UPDATE: CLASSIFIEDS section refreshed, redesigned, searchable: Go take a look
So I’ve read a fair amount of it’s got progressively worse on 1 x 11/12/13
Maybe the industry should look at itself that when you get to the point your charging more for a push bike than a motor bike, at least have engineering that works
Its almost like gravel industry is selling the dream of wider tyre clearance when actually the engineering can’t support it
You shouldn’t have to get to the point of rejecting a £6k bike
20+yrs in the bike trade on and off here, I have a somewhat unique view of all of this...
Not going to quote the whole thing but that is one of the best posts I've read on here recently. Possibly worth a STW article to explore the issues some more?
I worked in the industry a fair bit but that was a long time ago in the glory days of trade prices, reasonable cross compatibility and far fewer products and brands competing for attention.
Like you say with regards to cost, I'm very lucky to have an exceptional LBS that mainly trades as a workshop so I make the most of it. Why should I bother buying tools and doing repairs on a kitchen floor when I can pay him to do that - and I make sure I do pay him regardless of the fact that he'll offer discounts.
Genuine question - how many other industries / sports etc could get away with selling a £6000 product that wasn't perfect? And then claiming stuff like "it'll bed in"
If I bought a washing machine that shredded clothes on the first wash, I would not expect to be told "oh yeah, they all do that, give it a couple of washes and it'll bed in..."
The vid is in the correct ‘setup’ cog. Back pedal turns the rear wheel and feels lumpy
Is that a Miche wheel with the SWR Evo freehub...? If so, I've experienced a couple of these recently with a LOT more drag than they should have had... From new... Chicken's are the UK distributor... Get the shop to inspect the drag in the freehub, it's not obvious that this will be the fault so is often overlooked, but if this is causing the issue, removal of the cassette and inspection by turning the freehub by hand will show the problem, and the shop should get in touch with Chicken's to warranty the wheel...
It’s a KMC flattop chain. Now of course SRAM told me that it should be using a SRAM. Apparently it came out of the box with the KMC
SRAM would have said this 25yrs ago too...
KMC have spent a lot of time and effort engineering that chain (and KMC also make a lot of chains for 3rd parties too, such as SRAM believe it or not)... KMC's flat top chains work well. They might not be quite as bling as the higher end SRAM chains, but I highly doubt the chain is at fault here... Of course, swapping a new SRAM chain onto the system would then enable you (or the shop) to rule out the chain being at fault, but the manufacturer would not spec a 3rd party chain on a groupset if it wasn't tested thoroughly to work as it should.
Its almost like gravel industry is selling the dream of wider tyre clearance when actually the engineering can’t support it
You shouldn’t have to get to the point of rejecting a £6k bike
I do feel your pain @FunkyDunc and your frustration...
The reality is that "Gravel" is the marketing man's wet dream... I'm less of a cynic about the genre now than I was when it arrived, but even though arguably it is actually just how a lot of people use their MTB's (or have wanted to use their road bikes prior to "gravel" existing), it is the easiest way to push a fashion led industry right now... I remember when, 7yrs ago I started a job at a tyre brand, nobody wanted gravel tyres wider than 40mm in 700c, and everybody was convinced that 650x45c was the way to go for that market... Now everybody wants 2.25" 29er MTB tyres on their "gravel" bikes!
Not going to quote the whole thing but that is one of the best posts I've read on here recently. Possibly worth a STW article to explore the issues some more?
Thank you, and I would be glad to... Dunno who's in charge of content any more, but if Chipps or Mark or anyone wanted to tap me up for my rather centrist view (trust me, you'll get VERY different versions from people who've only worked in bike shops, or very extreme the other way from those who've only worked for brands/distributors) of having done a bit of it all in the trade...
Arguably, I spent more of my last role acting as a business consultant than I ever did talking product to be fair... Not that I forced my opinions on anyone, but I gained a lot of trust with a lot of shop owners who, busy in their own little world most of the time, came to value my knowledge and experience and trust my judgement in a lot of cases...
