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I can never tell if you’re trolling or just a pathologically contrary Mary
why are their so many aftermarket add ons to improve the forks/shocks? The chassis are mostly good (fair few creaks).
why are their so many aftermarket add ons to improve the forks/shocks?
Because they sell the most high-end suspension units by a huge distance.
The Lyrik Ultimate is a brilliant fork which needs no modification, IME.
Which current top-end RS and Fox forks have you ridden?
Molgrips = perhaps should have read " a deraillier drivetrain" How much are cassettes and how long do they last? chains also wear very quickly. As they wear shifting gets worse and I have worn out several mechs. Pivots go all sloppy - yes they are under spring tension that control the slop but again it leads to poor shifting.
using a modern 12 spd drivetrain could easily be £250 - £500 a year in consumables rohloff? virtually zero! ( chains and sprockets last a long long time
C&C hubs - you cannot buy spare cups and cones!
Edit:
I am intending a 5000 mile tour round europe next year. Cassettes are at least £100 for 12 speed and up to 400. That would be two more than likely plus 2 x chains and probably a chainring. Rohloff - perhaps one chain
Because they sell the most high-end suspension units by a huge distance.
doesn't mean the dampers and air springs are great. If you are lucky enough that the damper suits you then you are lucky or maybe you just don't know the difference between good and bad (not saying you do).
I think the point Chakaping 2as making 2as more that, if you're going to make a damper upgrade, then make it for the most popular forks. Just because they don't offer that same upgrade for a fork in low production numbers, doesn't mean that fork wouldn't benefit, just that it's not worth their while.
I'm not really in the market for much boutique stuff, but my take on it is basically the same as andybrad:
a lot of the big companies have got a lot of the finer details right. The smaller companies can adapt to changes a lot better and try new things that are very difficult for the bigger companies. I do think in the last 5 years we’ve reached a point where most of the kit is very good.
I reckon that if you move away from the main players then you get things that are probably only 'better' if you're interested in other things over how well it works - like knowing it's made in tiny numbers by a bloke in a shed in the UK for example. I doubt the agility of the smaller guys often results in anything game-changing.
I doubt the agility of the smaller guys often results in anything game-changing.
Plenty of stuff does start out with the small guys though, before the big guys swallow them up.
if you’re going to make a damper upgrade, then make it for the most popular forks.
Exactly.
Not worth Vorsprung's effort to make widgets for Manitou, Cane Creek or DVO forks, given the miniscule number of them compared to Fox or RS.
I reckon that if you move away from the main players then you get things that are probably only ‘better’ if you’re interested in other things over how well it works
I disagree with that.
If you go for the much smaller volume stuff you get more specialised, the lightest, the strongest, whatever.
For example, the lightest bars are probably something like Schmolke TLOs. They are not the strongest. They can sell to a very niche market who want the lightest and will compromise elsewhere to get that. Big brands like Easton for example wouldn't get away with that as their customers (more typical riders than the true weight-weenie crowd) want a blend of weight and strength.
.
Also, slightly different, but what are we calling 'boutique'? Something like Chris King probably is for most people but they will at least have heard of them, a bit like Ferrari say, familiar but aspirational for most. Sbthat 'boutique?' Something like Tune may be more akin to Koenigsegg in this analogy, a competitor that is unfamiliar to most and I think it needs to be pretty obscure to be a boutique item.
If you have a worldwide distribution channel (or at least more than a couple of countries), ie a distributor/large reseller has picked up your product lines, rather than just selling direct* you are no longer ‘boutique’.
*large direct selling companies excluded
That said, some people still call Santa Cruz and Yeti boutique…
For example, the lightest bars are probably something like Schmolke TLOs. They are not the strongest. They can sell to a very niche market who want the lightest and will compromise elsewhere to get that. Big brands like Easton for example wouldn’t get away with that as their customers (more typical riders than the true weight-weenie crowd) want a blend of weight and strength.
I think we are actually sort of saying the same thing here!
Ah, OK. I thought you meant more prosaic things like buying local or just being different for the sake of it
Not worth Vorsprung’s effort to make widgets for Manitou, Cane Creek or DVO forks,
They also don't need to either.
I can never tell if you’re trolling or just a pathologically contrary Mary.
Yep.
