After having my Di2 fail after a wire pinch in the middle of nowhere on the G1 version requiring $110 part replacement (shimano did fix that with G2 re replacement pieces)....then watching Heather Wuertele Di2 fail in Kona a few years ago then Jen Annets SRAM fail last year..i have concluded .e-shifting solves a problem that doesnt exist.....for $5000CAN. One mans opinion.

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@rhyspencer

What up Steve?! Hope everything is well.

1x option goes down to 165mm while 2x shortest is 170mm.

For 1x there's even a 167.5mm which we never had. That's what I would ride.

Cheers!

You don't have to be tracked if you don't want to. You can use the app and all the features as a guest without registering your bike or group and no one will know you were there.

I continue to think these bike companies are shooting themselves in the foot with development and pricing strategies. Less people are getting into cycling and the people who have been customers are eventually going to get tired of the continual price increases, non-compatibility issues, and marketing jargon and stop upgrading. They’ll realize they can just be happy riding what they have.

Big screen tv’s, tablets, and computers didn’t end up in every house in America by making incremental advancements while making sporting large jumps in price.

I won’t shed a tear for these companies if/when their sales continue to struggle.

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Matt

Agree-$10k+ even $5k+ for a bike is just insane when you compare it to a motorcycle which is about the same price but has substantially more tech, engineering, materials and construction that a bicycle... they are either hopelessly inefficient or making a killing.

From this article (on the page of a brand you like written by a person you like) https://ride.diamondback.com/...files-1x-drivetrains






Fairly large impact of going smaller than a 14.
I don't view small cogs as increasing the gearing range so much as being spacers to get the useful gears in the optimal alignment range.

And they've completely missed the boat on the relationship between crank length and gearing. Aside from that, I do like the system oriented design to sort out shifting and give a range of gearing options.

Isn't that a big fail Dan ?

Add another gear but don't address the demand for lower gears ?

Do they do any research ?

And the front rings 50 even with a 10 for TTers and triathletes ?

Those custom rings will be pricey !

Will AXS work with the 3T Torno crankset? I was hoping I could get the 3T Torno and Rotor 12 speed cassette which fits on existing 11 speed free hubs. AXS is less attractive to me if I have to get all their bits.

The Rotor cassettes weigh ~150g for the same cost as AXS. 3T Torno weighs 400g with chainring and looks sexier than AXS. The aero version looks nice, but I don't need anything close to 48t for a 1x.

Also, looks like the RD and FD don't have an msrp listed at the moment. Those are the ones I'm really curious about.

Hey Jorge.... good to hear from you!! Hope you are doing well.

Why is 2x limited to 170mm? Why not make 2x down to 165mm just like 1x? And all existing quarqs go down to 162.5mm... why aren't either 1x or 2x offered in 162.5mm?

I'm a big fan of shorter cranks and crank based pm's. Just wish there were more options out there for shorter cranks with pm's built into them.

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blog

No, they won't work - the AXS chain is a different size from anything existing currently so you need an AXS cassette and crank. Eventually I guess there will also be third-party options designed specifically for AXS too.

Can someone give me the Cliff Notes version of all this SRAM AXS hullabaloo?

So far I've got:

• 12-speed
• Quarq chainring PM
• A companion app that you'll probably use once and then forget about
• Cutting out replacement parts and 3rd party compatibility

What am I missing here, what is all the fuss about?!

This is a genuine question because I haven't had time to read through all the articles about it other than the original one that Dan linked to about the AXS app

This is my thought as well. Pricing is reaching the absurd level. If you look at 4K tvs today, even QLED versions, you can get a 55-65" for around $600 - $1200. Bikes and equipment pricing keep going in the opposite direction. I'm probably nuts spending what I spend on bikes and equipment, but this goes above and beyond my tolerance.

I'm on my third set of chainrings with my DZero; purchased the PM at the end of 2016 (so basically as soon as they were available in Europe) and go through 1 set of rings per season. My bank account is indisputably healthier for not having bought three power meters in that time frame.

One thing I've not seen mentioned is how finicky the groupset is with regards to wear. As we all know, you could run old 7/8/9 speed stuff into the ground before you'd notice any appreciable drop in drivetrain performance; with 10 and 11-speed stuff, the tolerances are tighter and a relatively small amount of wear can result in poor drivetrain performance fairly quickly, especially on the first iterations of those groupsets. If that trend continues with 12-speed then you might be replacing your PM a lot more frequently than you think.

Well that's annoying. 3rd parties won't be able to keep up with all these "standards". Which might be the point, I guess. Wolf Tooth makes the Torno chain ring, so I guess there's hope that they could whip up a custom one. I hope there will be a 11t cassette option for our existing 11s hubs

I too will spend absurd money on bike stuff but this new SRAM eTap is far beyond absurd. $3,000-$4,000 for the gruppo. C’mon!

