MEATengines 2022...

Wow. Nice! I just need to keep all my toes pointed the same way so regular crocs would do the job. You know I'll be wearing shoes in the house as soon as I can put a shoe on again! ;-)

UDH

Bahaha! Every time one of my riding buddies misses a shift now I’m going to summon my internal Bill Shatner and yell “SRAAAAAAAAAM!!!” 

———

First trunnion mounted shocks, now trunnion mounted derailleurs. I’m reimagining this article as an internal memo at SRAM from the ambitious, young VP of Trunnions and the EVP of Patents and Propriety whose job is on shaky ground after the number 28.99 was deemed prior art as it was used as a price for a t-shirt in a Fox spreadsheet.

Other important, yet unbulleted, points from the memorandum:

“There’s no problems at this company that trunnions can’t solve.”

“These things hold up cannons, Ted. CANNONS.”

“Obviously the derailleur will be completely destroyed, but what if I told you I can guarantee that the battery won’t survive a 6km/h impact.”

“This DUB Trunnion BB I’m developing will reduce creaking by 8% with ONLY a 13mm increase in Q-factor.”

“The best part is that we now know that 9/10 frame manufacturers can be bought with a burlap sack full of NX Derailleurs.”

“I hope this is the last time I have to address this - nobody thinks UDH stands for ‘Uncured Deli Ham’.”

“We can just blame the noises on axle tolerances. Our boys down in Hub Group have been doing that for years.”

Posted by: AndrewMajor

Posted by: Vikb

OTOH watching the people give up mobility/capabilities and become more motor dependent is sad and as is the environmental impact of the switch to e-bikes from bicycles.

It would be interesting to know how stats skew in terms of replacing car trips with e-bikes versus bicycle trips with e-bikes. Certainly, I know a lot of the latter personally, but that also speaks to my bias so it may be I'm looking to those stories. 

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My positive micro-campaign with family, friends, or neighbours who ask me about buying a blender is always to look at their plans for it. 90% of the time looking at their goals they'd be fully capable either right away, or with a little bit of training, of doing their planned riding under their own steam. 

The advantages of making that choice are epic. A significantly better bicycle for less money upfront and long-term. With proper care, it can last forever. Nothing to charge. Significantly less to go wrong. Sense of personal accomplishment. Building fitness while traveling places that can then positively impact everything you do. 

For folks riding to work, like my wife, the net time savings actually aren't that great either, even ignoring faffing with the charging setup and making up the lost exercise time (shorter ride / less effort). The e-bike doesn't cut down on time packing, changing, showering, etc. A commuter e-bike would shave an average of 30-minutes a day total, which is currently spent getting exercise.

Which goes back to my last post. Better to be selling what's rad about cycling instead of what sucks about battery-powered-everything.

On my ebike trips I save approximately 25% of my actual travel time, plus less time showering and changing since I usually don't break a sweat. This works out to approximately 40 minutes savings total on my daily commute. The lack of exercise is a problem though. I limit myself to 1-2 days per week on the ebike and the rest on the pedal bike. The ebike is pretty low barrier, so I often ride it instead of drive if the weather is iffy or I'm not feeling 100%. I'm pretty happy to have the ebike right now while my leg is in a cast. Without it I wouldn't be riding at all.

Read the UDH article, thought it was really funny but there's no way it could be premeditated vengeance... You know, never attribute to malice and all that. But with a few hours to chew it over, it does seem evil.

The UDH is a great example of where things are designed in isolation. SRAM are trying to make the best shifting system possible. This comes at the expense of everything else including frame design. It's up to frame manufacturers to decide if shifting is more important than the longevity of their frames.

I would rather put up with shittier shifting and a replacable £20 hanger.

Edit - and trunnion... to paraphrase Chris Porter - let's design a bikes suspension around a £5 piece of plastic (water bottle).  I like water bottles and all but let's at least get the horse before the cart.

