were better, and shimano couldn't make a road rotor as good. and so it goes. just as shimano streams its DA tech down to ultegra, shimano has streamed its XTR tech to DA. so far, shimano has kept its groupsets distinct: road versus gravel versus MTB. SRAM has chosen a different approach, which is to just make parts, and the use case is up to the OE or the end user. i think shimano is trending, in product design, toward what SRAM has chosen to do.
the one area where i think SRAM has gotten itself into a cul de sac is on chains. really, the chain determines a lot with SRAM, if you use an eagle chain, the drivetrain is MTB. if you use a flat top chain, the drivetrain is road. SRAM could make things easier on itself if it just had 1 chain. but i don't know enough about SRAM's product design and engineering to know if and whether that's possible.
so, i think what's very clear with both SRAM and shimano is that offroad is driving road, gravel is driving road, and i think part of that is because of gearing: what has been true for the entire history of road cycling, including the past 20 or 30 years, is that every time you offer a lower gear option to road cyclists they take it. offroad and gravel introduced lower gears, and road riders said, "i want those."
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman