MTB Tech Rumors and Innovation

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smelly
Posts
141
Joined
3/7/2016
Location
Colorado Springs, CO US
9/14/2024 4:03am
Jotegr wrote:
Transmission, it's weaknesses, and "solutions" for those weaknesses all seem kind of insane to me.Hey we have this little uvula looking thing on the back of...

Transmission, it's weaknesses, and "solutions" for those weaknesses all seem kind of insane to me.

Hey we have this little uvula looking thing on the back of frames which the derailleur attaches to. Usually, derailleurs aren't that expensive these days but just in case, it's meant to bend instead of allowing the derailleur to break. Because our frame is made of steel, we can usually just bend it back for free! How nice!

Since we moved on to alloy/carbon, we had to make the hanger its own item. We went with aluminum alloy so it's stiff and light, but if you snag up on a rock or cause your bike to go tumbling down the side of a mountain, which happens from time to time, hopefully this twenty to forty dollar piece of metal breaks or bends instead of your derailleur, the price of which is rapidly inflating. Too bad there's a million hangers and none of them work with each other, but hey, that's the cost of providing consumers with a variety of frame designs and materials and varying price points!

OK, so we're trying to simplify things by getting vast swathes of the industry to move to a universal hanger. Great, right? But since we fucking hate you, we're going to make a bunch of them out of shittily moulded plastic riddled with manufacturing defects in our initial runs, thus ensuring that your brand new Trek (for which you waited a year and paid MSRP) is locked out of proper shifting for six to eight months, or whenever the supply chain woes end. Whichever is later! 

Actually, forget the whole hanger thing. Now that we got most brands to standardize the mounting interface, we'll skip the hanger and make the derailleur mount directly to the frame. This was expensive to develop, but don't worry, we spent some of that R&D budget ensuring that we integrated both the function of a derailleur and the function of a hanger together: Not only will this thing smoothly and accurately shift under load, we purposely made parts of it kind of weak so it functions as a disposable hanger too!  Best of all, instead of replacing that little piece of inexpensive aluminum, you now get to replace a very expensive little piece of aluminum that performed the same job! At least it's less than your $5,499.99 S-Works frame though, right?

BUT WAIT! What if I told you that you could replace those weaker parts of the transmission system with dramatically stronger aftermarket solutions? They'll take those crappy OEM bits and replace them with a colourful piece of CNC glory, and all for the low price of only somewhat more expensive than the OEM replacement! Best of all, those impact forces we were talking about? We figured out a way transfer them directly into your seat stay! 

Somebody help me out. I actually don't get it. 

 

Sure, you’re right. But, do you guys remember just how bad hangers and derailleurs used to be? The plus side was everything was easy to bend back straight. The downside was I’d would usually bust 3-5 derailleurs and a similar number of hangers per year. I got to a point that I used to bring an extra derailleur on long rides. 

3
4
rppdx
Posts
3
Joined
8/17/2024
Location
Beaverton, OR US
9/14/2024 6:19am

New Kavenz VHP G2 pre-order just opened for email subscribers. Looks like you can choose any of their rear travel options and it uses the same interchangeable rear dropouts. Also, has a pinion smart shift option 

6
9/14/2024 7:41am
rppdx wrote:
New Kavenz VHP G2 pre-order just opened for email subscribers. Looks like you can choose any of their rear travel options and it uses the same...

New Kavenz VHP G2 pre-order just opened for email subscribers. Looks like you can choose any of their rear travel options and it uses the same interchangeable rear dropouts. Also, has a pinion smart shift option 

Sounds great! Now they need to offer different hub sizes dropouts for us folks with 12x157 hubs! Smile  

4
ZAKBROWN!
Posts
50
Joined
8/28/2009
Location
Salt Lake City, UT US
Fantasy
246th
9/14/2024 8:22am
rppdx wrote:
New Kavenz VHP G2 pre-order just opened for email subscribers. Looks like you can choose any of their rear travel options and it uses the same...

New Kavenz VHP G2 pre-order just opened for email subscribers. Looks like you can choose any of their rear travel options and it uses the same interchangeable rear dropouts. Also, has a pinion smart shift option 

Ha, literally staring at my full cart right now.  Been on a Kavenz for 4 seasons, now that the Smartshift Pinion is available I think I’m finally ready to pull the trigger on a gearbox bike.  
 

10
nsp234
Posts
48
Joined
9/15/2016
Location
CH
9/14/2024 12:19pm

Just saw this and thought it‘s funny (and I‘m probably the only one 😅)

 

IMG 4012

And

IMG 4013.gif?VersionId=E
9
gibbon
Posts
437
Joined
3/7/2019
Location
GB
9/14/2024 12:51pm

I believe.......... it is a bicycle.