More than happy to oblige if required... It's 15yrs since my name was last in the mag anyway (Hadley Park Olympic MTB venue opening)!
Genuine question - how many other industries / sports etc could get away with selling a £6000 product that wasn't perfect? And then claiming stuff like "it'll bed in"
You might be surprised... Forget £6k... Have you ever bought a new build house...? I did just shy of 2yrs ago, off supposedly the most reputable new build builder in the UK... All £445k of it too... You have to deal with shit in your half million pound purchase that you wouldn't accept when buying a meal out with the family, much less a 2nd hand car even...
You think my replies on this forum are long... I will save you the incredibly passive aggressive email that I copied every single director of the company I bought my house from into after the "snagging" process, where I was ready just to refuse the house (we had a buyer on ours who was going to penalise us for non completion so this wasn't an option)... Suffice it to say, it was long, detailed, very assertive and resulted in the required actions being done within the 3 week time frame to rectify all of the faults i had found with the house... Including, would you believe, the stair case not being put in straight!!! The Regional Director came down to project manage the house himself, put a whole new team of people on it, and got everything rectified in time for us to move in... It's amazing how high these people will jump, and to what tune, when you press their buttons correctly... But you absolutely shouldn't have to indeed...
FWIW, the guy who used to be my Saturday lad when I had my bike shop ended up in the car trade (currently manages a Peugeot dealership)... He ended up selling cars at a local Porsche dealership after a while, and he left there because of their dodgy practices (on their £100k cars!) and underhand ways of getting more money out of customers for services (that inevitably didn't get provided)... Sadly, the world is rife with sub par products, poor service, and people ready to accept it...
Caveat Emptor!
Not going to quote the whole thing but that is one of the best posts I've read on here recently. Possibly worth a STW article to explore the issues some more?
Totally agree.
I'm sure STW would offer you a packet of Hobnobs for it — that's what bike mechanics are worth, right 😁
Have you checked the T Type setup yourself? Number of links, B-bolt in A or B setting, dangle angle?
I had a shonky T Type setup from a very good LBS, just not very local to me so not worth a round trip to get it looked at! The B-bolt was in the wrong setting and the angle was wrong. At first I just thought T Type was noisy and not as good as XT so didn't bother much.
I'm sure STW would offer you a packet of Hobnobs for it — that's what bike mechanics are worth, right
I'm not saying I'm cheap but... Make sure they're genuine McVities and not Aldi knock offs, and that they're covered in chocolate... And you've got yourself a deal! 😉
Treat others as you would expect to be treated yourself...
Comfortably post of the year by @mboy
I know I dont always achieve the above, but I like think I try.
Personally I think @Ben_Howarth can build a solid, thought provoking article on this.
Yep, I know there have been good articles in the past with bike shop owners but I think there are multiple angles offered by @mboy 's post that justify a more thorough follow up.
Apologies, double post.
My LBS are also very "mid" too.
One of mine was hilarious. Great guys, but not great mechanics. Weirdly a great reputation. Friends had:
- Cranks fall off within 100m of the shop
- Crash on the first corner because handlebar wasn't torqued up
- Rear axle so loose it was almost sliding out
I bought a wheelset from them, complete with rotors ... which they managed to fit wrong!
Then the owner sold it to a national enduro champion who's owned another LBS. I thought it would get better.
I bought some sealant from them once and on my receipt it said i'd put a deposit down on a $21k ebike!? "Don't worry about that" they told me!
I tried to buy a bike from them that needed to be shipped to them... after two weeks with no tracking I cancelled and drove an hour away and picked it up.
If you try and call the shop they never answer and their voicemail is full.
I turned up at the shop the other day and walked in - a floor full of Santa Cruz bikes - nobody there. If they weren't in a quiet dead end on an industrial estate they'd be ****ed.
It's bizarre that they're still operating.