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Apples-to-apples. This is the equivalent of the videophile home theater piece. This isn't a Costco mass-market TV. This is an 8K 4320p 82" . ($15,000). It goes through special calibrations to make sure each pixel is outputting proper color, black levels, and dynamic range. And it's paired to a $8000 Klipsch sound system. And there are special curtains in the room to block out all ambient light, and the sound system is tuned to the geometry of the room with a special app.

What you're looking for is SRAM Rival. That's your $600-$1200 TV. And Rival is fantastic. The odds that it would hold you back in any situation are pretty slim, just like the odds that you'll enjoy a good movie any less with a $1200 TV are pretty slim.

Some of this should trickle down to Rival within 2-4 years, though.

bless your heart! a true forum prototype! this is why i'm writing 6 articles about this, each gauged to today's typical attention span. read 1, go to the forum to discuss the other articles with other folks who haven't read them (but have plenty of strong and true opinions about the articles they didn't read!). ;-)

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Agreed but I also agree with Dan that you will see the roll down benefits. I actually took advantage of this anticipated launch but recently buying up 11s etap stuff at great discounts. They may be further discounted now (I haven’t followed pricing since).

But I paid a total of $375 for a brand new blip box and RD. No FD needed for 1x and not a single wire (or the associated expenses of clics or blips) as I’m shifting from blip box

So, overall I’m very happy I decided to stick with previous version, save money thousands of $$$ and still have 11 speeds. Yes, 11!!!! And 1x set up without a single wire. Can anyone really justify the cost of this new product???

For many (not all) people, this is accurate. The bigger issue to me is that the powermeter integration into the rings discourages changing ring sizes - not because they've worn out, but because you're doing a destination race that warrants different rings. Or you bought the bike thinking you needed X ring size, but once you got around to riding it, you realized that you wanted something else. Or you moved to somewhere with different local terrain than what you were previously accustomed to.

SRAM will cut you a 50% discount if you wear out your rings (putting the price at about the level of non-powermeter Dura Ace rings). But I wonder if they'd extend the same courtesy in any of the situations mentioned above. If so, bravo.

a power meter 20 years ago cost north of $2000. what does it cost you today? a carbon disc wheel cost you $2000 30 years ago. what does it cost you today? what does an 11sp groupkit cost you today? versus when these first came out? what can you buy electronic shifting for today versus when shimano introduced its first Di2 groupkit? i can buy a top quality tire now for $40, but 40 years ago a similar quality race tire cost me double that, and that's dollar-for-dollar, not adjusted for inflation. what does a full carbon monocoque frameset cost you now versus when kestrel first made its bikes 30 years ago?

everywhere along the way, for the past 30 years, people have complained about the cost of new tech. would the people complaining about the cost of kestrels in 1986 wish, today, those kestrels had never been invented? now that you can buy 2 complete bikes for less than a frameset cost you back then?

i can go down the list. you know i'm right. however, the brands today step on themselves through launch after launch that completely omits mention of products that the 19 in 20 of us can afford; or any sense of how this is going to flow down into a product segment priced for us.

but you guys don't do yourselves any favors by crying in your beer over tech that always starts high and flows low. the first power meter didn't cost $400; the first disc wheel didn't cost $800; the first in-lever STI shifter wasn't available on $1000 bicycles.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

i might draw different conclusions from this than you do.

1. this is my main beef with both shimano and SRAM's synchro/sequential shifting. both mandate that i'm in my large ring and second to inside cog before the FD shifts into the small ring. i may be wrong, but i sense this config is friction-ladened, esp on shorter- chainstay bikes like tri bikes.

2. i don't care if i lose a watt or 2 in the 10t, because i'm almost never going to be in that gear. i'd rather have that gear when i need it, almost never use it, and rely on the knowledge that gear is on my bike in order to allow the other cogs to give me the breadth and range i want. the 10t cog is like gay marriage. it sits there, not really affecting anything, you can admire the fact that it's there, or you can be perturbed that it's there, either way you're married to the rest of the cogset.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I think this stuff looks pretty cool. I think the Bicycle market has about priced itself out of the market. Prices on bikes and components have gotten out of hand and yes I can afford it and when I start thinking man this is crazy its bad

i don't get it. can you explain this? because, there must be something i'm just not getting, as 3 of you have just said the same thing. what are you writing about that i'm not seeing? tell me where my blind spot is.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

You were under-thinking it. :-)

Exactly...in that case though, the 42C Challenge GGRs measure a whopping 44mm across installed. And at that width, I'd be switching down to a 650B wheel/tire combo to fit the bike...at which point the rollout comes back into line with the 23C road bike tire on 700C ;-)

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/