(Sorry)

27
3
bikelurker
Posts
61
Joined
3/23/2023
Location
Bilbao, Vizcaya ES
9/14/2024 2:19pm
nsp234 wrote:
Just saw this and thought it‘s funny (and I‘m probably the only one 😅) And

Just saw this and thought it‘s funny (and I‘m probably the only one 😅)

 

IMG 4012

And

IMG 4013.gif?VersionId=E

All the automation and then you end up with a load of dials to deal with. And you quite enjoy it 😆

2
AndehM
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201
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5/7/2018
Location
El Granada, CA US
Fantasy
347th
9/14/2024 2:24pm
Any ideas what this might be?

Any ideas what this might be?

IMG 5822.jpeg?VersionId=KNjcR2kb4F6HQxpPLCizd7x.Kz

Maybe a Transition, alu version of the upcoming Sentinel update?  It looks like it's got the big chonky 56/56 head tube, and all their bikes use trunnion mount vertical shocks like that.

4
az2au
Posts
49
Joined
10/19/2023
Location
Scottsdale, AZ US
Fantasy
590th
9/14/2024 3:08pm
Jotegr wrote:
Transmission, it's weaknesses, and "solutions" for those weaknesses all seem kind of insane to me.Hey we have this little uvula looking thing on the back of...

Transmission, it's weaknesses, and "solutions" for those weaknesses all seem kind of insane to me.

Hey we have this little uvula looking thing on the back of frames which the derailleur attaches to. Usually, derailleurs aren't that expensive these days but just in case, it's meant to bend instead of allowing the derailleur to break. Because our frame is made of steel, we can usually just bend it back for free! How nice!

Since we moved on to alloy/carbon, we had to make the hanger its own item. We went with aluminum alloy so it's stiff and light, but if you snag up on a rock or cause your bike to go tumbling down the side of a mountain, which happens from time to time, hopefully this twenty to forty dollar piece of metal breaks or bends instead of your derailleur, the price of which is rapidly inflating. Too bad there's a million hangers and none of them work with each other, but hey, that's the cost of providing consumers with a variety of frame designs and materials and varying price points!

OK, so we're trying to simplify things by getting vast swathes of the industry to move to a universal hanger. Great, right? But since we fucking hate you, we're going to make a bunch of them out of shittily moulded plastic riddled with manufacturing defects in our initial runs, thus ensuring that your brand new Trek (for which you waited a year and paid MSRP) is locked out of proper shifting for six to eight months, or whenever the supply chain woes end. Whichever is later! 

Actually, forget the whole hanger thing. Now that we got most brands to standardize the mounting interface, we'll skip the hanger and make the derailleur mount directly to the frame. This was expensive to develop, but don't worry, we spent some of that R&D budget ensuring that we integrated both the function of a derailleur and the function of a hanger together: Not only will this thing smoothly and accurately shift under load, we purposely made parts of it kind of weak so it functions as a disposable hanger too!  Best of all, instead of replacing that little piece of inexpensive aluminum, you now get to replace a very expensive little piece of aluminum that performed the same job! At least it's less than your $5,499.99 S-Works frame though, right?

BUT WAIT! What if I told you that you could replace those weaker parts of the transmission system with dramatically stronger aftermarket solutions? They'll take those crappy OEM bits and replace them with a colourful piece of CNC glory, and all for the low price of only somewhat more expensive than the OEM replacement! Best of all, those impact forces we were talking about? We figured out a way transfer them directly into your seat stay! 

Somebody help me out. I actually don't get it. 

 

nsp234 wrote:
Very well written.Another thing I can't help to wrap my head around are the weights we're strapping to the unsprung side of our rear ends:Shimano RD-M980...

Very well written.

Another thing I can't help to wrap my head around are the weights we're strapping to the unsprung side of our rear ends:

Shimano RD-M980 (2011) 175g
Sram XX (2011) 180g
Shimano RD-M9120 (machanical) 241g
Sram Transmission XX (incl. Battery) 465g 

Not a total apples to apples comparison, but looking at this I can't help but feel this isn't the pinnacle of drivertain design. 

 

So, you're really concerned about ~0.5lbs on bikes that average around 37lbs (assuming enduro bikes)?  I'm struggling to come to terms with that mattering much. Heck, I'm struggling to come to terms with how much that would matter on my XC bike that weights 24lbs.  I understand that it is at a specific spot but real world usage doesn't seem to indicate relevance so I'm not sure that it would be any different in theory.  I simply don't believe this is a real factor for 99.9999999% of people on bikes.  I'm sure we can find someone that can actually tell the difference in controlled testing but I believe they're an extreme outlier if the exist at all.

2
12
MJN
Posts
15
Joined
3/4/2024
Location
Nelson NZ
9/14/2024 4:48pm
gibbon wrote:

I believe.......... it is a bicycle.






(Sorry)

Zebra 

3
Glory831Guy
Posts
85
Joined
10/21/2023
Location
Santa Cruz, CA US
9/14/2024 4:52pm
gibbon wrote:

I believe.......... it is a bicycle.






(Sorry)

MJN wrote:

Zebra 

IDK, looks more like a zonkey to me.

3
dolface
Posts
1211
Joined
10/26/2015
Location
CA US
Fantasy
610th
9/14/2024 6:15pm
Any ideas what this might be?

Any ideas what this might be?

