You can make one “standard” an actual standard

Didn’t Rockshox invent the Torque Cap because they were admitting a 15mm front axle wasn’t stiff enough?

What about seatpost diameters. You’d probably need two so you can have a skinny road one (27.2) and a wider, stiffer MTB one

the 15mm hade no sense when there was already a perfectly suitable (and better) standard available and in use on all DH forks.

IIRC Shimano didn’t like 20mm axles becasue it made fitting cup and cone bearings into their hubs difficult. I guess when one of the powerhouses of cycling transmissions says no; your ‘standard’ gets killed off pretty quickly.

Never mind bikes, think about plumbers.  Every single nut is a different size so instead of a nice compact spanner that can fit into a tight squeeze they have to use a big cumbersome adjustable and carry a big pack of Elastoplast.

Didn’t Rockshox invent the Torque Cap because they were admitting a 15mm front axle wasn’t stiff enough?

It was Fox and Shimano that pushed 15mm. Rockshox were quite happy at 20mm but were outplayed and it was a case of if you can’t beat them, join them.

In the case of road vs mtb cassette spacing ,it’s interesting that the new Cues stuff from Shimano has the same spacing across the board in an attempt to sort this. Unfortunately, they are still selling their current ranges and so the usual cartoon strip is still apt here.

For me it’s chainring mounting pattern. IMO Sram’s 3 bolt was perfect. I hate the fact they’ve recently went to 8 bolt for everything. Understand it for the road groups but  I have never seen an mtb rider with power meter cranks.

Standards are not about ‘better’, they are about sales being able to use the ‘but better than last year’ argument and planned obselecence of perfectly useable parts.

For me it’s chainring mounting pattern. IMO Sram’s 3 bolt was perfect. I hate the fact they’ve recently went to 8 bolt for everything. Understand it for the road groups but  I have never seen an mtb rider with power meter cranks.

They have their own DM mount for MTB cranks though?

Not that anyone should be running Sram cranks (with their ridiculous 28.99mm spindle) anyway.

Always liked the standard Shimano 4 bolt 104mm. Can change chainring without removing cranks.

No concern for the manufacturer or the “annual servicer” but if you replace things as and when they wear out its an added annoyance; and doubly so if you are frequently changing chainring sizes.

Road signs in the UK.

I used to put the roadworks signs out on motorways, 1,2 3 miles and 000’s of yards until you hit the cones. Everything was measured out in metres, sign placing, cones, white lines, road widths, bend radius, the whole road network basically. But not the numbers on signs.

I’ll happily throw imperial measurements into the sea.

Afaik, when Leo fender invented the telecaster, he designed it so that it could be built with as few (standardised) tools as possible.

anyway, the Richter scale of measuring earthquakes seems like a pita.

Each decimal point on the scale represents a 10x difference in magnitude.

wtf? Are there any other units of measurement, designed to confuse people?

In the case of road vs mtb cassette spacing ,it’s interesting that the new Cues stuff from Shimano has the same spacing across the board in an attempt to sort this. Unfortunately, they are still selling their current ranges and so the usual cartoon strip is still apt here.

Cues is a good example of something that should have come in and completely replaced about 3-4 other groupsets in one go. But no, they did a “soft launch”, they’re still running it alongside Acera, Altus etc and the result is just more standards and compatibility issues.

Cues is a good example of something that should have come in and completely replaced about 3-4 other groupsets in one go. But no, they did a “soft launch”, they’re still running it alongside Acera, Altus etc and the result is just more standards and compatibility issues.

We’ve got this problem in our company.  As long as something is still selling it’s very difficult to convince managers to give it up.

It leads to incredibly convoluted product lines, not to mention confusion for consumers and even people working in the company itself.

In many cases, where there should be one product, there are four or five.

they’re still running it alongside Acera, Altus etc and the result is just more standards and compatibility issues.

Given how long those two lines have been going for, the production cost/item must be in the 10th of a penny, It’d be hard for any company to give up what must be pretty profitable lines that you see on very £200.00 BSO

Cues is a good example of something that should have come in and completely replaced about 3-4 other groupsets in one go. But no, they did a “soft launch”, they’re still running it alongside Acera, Altus etc and the result is just more standards and compatibility issues.

And Drop-bar levers were promised (still not materialised).

See also:

It just makes me suspect Cues is actually using Dynasis Cable pull with slightly tweaked sprocket spacing/cable pull increments to frustrate attempts at backwards compatibility.

anyway, the Richter scale of measuring earthquakes seems like a pita.