Your LBS sounds absolutely pants, they should be bending over backwards trying to get that sorted.
As for the issue, I have 13sp XPLR on 2 bikes and it works great BUT it does not like being pedaled backwards, the chain will often jump down the cassette if you do (not sure if it's the clutch strength or the slightly twisted, but correct, alignment of the cage or something else). I only have it happen when applying drip wax in a workstand though, never out on the trails. As someone else mentioned it sounds like your freehub is dragging to cause that.
I would either take it to another shop or go through it in detail yourself. If doing it yourself:
Confirm the number of chain links is correct
Confirm the spacers used on the cranks are correct
Go through the mech setup procedure (it's a bit of a faff but doesn't take long and is worth learning anyway).
I've only used Rival and Force chains with mine (I have a few of each in rotation) so not sure if the KMC chain is exacerbating the issue - given it's always good to have multiple chains in rotation to reduce cassette wear (and SRAM 13sp XPLR cassettes are crazy expensive) I would get a SRAM Force chain and try that (Force chains are harder wearing than the Rival one so worth the extra, it's unlikely the 114 link version will be enough so pay the bit extra for the 126 link option).
Agree all leads back to the shop I bought it from
As that's a Wilier, I'll give another option.
Go to Mapdec Cycle Works in Kendal. They're Wilier dealers so they're very familiar with all the bikes but they're also mainly a workshop, and a very good / high-end one at that.
They post a fair bit on YouTube and you can see the extra mile and attention to detail they give. I reckon they'd be able to produce a list of all the faults or issues that your LBS has failed to manage and probably have a reasonable claim for some money back from them.
I imagine Wilier themselves might be less than impressed that a £6000 bike is being sold in this manner too because it's their reputation as much as anything.
Mapdec have done a couple of bits of work on my bikes, the more convoluted / specialist stuff that my LBS doesn't see that often and they did a great job on my e-bike too. Highly recommended.
Thanks again for all the further posts.
I just want to say that the shop where I purchased from has been good to this point. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt to sort, and I am sure that they will. This post was about checking my own sanity that I am not expecting too much from a high end product and I am doing the right thing in trying to get it to perform better (as I would expect for a brand new bike). The owner works his arse off and I didnt want to over burden if I am just being a 'picky' customer.
It sounds like the industry is pushing the boundaries of what is a useable product (1 x 13 and wide gravel frames), and actually just how poor the industry is dealing with me as a consumer ie the distributor just saying not their problem, SRAM themselves disagreeing internally on an approach, but basically not their problem. No I dont have a direct relationship the distributor or SRAM, but boy they have both made me wary of buying their products again. I had a response from Wilier (Italy) own 'customer support team' this morning too, just a generic, we are not interested, speak to a Wilier dealer.All it would have taken was a, no that doesnt sound right, who did you buy it from lets help get it resolved. It was a blanket, not our problem gov from all involved.
I dont doubt the responsibility sits with the shop, but actually the manufacturer, distributor and parts suppliers reactions have done more harm to my relationship with the bike industry than the shop, and they appear to be the ones who drive the industry, and make it very tough to run a LBS.
FWIW I paid full RRP for both bikes, knowing that in 6 months time I would be able to get them probably 20% off and in a years time 40-50% off. I thought I have been doing the right thing to support the LBS, however it does feel like its people further up the chain are making life a misery for the LBS and the consumer. And yes I would expect both the bikes I received to come in working order and to the spec 'purchased'.
Even for STW, making the leap from a rear mech dropping the chain and you/a single bike shop being unable to sort it to "the bike industry is shit" is quite impressive.
Even for STW, making the leap from a rear mech dropping the chain and you/a single bike shop being unable to sort it to "the bike industry is shit" is quite impressive.
I dunno, OP is hitting on an issue I've seen before, where arguably unacceptable product performance is just greeted with a shrug and a 'yeah, they do that' sort of response.