IMG 5822.jpeg?VersionId=KNjcR2kb4F6HQxpPLCizd7x.Kz
AndehM wrote:
Maybe a Transition, alu version of the upcoming Sentinel update?  It looks like it's got the big chonky 56/56 head tube, and all their bikes use...

Maybe a Transition, alu version of the upcoming Sentinel update?  It looks like it's got the big chonky 56/56 head tube, and all their bikes use trunnion mount vertical shocks like that.

I don't think any of their current bikes are trunnion...https://www.transitionbikes.com/Bikes.cfm

13
9/14/2024 9:37pm
Any ideas what this might be?

Any ideas what this might be?

IMG 5822.jpeg?VersionId=KNjcR2kb4F6HQxpPLCizd7x.Kz
AndehM wrote:
Maybe a Transition, alu version of the upcoming Sentinel update?  It looks like it's got the big chonky 56/56 head tube, and all their bikes use...

Maybe a Transition, alu version of the upcoming Sentinel update?  It looks like it's got the big chonky 56/56 head tube, and all their bikes use trunnion mount vertical shocks like that.

dolface wrote:

I don't think any of their current bikes are trunnion...https://www.transitionbikes.com/Bikes.cfm

Lol wut

6
cmaac
Posts
14
Joined
8/25/2023
Location
Tahoe, CA US
Fantasy
1555th
9/15/2024 12:02am Edited Date/Time 9/15/2024 12:02am

IMG 1409 0

9
gbcoke
Posts
75
Joined
1/6/2016
Location
US
9/15/2024 12:09am

Can anyone explain the marketing strategy of Pivot letting Enduro-Mtb feature/review the bike and not showing it anywhere else,

including their website ??

8
krabo83
Posts
554
Joined
12/26/2017
Location
AT
9/15/2024 12:51am
gbcoke wrote:

Can anyone explain the marketing strategy of Pivot letting Enduro-Mtb feature/review the bike and not showing it anywhere else,

including their website ??

according to the test in enduro-mtb launch will be in october. why they‘re allowed to post a review a month in advance i‘ve no clue, maybe because it‘s not widely available cause you have to use their app (which is free though)? 😅

 

none the less, that new suspension design really seems to rip according to their test. looking forward to reading more opinions/reviews.

 

1
Bob Chicken
Posts
67
Joined
3/30/2014
Location
somehere, VIC AU
9/15/2024 12:59am
gbcoke wrote:

Can anyone explain the marketing strategy of Pivot letting Enduro-Mtb feature/review the bike and not showing it anywhere else,

including their website ??

I stopped reading Enduro-MTB when they defended headset cable routing as cleaner and "people whinged about internal routing so stop whinging".

17
2
NicoZesty96
Posts
354
Joined
8/21/2014
Location
portogruaro, VE IT
9/15/2024 1:06am
gbcoke wrote:

Can anyone explain the marketing strategy of Pivot letting Enduro-Mtb feature/review the bike and not showing it anywhere else,

including their website ??

I stopped reading Enduro-MTB when they defended headset cable routing as cleaner and "people whinged about internal routing so stop whinging".

https://enduro-mtb.com/en/headset-cable-routing/

they even tried plenty, but blind enough $$$$$ to say it's no biggie, which again $$$$$ it's hard not to say it's garbage when you're working on it, looking at it or whatever, perhaps they couldn't $ee properly

1
1
TimBud
Posts
359
Joined
2/29/2012
Location
GB
Fantasy
875th
9/15/2024 1:17am
gbcoke wrote:

Can anyone explain the marketing strategy of Pivot letting Enduro-Mtb feature/review the bike and not showing it anywhere else,

including their website ??

Enduro-mtb don’t have embargo in their dictionary 

5
Flo7
Posts
4
Joined
4/6/2023
Location
Biedermannsdorf AT
9/15/2024 1:57am

New Fox Coil Shock?


IMG 2236IMG 2237

12
CrySmack
Posts
14
Joined
7/11/2013
Location
Linz AT
9/15/2024 2:04am Edited Date/Time 9/15/2024 2:05am
Flo7 wrote:
New Fox Coil Shock?

New Fox Coil Shock?


IMG 2236IMG 2237

When you enter the SNR on the fox website

IMG 1929 1

22
gibbon
Posts
437
Joined
3/7/2019
Location
GB
9/15/2024 3:29am

Every Enduro mag review......needs dh tyres and 220mm rotors.

17
boozed
Posts
299
Joined
6/11/2019
Location
AU
9/15/2024 5:03am
Flo7 wrote:
New Fox Coil Shock?

New Fox Coil Shock?


IMG 2236IMG 2237

Live valve with an external climb switch is interesting.

(also DH sizing with a climb switch...)

3
krabo83
Posts
554
Joined
12/26/2017
Location
AT
9/15/2024 5:05am
gibbon wrote:

Every Enduro mag review......needs dh tyres and 220mm rotors.

well they‘re not wrong when they say that exo or exo+ tires are too flimsy on an enduro bike if you use it properly Wink  

10

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