Each decimal point on the scale represents a 10x difference in magnitude.

wtf? Are there any other units of measurement, designed to confuse peole?

How much louder is 20 decibels than 10? And why don’t we ever deal in whole bels?

anyway, the Richter scale of measuring earthquakes seems like a pita.

Each decimal point on the scale represents a 10x difference in magnitude.

wtf? Are there any other units of measurement, designed to confuse people?

do you actually care how much force is released in the ground movement? what would you do with that information anyway?

or do you want a nice number between 1 and 10 read out on the news so you can compare it to previous ones?

Headsets. Remember when you just went and bought the 1.125″ headset you wanted. Now you need some kind of degree in engineering to understand what you have and what you need via deciphering some kind of cryptic language.

Do you have a recommended standard for the accompanying ear defenders to stop all the creaking entering our  lugholes ?

I followed that up with “jokes aside” 😉

Headsets. Remember when you just went and bought the 1.125″ headset you wanted. Now you need some kind of degree in engineering to understand what you have and what you need via deciphering some kind of cryptic language.

Same in BBs.

Square taper in about 3 different axle lengths, that was the lot!

I’m actually not that bothered about it – BBs last a long time (we’ll ignore the anomaly of early generation ISIS!) and pretty much any modern BB is stiffer, stronger, lighter etc than any old square taper one ever was.

The more annoying thing is each manufacturer trying to convince the consumer that their system is the best one ever, often before quietly abandoning their much vaunted system 2-3 years later.

The more annoying thing is each manufacturer trying to convince the consumer that their system is the best one ever, often before quietly abandoning their much vaunted system 2-3 years later.

I think what annoys me is that 10 years ago or so there was one standard for pretty much the entire drivetrain.

Since then every single drivetrain standard has changed.  And yet at a glance they look exactly the same as before.

If you’re going to change every component in the drivetrain couldn’t you use that as an opportunity to completely redesign it for a system that doesn’t have all that unsprung mass on the back, requires the wheel strength to be compromised so the cogs can be fit in, and requires the suspension design to be compromised to mitigate chain stretch and pedal kickback?

Since then every single drivetrain standard has changed.  And yet at a glance they look exactly the same as before.

That’s a good thing though, surely? A few things spring to mind. 1. the cassette/derailleur/chain design was clearly originally so good, it’s remained both the predominate design for over a hundred years, and has just needed incremental tweaks to improve it. 2. Design happens in the present and not in the future. The designers in bike companies are looking to integrate new technology with existing designs it would take either a bold step to junk it all in favour of unproven technology, and not piss off every home mechanic in the universe, or a crystal ball.

 1. the cassette/derailleur/chain design was clearly originally so good, it’s remained both the predominate design for over a hundred years, and has just needed incremental tweaks to improve it.

I’d say it’s good for road bikes.

It’s OK for hardtail mountain bikes

However, full suspension mountain bikes work well in spite of derailleurs, not because of them.

If you were designing a full suspension mountain bike from scratch I reckon you’d end up with a cassette in the centre of the cranks, another at the suspension pivot point, and something like a front derailleur cage with a lead screw and probably electronic control.  Like the phaser gearbox I posted earlier, with the cranks at the input side and a shaft with the main pivot around it. Then a single chain running to the rear wheel.

This configuration would look different but it would probably actually have fewer ‘new’ standards than the current incarnation of drivetrains.

If you were designing a full suspension mountain bike from scratch I reckon you’d end up with a cassette in the centre of the cranks, another at the suspension pivot point, and something like a front derailleur cage with a lead screw and probably electronic control.

You’re basically talking about a derailleur in a box, but without the box. Problem is that the chain is very short so the chainline is terrible in the extreme gears. It’s possible to devise ways to build a compact chain based gearbox, but keeping the chainline reasonably straight adds complexity and expense. 1x derailleur systems with the cassette on the rear hub work are a pretty good and cheap compromise for most purposes, including suspension bikes.

Re: Richter scale

yes, it would be nice to articulate seismic magnitudes into something that Joe Public can understand.

anyway, bicycle light fittings for rear racks, handlebars and helmets.

the time I’ve spent trying to zip-tie rear lights to racks.

go-pro and/or Garmin should be standardised.

Or at least go-pro for helmet mounted accessories.

theres enough turnover of lights for topeak and other manufacturers if pannier racks to introduce go-pro prongs as their new standard.

Bring back 20mm pinch bolted axles to 160/180 forks

You’re basically talking about a derailleur in a box, but without the box.

No, I’m talking about two cassettes (same number if teeth on corresponding cogs).  See the phaser gearbox.