Also, the above has got me thinking, next year's big new product launch is going to be gravel bikes with wider BBs to mitigate for exactly these issues isn't it?
Apologies if this has already been suggested, but have you checked the chain length?
I've had a very similar issue after fitting a chain that has been an inner and outer link too short.
also why would wilier design a frame with too extreme a chain angle and then spec with a groupset that doesn’t work.
My honest answer to that is because they're in the business of selling bikes, and groupset manufacturers are in the business of selling groupsets.
And in particular SRAM.
My GX did what you describe on my Scandal, the only solution is as you say not to ever backpedal at all, not even slightly. Kinda got used to it, then switched to Deore on the other bike and SS'd the Scandal..
Same with their brakes, why would they sell calipers with plastic pistons that wear and stick. Why would they make the lever pistons out of a plastic that swells? Why would they invent bleeding edge and sell it to you for £60 to solve a problem the rest of the industry (and every other hydraulic brake system on cars, motorbikes) solved a time immemorial ago with bleed nipples and a hose. Because it's cheaper to manufacture, cheaper on the assembly line and screw the consumer.
Why 29mm BB's that last months when 24mm is prefect. Because it's cheaper for them and looks shiny and screw the consumer.
Why did their fat bike cranks have a ~7mm gap on the drive side of the axle and nothing retaining the top-hat seal so it would just walk itself out. Because it was cheaper than engineering a drive side crank with the correct chainline and screw the consumer.
Why did the original reverb have such rubbish strain relief on the hose?
Why did electric shifting need removable batteries with such fragile pins?
Once you're out the door they've done what their business model set out to do.
Every SRAM equipped bike I've ever had has at some point had a failure with the SRAM kit that leaves you thinking "well shimano doesn't do that". And somehwere below a regurgitated press releasee of the latest SRAM gear on pinkbike there'll be a fanboy telling everyone how yet again Shimano is getting left behind because SRAM have rushed to market their latest product with n+1 gears/teeth/pistons/buttons/batteries/whatever, SRAM are great. Shimano USERs aren't left behind. I've got a 20 year old Shimano groupset on one of my bikes, it's on it's umpteenth set of every consumable, and all the moving parts have been completely stripped and regreased right down to disassembling the bushings in the derailer knuckles and detente adjusters in the brakes. But it still works!
So that's my opinion, there are parts of the bike industry knowingly selling really poorly designed products. I don't even bother with SRAM warranty anymore, at worst they just deny there's anything wrong, at best you get a new part that fails in exactly the same way.
Every SRAM equipped bike I've ever had has at some point had a failure with the SRAM kit that leaves you thinking "well shimano doesn't do that". And somehwere below a regurgitated press releasee of the latest SRAM gear on pinkbike there'll be a fanboy telling everyone how yet again Shimano is getting left behind because SRAM have rushed to market their latest product with n+1 gears/teeth/pistons/buttons/batteries/whatever, SRAM are great.
I saw a blog post once comparing SRAM to Apple and Shimano to Google. Basically saying that, like Apple, SRAM are always releasing some new and unique product whereas Shimano (like Google) prefer to do steady incremental releases once every 3-4 years.
I think the analogy has probably fallen down a bit now since everyone seems keen to rush a new product to market and you end up with everyone chasing everyone else.
Shimano are like Apple in one way... always later to market, with a generally more robust product... and Sram are like Apple in the other way... big bang attention grabbing "new" product launches.
Sram also do what both Apple and Google do... buy up small companies who have novel products that wouldn't have escaped their own development labs... partly to stop interoperability... (most recent example being to take Shimano fit Ochains off the market).
I prefer shimano to sram, except when it comes to chains and derailleurs. Shimano stuff doesn’t stand up to the weather I live in - chains rust and clutches seize. I won’t buy them anymore.
Yea, the analogy's have broken down somewhat over the last decade. SRAM is the side of Apple that's ludicrously expensive, and to an extent (if you buy into the latest iteration at least) everything works within the ecosystem.
