Another great piece Mike, like you plucked it and the thoughts right out my head. Agree with others, much more "excited" about Shimano's take on drivetrains that SRAMs, but can somewhat appreciate the thought process involved (we need something new to make the sheeple buy more shit they don't need).
Had to do a decent 18 mile commute yesterday on the old '08 Surly Monkey with old 9spd drivetrain and as I was standing up and shifting under load, while climbing a hill, I thought about all this and wondered how come I could do that without having spent a crap load of $$ on one of these new drivetrains, but then I guess for/to me, I started MTBing long enough ago that you actually HAD to learn how to shift properly and so now, I don't have a problem shifting compared to all the N00bs, let's get out there as fast as we can to hit all the down without really needing to pilot the bike with it's 170mm travel, 2.6" tyres and motor crowd.
FYI, I do have a 10spd Zee derailleur, but it's setup on my fav size SM loaner/rental bike with an 11-36 cassette and heaven forbid 2X front rings. Heck, just the week before I reinstalled a front shifter and derailleur onto my main ride (Banshee Phantom) because I only had a spare 11-36 cassette on the wheels I wanted to run AND because of working/servicing enough 12spd 1x setups where I'm seeing 3, maybe 4 cogs wearing much faster than the rest of the cassette and cassettes basically being thrown away while 75% is still good because people just mainly use 3 or 4 cogs. BTW, I had an excellent ride, even cleared a couple climbs I'd had trouble with in the past, 2x 10spd didn't hold me back one bit and I know I used m y cassette more efficiently.
April 1, 2023, 9:38 a.m. - Lynx .
Another great piece Mike, like you plucked it and the thoughts right out my head. Agree with others, much more "excited" about Shimano's take on drivetrains that SRAMs, but can somewhat appreciate the thought process involved (we need something new to make the sheeple buy more shit they don't need). Had to do a decent 18 mile commute yesterday on the old '08 Surly Monkey with old 9spd drivetrain and as I was standing up and shifting under load, while climbing a hill, I thought about all this and wondered how come I could do that without having spent a crap load of $$ on one of these new drivetrains, but then I guess for/to me, I started MTBing long enough ago that you actually HAD to learn how to shift properly and so now, I don't have a problem shifting compared to all the N00bs, let's get out there as fast as we can to hit all the down without really needing to pilot the bike with it's 170mm travel, 2.6" tyres and motor crowd. FYI, I do have a 10spd Zee derailleur, but it's setup on my fav size SM loaner/rental bike with an 11-36 cassette and heaven forbid 2X front rings. Heck, just the week before I reinstalled a front shifter and derailleur onto my main ride (Banshee Phantom) because I only had a spare 11-36 cassette on the wheels I wanted to run AND because of working/servicing enough 12spd 1x setups where I'm seeing 3, maybe 4 cogs wearing much faster than the rest of the cassette and cassettes basically being thrown away while 75% is still good because people just mainly use 3 or 4 cogs. BTW, I had an excellent ride, even cleared a couple climbs I'd had trouble with in the past, 2x 10spd didn't hold me back one bit and I know I used m y cassette more efficiently.