Things wear and break I do not have upgraditis and still use parts that are 20+ years old
I would suggest that if you've used a shifter for 20 years, that's probably beyond it's intended life span anyway, and you'll have got your money's worth, so the fact you can't repair it is somewhat moot, no?
using a modern 12 spd drivetrain could easily be £250 – £500 a year in consumables
I've just changed a chain a cassette after 3 years of normal use (the 12 sp seems to last much longer than trad 8/9/10 speed) spent £180 on a cassette and £30 on a chain. Your sums seem a bit out.
I think that the shimano part numbers are essentially an internal reference number. The vast majority aren’t even produced for spares, never mind sold as such
That would explain it. I think what most of us tend to forget is that the vast majority of bikes don't do huge mileage in tough conditions, so the 'average user' experiences failures infrequently and when they do they're paying a shop to fix it which means it's more cost effective all round just to put a whole new shifter/brake etc on than pay for the labour costs of repair. And that's even more true for the lower end kit.
I was surprised recently to find a European site listing a lot of small spare parts for SRAM brakes. I'd not seen that before.
Molgrips = perhaps should have read ” a deraillier drivetrain” How much are cassettes and how long do they last? chains also wear very quickly. As they wear shifting gets worse and I have worn out several mechs. Pivots go all sloppy – yes they are under spring tension that control the slop but again it leads to poor shifting.
using a modern 12 spd drivetrain could easily be £250 – £500 a year in consumables rohloff? virtually zero! ( chains and sprockets last a long long time
C&C hubs – you cannot buy spare cups and cones!
Edit:
I am intending a 5000 mile tour round europe next year. Cassettes are at least £100 for 12 speed and up to 400. That would be two more than likely plus 2 x chains and probably a chainring. Rohloff – perhaps one chain
Yes, my experience is rear mechs go sloppy in time and need to be replaced. Riding rocky off road they smacked on enough rocks that finishes them off even sooner.
For a tour like you've got planned I'd be on a Rohloff too. But my experience was that I still wore chains and sprockets and even chainrings in time. You can run the lot into the ground together but if you want to avoid excess wear on the rings still need to replace chain on same sort of timeframe as conventional kit.
Mountain biking eats gearing - my road bikes do some multiple of off road mileage on chains and cassette. Having run a Rohloff for some years I concluded that most of the small number of riders who go through a drivetrain each year can afford it and it's still some years of drivetrain replacements before you break even on a Rohloff or Pinion which is the life of a bike for most people (of course the Rohloff does still has a second hand value at the end)
It depends on the type of riding you do , i love the idea of the durability of hub gears and gearboxes but i hate how the heavy rear hub makes a bike ride and i think i would need a trigger shifter before even thinking about a gearbox bike .
I'm interested in the shimano linkglide stufff , even though its designed for e bikes it sounds like the benefits could suit normal bikes too .
i think i would need a trigger shifter before even thinking about a gearbox bike.
Effigear boxes use a SRAM trigger and Cinq make a trigger system for pinion (and rohlof) though it’s not without drawbacks.
but i hate how the heavy rear hub makes a bike ride and i think i would need a trigger shifter before even thinking about a gearbox bike .
The newish Kindernay gearbox hub looks interesting (though bloody expensive!)
Fair bit lighter than a Rohloff, swappable hub shells, trigger shifters - left and right, or on I've side, and a big old 543% range.
That kindernay stuff looks nice but for me the whole concept of a hub gear just puts the weight in a bad place on a mountain bike to ride well , but that depends on the type of riding you do .
Isn't the Kindernay stuff still about a kilo more than a regular cassette though?
As poster above suggests, that really the last place that I personally would want the weight, but I'd have thought it'll be the answer to some riders' prayers.
I find the chain and sprockets on the rohloff wear at a slower rate - thicker, full teeth
Same with SRAM 12 speed chains. The one I changed after 3 years had about .25% wear on it, and a little over a 1600 miles which would suggest that I could've managed 5000 or so at .75%.
I think the difference is choice of quality of components, rather than system it runs on.
I have worn out several mechs. Pivots go all sloppy – yes they are under spring tension that control the slop but again it leads to poor shifting.
I haven't had this in many years. In the 90s and early 2000s it happened for sure.
I'm not trying to persuade you of the benefits of derailleur over Roholoff so you can relax 🙂
I haven’t had this in many years. In the 90s and early 2000s it happened for sure.
You might well be right that it's a solved problem - all the ones I've replaced for some years have been bent after rock strikes....
is Hambini mainstream these days?
is Hambini mainstream these days?
No, still a **** as far as I'm aware. Was hoping we'd leave him in 2021 tbh.