It has been done as a proof of concept a few times. Also, Shimano’s patent from a couple of years ago was basically the same thing but with three axles instead of two for some reason

Surely I can’t be the only person who saw the first idler high single pivot bikes come out, with new cassette standard, new derailleur standard, new chainring, etc and thought, ‘OK, this is getting silly. Can’t we just throw everything out and design it properly since every part has been changed anyway.’

^ I think if Shimano or SRAM had as long a view of bike trends as their own product development map they might have put more into mech-in-box systems. Mech momentum is against them, still it does seem to be a good match to idler bikes. Ted James’s Alfine bike from about 2010 jumps to mind.

Not so much everything has to be somethings as everything shouldn’t be anything. Black!  Acceptable on tyre treads and possibly cable outers but otherwise no.  Black spokes FFS or rims or mechs! Designed by kids who are too lazy to get the coloured pencils out. Well the silver one.

And for all those pushing the BSA BB, when Shimano introduced the HT2 they were absolutely s***e, no end of complaints and how Square Taper was better etc.

Were there? Not from where I was standing, everyone was doing their damnest to pick up Saint/XT or Hone/LX and ditch the square taper and ISIS.

Square taper thank the lord are a thing of yesterdecade

Not for me, both of my bikes have square taper and both are fine. The BBs last for years and years, in fact the BB on one of my bikes is 34 years old.

Mech momentum is against them

For all it’s theoretical faults, the derailleur is still the least compromised, gearboxes weigh more, cost more, and drag more, although I can see them being popular in e-bike where the natural disadvantages of gearboxes can be minimized by motors

^ Oh agreed, std mechs work just fine in all but the absolute worst conditions. Considering the bikes that are best suited to idlers, motor gearboxes are the way forward. That assumes enduro type bikes will me mainly e-bikes in due course.

I think it really depends what you mean by gearbox.  Personally I class gearboxes as anything that involves solid gears meshing somehow.  So basically anything like the pinion but also all the internal hub gears (including clever solutions like NuVinci even though it doesn’t technically mesh).  I think gearboxes come with an inherent loss of direct connection that I don’t like for mountain biking.  The main thing I like about them is the robustness and lack of maintenance.

I wouldn’t really class the attempts like the Phaser, the Honda gearbox, Williams Racing Products, and the Lal drive as gearboxes though.  I tend to think of them as just taking standard components and rearranging them so as they are better suited to mountain biking.

Overall I’m not too keen on gearboxes for mountain biking (although they do make sense with ebikes).  However, I am very keen on rearranging the components so that we don’t have so much delicate hardware dangling off the back.  Not to mention the suspension design compromises needed to run a rear derailleur.

That’s my main complaint.  All the components were changed and yet they were left in exactly the same configuration.  Obviously this happened because component changes happened one at a time.  But then they must have had an inkling all these changes were coming.  Couldn’t they just have said, ‘All these things are going to change over the next few years so we’re just going to move them around while we’re doing it.

I’m surprised T47 BB hasn’t featured on more frames seeing as most people hate press fit, most aftermarket cranks are 30mm axle and most bikes come with SRAM spec instead of Shimano so it’s mostly OEM dub cranks out there.
As already mentioned who decided stanchions, rims, spokes, cranks and mechs should all be black, remember when Shimano had the option of silver.

All the components were changed and yet they were left in exactly the same configuration.  Obviously this happened because component changes happened one at a time.  But then they must have had an inkling all these changes were coming.  Couldn’t they just have said, ‘All these things are going to change over the next few years so we’re just going to move them around while we’re doing it.

It’s much harder to rearrange them than you seem to assume. It’s not impossible, but it will be more expensive and trying to cram a derailleur based transmission into the frame will compromise suspension design, especially for small sized frames.

I have 7 bikes but the only one that really annoys me are freehubs.

Derailleur hangers – especially now that a slightly bent one has an impact on shifting and the ability to throw an expensive mech into a wheel, having lots of simple spares on hand will make riding better

Anyway, I’d just restandardise freehubs as HG. If you want a bigger top end just get a bigger chainring. If you can’t hack the bottom end git gud.

Nah, chewed up too many alloy hg freehubs to ever go back, microspline for me thanks.

I’m surprised T47 BB hasn’t featured on more frames seeing as most people hate press fit, most aftermarket cranks are 30mm axle and most bikes come with SRAM spec instead of Shimano so it’s mostly OEM dub cranks out there.

All my cranks are 24mm… what am I missing out on by not having 30mm (or ‘almost`’ 30mm)?