Posted by: fartymarty

The UDH is a great example of where things are designed in isolation. SRAM are trying to make the best shifting system possible. This comes at the expense of everything else including frame design. It's up to frame manufacturers to decide if shifting is more important than the longevity of their frames.

I would rather put up with shittier shifting and a replacable £20 hanger.

Edit - and trunnion... to paraphrase Chris Porter - let's design a bikes suspension around a £5 piece of plastic (water bottle).  I like water bottles and all but let's at least get the horse before the cart.

I mean, originally in modern terms (ignoring old GT, Schwinn, and Cannondale applications) it was about Trek fitting DRCV shocks into the smaller frame sizes using a vertical shock mount for easy fitment of a water bottle, so I guess I'd go with Chris there. Certainly, a big part of its spread has to do with fitting a vertical shock and a motor in framesets of any size, with a water bottle. 

But, it's easy enough (see Rocky Mountain or Yeti) to use a horizontal shock and have a water bottle (sorry Chris). So yeah, I don't know if water bottles are to blame as much as lack of imagination. 

- 

The shifting system you describe worked well enough with fewer gears widely spaced. But with 12-speed drivetrains (Shimano or SRAM) frames with a too-meek hanger do shift noticeably worse than those with a proper slab of aluminum. 

It's moot, I think most manufacturers who haven't already will adopt UDH when new bikes come out and on the balance, I think that's a good thing. I'm most interested to see a Banshee take on it since they can incorporate it into their replaceable dropout (the dropout has a replaceable hanger) so that means they could sell UDH as an upgrade. 

But it will be interesting to see if the increase in broken frames is big enough to create a notable stream of photos/threads/comments when mountain bikers take to the internet. The UDM certainly makes the frame - especially an XC or trail frame - the weak point in the system. 

Mostly I was just having some fun though. 

Posted by: cheapondirt

Read the UDH article, thought it was really funny but there's no way it could be premeditated vengeance... You know, never attribute to malice and all that. But with a few hours to chew it over, it does seem evil.

I think of it more as a sweet, altruistic, type of vengeance. You know we can all have a laugh, except for the soon-to-be-busier warranty folks at a few bike companies where UDH (or UDM) are going to eat their frames, maybe.

Posted by: fartymarty

Edit - and trunnion... to paraphrase Chris Porter - let's design a bikes suspension around a £5 piece of plastic (water bottle).  I like water bottles and all but let's at least get the horse before the cart.

CP just hates water bottles. When he realized there was no way to avoid being able to fit a water bottle on the new trail Geometron model he scrapped it! Said "No way in hell was his name ever going to be associated with a bike with water bottle mounts!"

I kid, but having listened to him talk at length I am intrigued by the fact he's acknowledged having more weight on the frame can benefit handling and by default having a small baby strapped up high on your back not so much yet never taken that next step in bicycle performance. ;-)

I've got a bike [medium size] with an untrunioned horizontal shock and room for a frame bag below the shock and a water bottle above it. So it's not a trunion vs. water bottle issue or even a great suspension vs. water bottle issue. It's just a matter of whether you want to fit a water bottle inside the frame on your bikes. Even on CP's XL frames where there is room for a water bottle he won't fit mounts and forces customers to zip tie their bottle cages to the frames.

I think my point was more about those that are happy to sacrifice suspension performance, longevity and layout for a water bottle.  Sure there are others (like Rocky) who can think outside the box.

Andrew - I never graduated from 10 speed and don't overly intend to therefore it's more of a passing interest.  It will be interesting to see Banshee and Nicolais take on it - they're thinking peoples Al frames.

Vik - I manage to squeeze a bottle on my Murmur and use it all the time.  So if there's a will there a way.  I'm surprise CP doesn't put mounts on for tool bags etc - but I guess his main concern is making a bike that's fast and handles intuitively.

Posted by: fartymarty

Vik - I manage to squeeze a bottle on my Murmur and use it all the time.  So if there's a will there a way.  I'm surprise CP doesn't put mounts on for tool bags etc - but I guess his main concern is making a bike that's fast and handles intuitively.