~9speed Shimano felt like they just never release anything unless it was absolutely faultless and completely compatible with everything it practicably could be. Want to run your Alivo rear mech with mega-range cassette with a Dura Ace TT shifter, you go for it! Making 10speed MTB and road diverge was the beginning of the end of the golden era. These days road/GRX/MTB/Cues/Linkglide is just a mess. GRX wasn't necessary, they could just have brought MTB pull ratios to the road and let everyone run a XT mech on 105 shifters (and made the 105 shifters as comfortable as the now GRX ones).
Working in a completely different development field, my take would be:
SRAM listens too much to their ideas people and tried to implement everything. I doubt Shimano hasn't already thought of most of them as well, they just choose to focus on less of them.
Shimano's change management sucks. They've been pretty poor at compatibility for the last few iterations. They've tried to resolve this in the latest Cues but the "everything should work with everything" needs to trickle up to the Road/GRX/MTB product lines.
SRAM's development and testing sucks. 50% of the issues I've had with their kit would have been apparent if they'd even made even a single production prototype and ridden it. I'm convinced some products go straight from a rendering to production in order to capture market share while others a re still prototyping. The fat bike crank issue happens on the first ride! The back pedaling thing is definitely worse on SRAM than Shimano so must be a tooth profile issue. DUB probably worked well enough in a press fit frame in California. The brake reliability issues take a year or so to show up, although back in ~2015 I had a set go bad in a few months but this was before anyone really knew what the issue was. I suspect they quietly adjusted the tolerances which means it now happens less commonly or at least once the warranty period has passed.
Shimano (related to the above) has got far more long term product reliability knowledge and manufacturing knowledge. They know what coatings to use on derailleur pins, they know what to make pistons out of, simple stuff like that. SRAM's 1-piece CNC cassettes are incredible, no two ways about it. But shimano will probably have some unseen PTFE coated brass bushing running o a hardened steel axle in a their derailleur cage that they developed for Dura Ace around the millennium, and that's why 20 years on everyone has that one SLX mech on a commuter or something just won't die. I don't really care that the largest sprocket on XT is aluminum, because I'd not trust a GX derailleur to outlive it anyway before the whole thing is too sloppy to shift.
And aesthetically, they both suck. They used to make jewlery like this!
[img]dn11.bigcommerce.com/s-1rmgckn/images/stencil/2280x2280/products/4721/51314/Vintage_Dura_Ace_Bike_Parts_-_9724__67196.1472597427.JPG[/img]
These days road/GRX/MTB/Cues/Linkglide is just a mess. GRX wasn't necessary, they could just have brought MTB pull ratios to the road and let everyone run a XT mech on 105 shifters (and made the 105 shifters as comfortable as the now GRX ones).
Shimano went down that route originally and very quickly found the gravel market going entirely to SRAM with their 1x and clearer hierarchy. At the start of "gravel" as A Thing, everyone was doing mix and match, mullet drivetrains etc just to try and make it work so the marketing behind it all said "we must have a Gravel groupset" which was fair enough - MTB(ish) gearing but with road(ish) parts and geometry. I think Shimano got rather forced into it and even now they're still trying to find space for 2x and reworking bits of road / MTB stuff whereas SRAM got the jump on them by virtue of being more adaptable and quicker to market (although as mentioned, not necessarily beta-tested!).
I agree about CUES though, that was a right mess when it soft-launched over a period of about 6 months with confusing press releases. Shimano used to rely heavily on trickle-down tech. What first appeared on Dura-Ace / XTR would filter down to Tiagra / Alivio in a few years time. But as all the top groupsets are now electronic, that's not an option any more so it did make sense to rework mechanical groupsets from the ground up.
But by leaving it so long, they had a lot more ground to cover than simply doing small iterations.
The last 4 years have been a right mess - post-Covid, huge amount of new product released to try and pick up momentum again after the massive overstock and cashflow problems and a complete mish-mash of compatibility.