I'm glad you found a way. I wouldn't buy a frame that I couldn't mount a bottle and my tools in a satisfying way. I think CP has his preferences and he's not going to change them. When he started talking about weight on the frame benefiting handling I really thought he might take that next step, but nope. He just doesn't see the world that way. Ultimately he's making cool stuff in the bike industry and if he wants to make bikes that assume the rider will wear a pack I respect the choice.

Posted by: fartymarty

Andrew - I never graduated from 10 speed and don't overly intend to therefore it's more of a passing interest. It will be interesting to see Banshee and Nicolais take on it - they're thinking peoples Al frames.

At home, with the exception of my single-speed, we're mainly running 10-speed shifting with 11-speed clutch derailleurs and either SunRace cassettes or chopped Shimano cassettes (The Clairebarian and I both are running fewer cogs than our shifters have clicks, the Clairebarian is actually on a pre-clutched 9-speed setup). As long as we can get parts this will be the way. We don't need the extra range, shit chainlines, or costs. It's not just riding what we already own as I've bought 10-speed parts since 12-speed became dominant.

I do always try and remember we're in the minority. Hit any local trailhead and SRAM Eagle, followed by a margin by Shimano 12-speed, is the drivetrain of choice (or maybe of default, but either way). SRAM and Shimano don't design parts for me, though sometimes I adapt parts they make for my own usage. UDH is about 12+ not 12-.

This Shimano 8-of-10-speed cassette plugged into a stock NX Eagle drivetrain was one of my favourites. SRAM is never going to sell Eagle-8 with less gear range and better chainline, but we can sell folks on the idea of it.

Posted by: AndrewMajor

Posted by: fartymarty

Andrew - I never graduated from 10 speed and don't overly intend to therefore it's more of a passing interest. It will be interesting to see Banshee and Nicolais take on it - they're thinking peoples Al frames.

UDH is about 12+ not 12-.

I'd like to see the drop-out system come to more manufacturers, I think this would be a nice way to accommodate everyone's standard of choice (lol). I personally don't see much overlap of the markets for swappable dropouts and 12+ speed drivetrains, since all the folks I know with thinking peoples Al frames are still running 10 or 11 speeds.

Posted by: Vikb

Posted by: AndrewMajor

Which goes back to my last post. Better to be selling what's rad about cycling instead of what sucks about battery-powered-everything.

It's like deciding between extoling the virtues of being sober vs. warning of the downsides of being an addict to someone with a motor addiction. I don't know that they are listening to either message. The folks who "hear" either message are not the ones with the problem in the first place. It's a disease and the marketing people are pushing a very seductive message to sell their product so you can't really blame the addict, but it's hard not look at the situation and find it sad/frustrating.

Same seductive marketing as used in other industries.....running shoes, sports drink and the BS Hydrate or Die to name a couple. Let us not forget the fitness industry seductive marketing since 1979's as well. And here is the kicker I learned from reading Natural Born Heroes....any expert on this subject that goes against these companies seductive messaging these companies have a simple policy to deal with the actual experts. They find out what it takes money wise to get them on the payroll and now they can control the experts message. 

Believe me reading Natural Born Heroes was revealing about some of the ways we have been sold essentially snake oil level science in some areas of sports.

Let's be honest the MEAT crew is getting older so allowances must be made. I am offering my Sam "Over The" Hill pro model enduro cane and frame mount at a special introductory price for any MEATy NSMBers. Comes in Basic Black or Clairebarian Blue [not shown]. I will be offering two addition rubber tip options in 27+ and 29+ specific sizes and don't worry these canes are #PLUS4life so those oversized tips will not be discontinued.

Note this product is not rated for e-Bike use. Might work, but your warranty is voided if not strictly used for MEATy purposes.

Although I haven't tested this product in any other transport modes besides what is shown I have talked to Camelbak and they say their larger packs are enduro cane compatible.

Posted by: Vikb

Mad Max eventually fashioned himself a leg brace instead of the cane, but swap that for a gun rack and you’ve made the ultimate bike for the apocalypse!